So it doesn’t get lost in Sunday’s new YOP year list post I want to share some yarn yummies I bought at a Highland Meet the Makers event that took place today in Drumnadrochit. Drumnadrochit is a large village/small town that is next to Loch Ness.

A cruise ship was due to be at Invergordon and coaches bring people down to Drumnadrochit to go to the Nessie visitor centres. Anyway the cruise was cancelled as the cruise ships are being used to temporarily house Ukrainian refugees, but they went ahead with the event.

Anyway, back to what I bought. I was determined No superwash 4 ply! So what did I buy?

• Black Isle Yarns – 2 skeins of naturally dyed Balblair, Light DK, yarn which is 65% Gotland / 35% BFL. Julie sources the fleeces herself, has them spun in Scotland and she naturally dyes them. I’ve not knit with Gotland before so that’s exciting. It will tone nicely with my colour work mittens I think, so I may do a colour work hat with them.
• Ripples Crafts – 2 skeins of Stoer DK 55% BFL and 45% silk…its superwash, but not 4 ply! What can I say, I’m hopeless to resist these colours and the softness of this yarn was too much to not come home with me. Helen was very kind and gave me a leftover partial skein of her organic merino as I’m considering buying some to weave with. So I’ll need to clear my Sampleit so I can do a small test with this. I’m tempted to weave with the BFL/silk yarn as well as I think it will make a beautiful scarf and I could do another garden path shawl (aka brooks bouquet).
• Cookston Crafts – From Claire I bought another new to me fibre, it’s called Cupra and is made from cotton waste that’s treated to make it like rayon/viscose fibre. I’ll make a lightweight scarf or mini shawl for wearing in summer. She is taking a break from online sales at the moment, she has a lovely podcast too on YouTube. Only 4 episodes so far.

I have lots of Helen and Claire’s 4 ply sock yarns in my stash already so for the next 10 years at least I’ll be knitting and wearing socks made from their yarns. Julie’s yarns are new to me though and I’m excited to try these two skeins and Gotland being a new fibre and in the breed of these particular sheep is a touch of Shetland and Charollais (I think this is the one she said that). The fact her yarns have the farm the sheep are from (very local), the year they were clipped and naturally dyed and non-superwash it is absolutely something I’m interested in. Plus it being all Scottish from the farm, to being sorted, to spun and dyed.