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One of the best things about taking Halfpenny Home out and about to a craft fair is the packing up of all our most favourite things...this Aspalls bag has been used an awful lot and not always just for the lovely Aspalls Cyder bottles it was originally designed to carry - it's also perfect for transporting the handpainted knitting needles that we love using!

It was my turn to choose which of our favourite goodies from HH HQ I wanted to take along to the Saint's Fair in Ipswich, a BRILLIANT craft fair organised by the rather wonderful Jess and Chris combo imakefunstuff - it's always a lot of fun!

As you can see I decided to show off just some of the ribbons, ric rac and trimmings that we have along with some rather wonderful Knit Collage and Gedgrave Flock yarns!
It was lovely to meet people that had read about Jacqui and I in the EADT piece by Steven Russell 'The Tweeter and the Tax Investigator' BUT the highlight (for me!) was meeting up with a fellow Tweeter @katiewardwriter ! Katy has just had her first novel Girl Reading published and as we are all local writers Ipswich Waterstones have been so very supportive and organised events for us!
Twitter brings the most unlikely people together - crafty girl meets a proper author! Katie is as lovely in real life as she is on Twitter! (as this bit of the blog is all about my obsession with twitter I should add a :-) right about now...) as I also met up with @katyark who I have met a lot in real life but didn't realise she was her...and she dodged the camera, tsk!

Look at those scrumptious yarns...irresistable!

The other great bit of Sunday was that on arrival I found that the HH stall was right next to a great friend of both Jacqui and I! Anita is a glass blower and she runs amazing workshops where you can transform old glass into beautiful pieces of art for your home!

Some of the fantastic cheeseboards that Anita makes from old wine bottles.

All this socialising and chatting about craft can build up quite an appetite but I never bother with taking along a picnic (unusual for me!) for the Saint's Fair as the food on sale there is always fab!

What a lovely day, Nic x

Every other Thursday evening Sam and I meet up with some other knitters at The Brewery Tap in Ipswich, we have a great time and the Tap does brilliant food as well as having Aspall Cyder on tap - what more could you want? Although already familiar with the fabulous homemade sausage rolls this week I was tempted by a scotch egg. It's like a Halfpenny Home from home as the Tap displays their homemade goodies on cakestands just like we do at the studio!
We didn't stay out too late as the next day I was expecting a visit from a very special person, Tracy from the Gedgrave Flock was coming over to deliver some of her beautiful yarns that are produced from her flock of Wensledales.

After meeting up with Tracy at HH, we left the art group upstairs to lock up and made our way down to The Barn Cafe at Alder Carr Farm. As we were passing we dropped into The Old Piggery Pottery and spied the next batch of mugs destined for HH. These ones are still waiting for their handles!

These mugs are waiting to be handpainted with chickens, hares and blackbirds!

If you've ever paid a visit to the studio you will have seen or enjoyed a cuppa from one of Helen's mugs, the ones we use are specially made for us and have Halfpenny flowers on them. This next batch will be in Halfpenny colours - red and blue and we can't wait to see them!

This is the new lot of yarns that Tracy was delivering, she's dyed the skeins - you can see the photos on her blog here. It's perfect for socks!

I've been so looking forward to seeing this yarn - we love Knit Collage yarn and inspired by this Tracy sent a photo to her spinner and asked if she could do something similiar...

This is the result, she's spun in strands of pinky purple and turquoise silk along with the chunky Wensleydale wool and isn't it stunning?

What can we make with it? Nic x