Last weekend I had the great pleasure of meeting the Game of Wool judges Sheila Greenwell and Di Gilpin as well as contestants Ailsa and Gordon at the East Neuk Knits festival! A wonderful fibre gathering held in the charming East Neuk (local spelling of ‘east nook’) of Fife in Scotland. The festival was held over two days, and hosted a special Q&A with the Game of Wool stars where they shared fascinating stories about their time on the show. If you weren’t able to make it to this event, don’t worry! Read on for my complete round-up of this fantastic fibre weekend.
East Neuk Knits festival
Let me start off with a little introduction of Scotlands newest fibre festival, with a quick who-what-where:
Who?
This was the very first edition of East Neuk Knits, organised by Di Gilpin, Sheila Greenwell and Ali Taylor from Di Gilpin Ltd, Susan Anderson from the Journal of Scottish Yarns and Alison from Knitrospective. You might also know Susan and Alison as co-founders of the Woolly Good Gathering in Edinburgh.
What?
East Neuk Knits is a celebration of Scottish knitting heritage and fibre craft, with a marketplace and a variety of workshops aimed at both children and adults. For this first edition, the vendors and workshop teachers were invited to participate by the organizers, and let me tell you they made a wonderful selection! Some true knitting celebrities were present, such as Susan Crawford, Donna Smith, Sylvia Watts Cherry, to name a few.. You can see a list of all vendors here. And speaking of special guests, there were even some alpacas, goats and sheep present!
Where?
The festival was held in multiple locations, with the main location being the Bowhouse in St Monans. The vibrant marketplace was buzzing with independent dyers, yarn producers and local makers offering a stunning array of handmade goods. Even though the Bowhouse could be described as a large barn, it was surprisingly warm inside and the lighting was A+. I chatted to some of the vendors who were very happy with the location, which bodes well for future editions! It was also very accessible with large doors and everything being on the ground level.
Other venues included Kellie Castle where the Children’s Knitting workshops were held, and Di Gilpin’s ‘Wool Hoose’ next to the Di Gilpin studio. You could also pop to the Scottish Fisheries Museum for a visit, and do some shopping at Ardross Farm where there was also room to sit and knit with friends and enjoy a cuppa. The website includes accessibility info about all of the venues. There was a circular bus service going between the venues, although there was enough parking space for those traveling by car.
Q&A with the Game of Wool cast
On Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning the festival hosted a Q&A with the Game of Wool judges Di and Sheila, and contestants Ailsa and Gordon. Ailsa attended the festival on Saturday, and Gordon attended on the Sunday – and taught a steeking workshop! Shortly before the Q&A started I overhead the organising team say that they hadn’t received any questions yet from the audience, so of course I made my way over to them and submitted about a dozen or so. I’ve done my best to note down their answers, I couldn’t record it as the venue was quite noisy. So just a disclaimer, all of the Q&A answers below are paraphrased.
Q – How did you all learn how to knit? Perhaps you remember your first project?
Ailsa, Gordon, Di and Sheila all mention they had learned to knit when they were still very young.
Gordon: I don’t even remember learning how to knit, I must have been very young. I do remember I used to stay up until midnight, knitting under the bedcovers. Much to my mothers displeasure!
Ailsa: My gran taught me how to knit! I started with a very basic project, I think it was a robin. I knit a square of brown yarn, folded it in half so it was a triangle, and then added pipecleaner legs and other bits to make it look like a robin.
Di: I learned to knit from my aunt, and my first project was a pair of gloves. [everyone in the audience oooh-ed] Di laughed, and admitted that after knitting them she took them back to her aunt so she could fix all the mistakes.
Sheila: My aunt also taught me how to knit, when I was about 3 years old! I grew up in a ‘wool town’, so there was always wool around.
Q – Who would be your dream guest judge on the show?
Ailsa: Ooh I’d have to say Susan Crawford, she’s such a knowledgeable knitter especially on the topic of vintage knits. Ailsa has worn quite a few vintage inspired knits on the Game of Wool, including the Jojo sweater which was re-designed by Susan Crawford to include more sizes.
Q – did you know Susan’s a vendor here? Ailsa: Yes I just met her!
Di: I’d have to say Freddie Robins, she was a professor of textiles in London and very inspiring.
Sheila: Patricia Roberts! An inspiration for both Di and I.
Gordon: Well, I actually think we couldn’t ask for better judges than our lovely Di & Sheila! [everybody awws] But if I had to choose a third judge, then it would be Kaffe Fassett.
Q – To the contestants: did you get hand massages after the longer Game of Wool challenges?
Gordon: Eh, no. [everyone laughs] Not while I was there anyway! We just plowed on and gritted our teeth.
Ailsa: Actually later on there was a physiotherapist on set to make sure no one got any injuries.
Q – To Ailsa: You’ve designed some lovely projects on the show, do you see more design work in your future?
Ailsa: Thank you! Yes I would love to design more, and put some ideas that I have onto paper. I would like to learn how to do it properly though. I learned so much during the Game of Wool, and with most of the challenges we weren’t given a pattern so we were basically designing everything ourselves.
Q – You were kind of thrown in the deep end!
Ailsa: Yeah we did a lot of figuring out as we went through the challenges.
Q – And to Gordon, you were only in the first week of the show although we’ve seen some of your work on your social media channels. How about you, would you like to design more?
Gordon: I’m a musician first and foremost, I do lots of things. I’ve been orchestrating, conducting, and yes also some singing on cruise ships!
Q – To Sheila and Di: What does your design process look like?
Di: I can never decide what to knit, Sheila will attest to that! [they both chuckle] I go from lace to colourwork, to cables, and sometimes I’ll combine more than one technique in the same piece. See some of Di Gilpins designs in the image above.
When we design a collection, often consisting of six designs, we design it all at once so there is cohesion in the collection. Sometimes in as little as 1 day! Then we all get to work and knit on the samples as a team. Sheila and Di have mentioned in previous interviews that they knit at the same gauge, so they’re able to pick up each others projects and finish them.
Q – How many people applied to be on the Game of Wool?
Sheila – It was about 1500 applicants!
Q – What would you say to anyone wanting to apply for the next season of Game of Wool (if there is a next season)?
Ailsa: Hmm I would say, don’t take it too seriously, try to have fun with it. Don’t worry about not knowing all the things, you learn a lot about knitting and crochet as you go.
Di: Yes absolutely! During the show the contestants all go on a journey of discovery, introducing new fibres and stitches along the way. They really learn through the program.
Gordon: Definitely go for it! Do wear a lot of layers though because it was cold.
Sheila: Yes the yarn barn was freezing! We weren’t there a lot of the time but I kept wondering how the contestants were able to knit in those temperatures.
Di: It’s why we were always wearing so many layers of wool!
Gordon: I would also like to add, don’t underestimate it, but definitely do it because it’s marvelous.
Sheila: Also, Di and I just want to say, everyone who applied for the show is so brave. Some of the challenges were really difficult! For some of them, I don’t even know if I could have done it myself!
Q – To Ailsa: What made you want to apply for the show?
Ailsa: Well, a couple of my friends had been sending me the advertisement for it. And one day I was really bored at work [laughs] so I googled it and found the application form – and I applied!
Q – To the judges: what would you like to see come out of the show? What would you like its legacy to be?
Di: It really is about encouraging young people to knit. Knitting and crocheting needs to move into the future with the younger generations. They are heritage crafts, we would love for it to be taught again in schools – in fact we were speaking to Tom Daley about this!
We would like to see the joy of knitting around the world. Knitting is for everyone, it’s a community thing, it’s a social thing.. And it’s so good for you! It relaxes the brain.
Q – To the contestants: did you actually knit for 12 straight hours or were the challenges broken up over several days?
Gordon: [laughs] We definitely didn’t knit for 12 straight hours! Haha no, we were very well looked after, we had lots of breaks. The longer challenge of 12 hours was split over 3 days, with lots of breaks and a long lunch. And the shorter challenge was broken up over 2 days. And it’s also interesting to know, during that week of filming we would already know the solo challenge for the next week so we could plan our designs and test knit it.
Q – To Gordon: I heard that you actually had to frog quite a few rows of your first solo challenge, but we didn’t see that in the show?
Gordon: Yes, for the Fair Isle inspired vest that we knit I made a mistake so I had to frog 20 rows or so. It happened to be in the evening when we were still knitting, but all of the filming crew had gone home for the day. So there wasn’t anyone around to film!
Q – And we gather there was a lot of editing on the show, wasn’t there?
Gordon: Yes absolutely. Well, they had so many hours of footage so really it’s very understandable that they can only show the highlights of the challenges.
Sheila: Di & I were surprised about how – in the final editing of the show, it looks as if we’re always there with the contestants, while in reality we were only there for little bits at a time.
Q – Di and Sheila, how did you actually get involved in making the program?
Di: Well, it started on the set of ‘A Castle for Christmas’, which is a Netflix film and Sheila and I created the knitwear for it. We also got to meet Brooke Shields who is absolutely lovely, and has continued to knit since! We taught a couple of the cast and production team to knit during filming, and afterwards the team came up to us and asked if we would be up for creating a knitting show with them!
Q – Talking about new shows – do you think there should be a Professionals edition of the Game of Wool?
Di and Sheila: YES!! Although we might not be judging that edition.
Q – Do you know if that version might be coming?
Sheila: We really can’t say, but we’re not finished yet!
Bonus! A chat with Sheila Greenwell
After the Q&A, I chatted some more with judge Sheila Greenwell and it was fascinating to hear some more behind-the-scenes stories! Again, this has all been paraphrased although I’ve done my best to remember Sheila’s exact wording.
Carmen: “I have to say I’m really enjoying the Game of Wool!”
Sheila mentions: Thank you, it’s been great to hear all the lovely feedback. You hear the odd comment about “oh, didn’t the knitters object to being called crocheters?” and “why is there so much crochet?”. It’s really surprising how many people didn’t know that there was also going to be crochet content on the Game of Wool. Channel4 have mentioned before even filming the show that the Game of Wool was going to include both knitting and crochet.
Carmen: “Could you share some more information about the judging, was it difficult?”
Sheila: We made sure to have a system to how we were judging the challenges. We wanted to make it as fair as possible which can be difficult depending on the challenge. We gave the contestants hours of feedback but understandably only snippets of that have made it into the show.
It was especially lovely to see how the contestants really took our criticism on board. Whenever we had some critique on their project, or suggested a better way of doing things, we could really see the progress in their work the following week. We never saw the same mistake repeated the next week. It was great to see how much they all learned during the program.
Carmen: “Did you feel the production team was committed to represent knitting and crochet as best they could?”
Sheila: Yes very much! Most of them didn’t know how to knit or crochet when we started filming, and it quickly transpired that for them to know where to focus on while filming and editing – they needed to learn how to do it themselves.
Jen of For the Love of Yarn mentions: We host a regular knit night at our shop, and one week the knit night was fully booked out but we didn’t recognize any of the names. It turned out to be the entire production team who were wanting to learn how to knit, and they wanted to know what the ‘knit scene’ was like.
Sheila: By the end of the filming process, the entire team was knitting on their break, or making pompoms!
Thanks Sheila for shedding some more light on the whole process of making the show!
As a knitter myself who is very much enjoying the show, it is great to hear that the Hello Halo team is committed to learning how to knit and crochet. That will certainly benefit any possible future editions of Game of Wool. They seem to put in a lot of effort into learning more about the crafts, and it’s refreshing to see that they’re taking any criticism on board as well. Ailsa mentioned that from week two they had a physiotherapist on set, and we haven’t seen any more AI generated images in later episodes of the show.
What’s also been great to see is that some yarn sponsors say the designers will “receive profits from the sales of their patterns and are free to use their patterns as they wish once the series has fully transmitted”. (From Wool and the Gang’s Instagram post) This wasn’t the case from the very start of the show so that is a great development!
One thing that stuck with me from the Q&A is Di’s mentioning of working on designs together with her team. This might have influenced the idea of group knit challenges in the show. If it’s normal for Di and Sheila to work together on designs, it’s not very farfetched to think that the idea of group challenges originated there. It was also interesting to see that as the main purpose of the show, they hope to reach younger audiences as well. Some viewers have commented on the ‘weird’ craft challenges such as crocheting a deck chair. But if the judges want to appeal to children, it makes sense that they would want to include some quirky challenges that might invite younger audience members to watch.
I hope you enjoyed reading about the East Neuk Knits festival and the Game of Wool Q&A! If you’ve got any more questions for the judges or contestants, be sure to leave them below in the comments.
Carmen Jorissen is an innovative knitwear and crochet designer who has been inspiring the fibre arts world with her patterns and tutorials since 2012. Renowned for her joyful approach to colourwork, she makes complex projects fun and accessible. Carmen shares her passion in her beautiful book Breien Met Kleur (2023), translated into English in 2026: Colorwork Knitting from Head to Toe.
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