Yarn Review - WI Yarn for Hobbycraft

Some time back, I volunteered to review some yarn for Hobbycraft. 

I was very lucky to be chosen as one of three crafty bloggers to receive a parcel of the new range of Women's Institue yarn to work with and review.  

Women's Institute yarns have been designed and made especially for Hobbycraft with 3p from the sale of each ball going to the National Federation of Women's Institutes.  You can buy the yarn online via the Hobbycraft website or from your local store.

In the parcel where 6 balls - 2 balls of Premium Acrylic DK, 2 balls of Soft and Cuddly 4ply and 2 balls of Soft and Silky 4ply. I thought hard about the best way to get a feel for the yarn and finally decided to work up a square motif in each yarn and colour . This allowed me to work with the yarn for a good length of time to be able to evaluate it.

Premium Acrylic Yarn DK - 100g - 282m - £2.20

This is a good quality, acrylic yarn up there with the likes of Sirdar and James C Brett.  It is soft and has a lovely shine to it.

As you can see, the stitch definition is good and, when crocheting with it, it doesn't split like some acrylic yarns do!  

There is a good range of colours available in the range, from bright shades to these more subtle shades.  Overall this is a great yarn that I would consider next time I'm shopping for acrylic yarn!

Soft & Cuddly 4ply - 100% acrylic - 50g - 125m - £3 (usually £3.29) 

This yarn is soooooo soft! Definitely one for babies, children and those of us who love soft yarn.  It is a 4ply that I found worked up as a DK weight yarn.  It has a lovely sheen to it.

It is easy to crochet with, working up smoothly with no splitting.  The stitch definition is excellent.

The range includes bright and pastel solids as well as the pink flecks and blue stripes. The pink flecks was by far my favourite. Although I like the shades of blue in the stripes, the length of the colour changes makes it better suited for longer rows rather than smaller motifs.  

I loved working with thus yarn and intend to use it to crochet some baby garments for a local charity, Pearl & Peggy, that sends gifts of blankets and clothes to premature babies and their families.

Soft & Silky 4ply - 100% microfiber acrylic - 100g - 304 metres - £3

I have never worked with a microfiber yarn before and I wasn't disappointed! Thus is a beautiful yarn to work with a gorgeous sheen to it which reminds me of working cotton but is much softer! 

The stitch definition is excellent and it works up as a 4ply yarn.  The colour range is lovely with some fabulous bright colours.

Overall, I loved this yarn and it has definitely encouraged me to use more microfiber in my crochet.  I can see a beautiful scarf or shawl worked up in this!

Keep checking back to see what becomes of my yarn! 

Legoland for Adults!

On Wednesday evening me and Mr Bunny braved the M60 to go to the Legoland Discovery Centres Adult Fans of Lego evening. 

Originally this had been advertised at £12 each (a bit steep when it only lasted 2 hours!) but then a few days before became free! Woohoo!

Mr Bunny has been wanting to visit for ages but, as a family friendly attraction, you need to take a child with you to go.  This was our opportunity and we weren't disappointed.

On arrival there was the obligotory photo with arms in the air (now a fridge magnet) before we headed upstairs to discover how Lego bricks are made with Professor Brick. Of course, we opted for the 4 year olds tour shouting 'we love Lego' in order to get our free bricks.

Next was the laser game ride to shoot the goblins and save the princess and the baby dragon. Of course, I scored the most points. (Competitive? Me?)

The models where next and wow! Models of famous North-West attractions including Blackpool Tower, Manchester Town Hall and the Liver Building. My favourite was the Lake District with Bridge House at Ambelside (one of my favourite places) in Lego.

We got to build a Lego dragon, although I needed a bit of support with this. Mine is called Derek - a very dragonny name.

We also went on the ride and to watch the 4D movie where we got wet! 

We left plenty of time for shopping. I got a turquoise Lego brick lunch box and a Wonder Woman key ring. Mr Bunny was literally a child in a toy shop and took some time to choose what he wanted. I resisted the temptation to buy the Lego Ghostbusters Car.

It was a great night and so much fun. We shall definitely be going again. 

Felting with Children

Last week was awesome! I was lucky enough to spend the entire week working with Lowton Junior and Infants School in Wigan on an enormous felt wall hanging.

The theme was New Beginnings, as they had just had a large amount of building work done, and the hanging was for the new entrance to the school. We decided to create a garden with flowers and insects in lots of beautiful bright school, some sparkle and beads.

I worked with every child in the school to make individual pieces for it. We made various flowers, bees, butterflies, caterpillars, snails, leaves and even a frog! Reception did a follow me style workshop while Year 6 worked from photographs, identifying shape and colour.  Year 5 and 6 also helped to blend the background using drum careers - they found this very exciting - and to put it all together and felt it.

I took it away to dry (which took some time) and then to add a bit of stitching and a few beads to enhance it (I was very careful not to do to much as I wanted it to be theirs).

I went in yesterday to hang it and it looks so beautiful, Working with the children was amazing! They loved the process, getting wet and making bubbles. They all made a piece they where proud of and can now spend hours hunting for their little work of art.  It is such a tactile piece and I'm pleased to say that the children will be encouraged to touch it - if we want to they surely will! 

Here are a few photographs of the children's work! 

     

      Fabulous flowers by Year 3 and 4

     Bees and ladybirds by Reception

    Flowers by Year 5 - working from photographs 

    

    Beautiful butterfly by a very talented Year 6 child

    Such a little character!

    

     The completed wall hanging - the collective work of 150 creative and talented children

The Great British Craft Festival

Last Sunday me and Fiona (of My Queen Bee) headed off to The Great British Craft Festival at Bolton Arena.  

I was very lucky as I had won a pair of tickets on Twitter - I'm not 100% sure how much tickets where, but I think they where around the £5 mark.  Slightly less than some of the other craft shows I've been to at Event City in Manchester.

I have to begin by saying just how amazingly well organised it all was.  The Facebook and Twitter feeds kept you up-to-date with where to park and other little tit-bits of information.  Parking was very clearly signed and there where parking attendants to make sure you parked in the right place and knew how to get across to the arena.  We didn't queue for long at all (and we arrived just after it opened) and where given a very handy guide with a map, all the different stalls and a few discount vouchers.  Toilets, refreshments and other important areas where clearly sign posted to.

I was pleased to see that there was plenty of space to walk around between the stalls so there was no pushing and shoving, elbows to the ribs or walking sticks on toes.  It was pleasant to walk around and I didn't get the 'I need to get out of here now' feeling I have sometimes had at these events.

We headed over to the Make and Take area first to book onto the MDF and Papers mini workshop and then grabbed a drink before hitting the stalls.  We walked around first, taking it all in and making a mental note of which stalls we wanted to revisit then we shopped.  

The majority of stalls where paper craft.  There was lots if you where really into card making!  I'm not a big card maker but I did buy some lovely decoupage sheets from House of Zandra to use in my journals.  There was a small amount of fabric and wool, a couple of bead stalls and some decopatch as well as MDF shapes. 

Our MDF and Paper Make and Take workshop was fabulous.  We both really enjoyed it and did go and buy some MDF pieces to play around with.  You can see us below admiring each others works of art!

We had a good morning at the festival and enjoyed it.  We had a good discussion afterwards and would love to see a much wider range of crafts next year - more wool and fabric, some buttons and Fiona would like to see candle making to.  

There is another event in the Midlands later in the year and I'm hoping they'll be back at Bolton Arena next year. Check out their website here