There are 3 more sleeps until Edinburgh Yarn Festival and I’m loving dipping into social media (when I get a chance) and seeing everyone with their venue maps out, making plans and reckoning on spending a good wadge of the yarn budget this weekend. It is also awesome to see the vendors, teachers and VIPs getting ready to come over to Auld Reekie and watching them pack up their goodies. Yesterday I was messaging with my good pal, Lacey to my Cagney, Louise Hunt and we both said that we were already feeling overwhelmed by the choice and we’re not even there yet!   

My buys last year

On instagram and via chatter on twitter and ravelry I’ve seen rough drafts, first drafts and some, dare I say it, “final” drafts of shopping lists, but how easy is it to stick to those meticulous lists? We are excited to visit and buy from some of our favourite vendors, but what happens when we queue up for that sweater quantity of long-yearned for yarn and….*GASP*….something extraordinary and unexpectedly awesome catches your eye from two stalls over. What do you do? Do you buy one? both? Do you dare go off list?

Last year I had a very specific idea of what I wanted to get at EYF (pictured above) Pretty modest, some may say. For someone who was generally too busy to get into the marketplace, I think I did pretty good. The only things on my list were Ysolda Blend 1, Tamar, Baskerville and Daughter of a Shepherd. I also wanted some fibre and a niddy noddy (not pictured). I deviated a little off that list, but not too bad.

This year my list is a little bigger. A lot bigger. I’ve got at least 3 sweater quantities of yarn that I’d like to get and then there are all those British wool vendors, which I mentioned in episode 78. I’m likely to be utterly felled by the yarn fumes if something new and awesome gets in my path. That is not necessarily the end of the world, but given that my time in the marketplace usually is short, I’m going to have to try to be canny.

My list is quite long, but I do know there are items which are in repeatable colourways and bases from my favourite dyers, so these would shift down the list and are less of a priority now. I had hoped to get a sweater quantity of Jacobs DK from Blacker, as I would like to knit Libby Jonson’s Gingerbread sweater in it. However the grey Jacobs hasn’t been online for ages and I hear from Sonja that it is getting a bit of a makeover and will be back soon. I’m not sure if the new yarn will be what I’m looking for for this sweater, so I’m happy to park that idea for now (though it means missing out on Kate’s Gingerbread KAL at the Hawthorne Cottage podcast #sadface). So there is another item cut (*gulp*).

When choosing yarns I’m going to be as strict as possible with myself (Famous last words!) and I’m going to try and do the following (though the first one is more of a reminder for you than me)

• Donot swayed by the Hand-Squish-Grab™ 
• Really think about whether the yarn is best suited to my project
• Not to buy any more single skeins which I don’t have a project in mind for.

We’ll see how that goes! The thing is we just cannot rule out the possibility that something wonderful is going to put itself in our path and if that is something limited edition, or if its something that we may never see again except at EYF, then who are we to fight that? I mean, really!

If you see me this weekend and I have a certain look on my face you might as well give me my “I got felled by the yarn fumes at EYF” badge.

Happy and safe travels to Edinburgh, I hope to see you soon!