The Gathering
Mark your calendars, The Woolly Good Gathering will be on Friday 26 – Saturday 27 April 2024 at Summerhall, Edinburgh!
The festival is planned to open midday on Friday and run until 6:00pm. An additional evening event with nibbles, drinks, jazz and friends will be hosted on Friday night. Then the festival will be back on Saturday from 10am to 4pm.
The Marketplace
Our Marketplace will be in the large, light-filled rooms of Summerhall, with plenty of space for visitors to mingle, chat to vendors and squish yarn and fibre. There will be plenty of seating and quiet places of retreat too. Currently, we plan to use the first floor Main Hall, but keep an eye on our Kickstarter stretch goal to expand into an additional ground floor Marketplace in the Library Gallery!
The Vendors
Shop some of your favourite indie dyers, yarn producers, craft suppliers and other fibre businesses, all under one roof in the Marketplace. Our vendors include Tribe Yarns, Ginger Twist Studio, Uist Wool, Ripples Crafts, Sew Yarnilicious, Iolair Yarn, The Journal of Scottish Yarns, Moorit, Zakami Yarns, and many more to be revealed soon!
Workshops
There will be a programme of workshops in the Dissection Room, Dean’s Office and other venues around Summerhall, led by expert tutors including TJFrog (whose Dorset Buttons you see here), Helen Chatterton and Samira Hill amongst others. Brush up on an old skill or explore an entirely new one!
Talks
With so many interesting vendors and local fibre artisans and experts to learn from, the Anatomy Lecture Theatre will host a wonderful line-up of talks and mini workshops from people including Woolly Originals, Sylvia Watts-Cherry and Di Gilpin.
The Neighbourhood
We’re especially excited about The Neighbourhood, our dedicated community and social space. With plenty of room to sit and knit and crochet, it’s the perfect place to rest and make new friends. But the Neighbourhood is more than a collection of tables and chairs, it is also home to live music, the café, and community stalls. It will also be the base for our super-relaxed craft night of dreams on Friday evening.
Community
We have invited a few local organisations to join us in The Neighbourhood and showcase their work. For example, catch weaving and spinning demonstrations with the Edinburgh Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers, or try your hand at visible mending at the Shrub Co-op needle felting surgery.
Music
What’s a festival without a bit of music? Local jazz musicians will be providing good vibes in The Neighbourhood throughout the day and evening. There will also be long breaks between sets for our friends who enjoy a music-free environment!
Food
Summerhall has its own café and pub, which will be supplemented by courtyard food trucks booked for the event, as well as The Neighbourhood café.
Being in the middle of the city, there are also plenty of coffee shops, cafés, bakeries, restaurants, pubs and shops just a stone’s throw away.