Tuesday 17 November 2015

Knit Nottingham's Super Secret Christmas Boxes

I reckon I'm preaching to the converted here. I reckon you must have heard about our Christmas boxes that are not coming in boxes? Yeah?! No!? Well, even if you have I have more to tell you here. I can let a little more go in these blogs (as opposed to the vlog) because I can think about what I'm saying. When I'm doing the vlog I'm all like 'don't say anything, don't say anything' but here I have time to weigh stuff up, so I'll let a little more go. Wooohoo!

So, first thing's first, there are four options: knit or crochet, basic or festive. Find the knit ones here and the crochet ones here. I suppose there are actually eight options because each of those four options can be sent to the UK or abroad (I've averaged out the price of postage for the International orders to £6 per box to make my life easier).

What are they?

BOXES! Well, actually they're not boxes. I've written two patterns, one crochet and one knitted, for the same thing. Kind of. They're the same object but each design is different, playing to the strengths of knitting or crocheting respectively. The patterns are for homeware. It's something that everybody has in their house in some form. In order to make the object, you definitely need a 'thing'. This 'thing' is available around the internet, or possible in real life although I've no idea where you'd go, but I've designed the project for a specific size of the 'thing' which means that we're getting those made especially for you. There are actually two parts to the thing (well, eight parts if truth be told). You need all of these parts to make the thing. The pattern is useless without the thing.

That brings us to why there is a basic box and a festive box. Normally, I'd just do a festive box - this has the pattern, the 'thing', the yarn and a load of little bits and bobs that are nice little gifts to yourself but I'm aware that not everything has the funds for the festive box (£25 or £31 for international orders) so I've made it as fair as possible to everybody by offering the basic box which is essentials only - the pattern and the 'thing'. There's honestly no point in having the pattern without having the 'thing'. The basic box is £13 or £19 with the international postage. If you can, I would really recommend the festive box. The idea is to have something really pleasing to open - a full project with lots of luxurious bits to make you feel like Christmas has started (I really hope you get some time off your duties, jobs, kids, caring, to take some time out for yourself over winter and I hope the boxes will be part of it - I LOVE CHRISTMAS!).

I can't tell you what the thing is, as I said above, but I will give you another clue that you won't have had anywhere else, I did the photoshoot yesterday:


   And all the way through I kept thinking..... Dave Gorman.

There's a clue for you. Haha.

So the boxes will be sent out on the 14th (earlier hopefully for the international orders so guarantee they'll get there in time, but that's dependent on the 'things' being made in time). This should mean that you can open them on Christmas Day. And that means that even if you get your parcels and open them and love them earlier than that, you've got to keep your mouths shut. Everybody needs to have the chance to enjoy the surprise!

The thing to remember about these boxes is that it's all about the pattern. Lots of people buy indie dyer boxes all the time, maybe even monthly, but they're about the yarn and then you go and create. These ones take longer to put together because of the pattern, and this is a proper project, not a little thing that you can knock up to use up a bit of wool, which means that they can't happen very often which is why people are getting excited about it. INCLUDING ME! EEEEE!

Which leads to the final thing to talk about is difficulty level. It's hard to explain without telling you what it is. The crochet one is definitely easier than the knitted one - I'd say the crochet one is beginner/intermediate (but with enough interest to keep experienced crocheters going). The knitted one is definitely intermediate. It involves knitting in the round, either on circulars or double points but after that the stitches are simple, it's just a case of sticks and string and I'm hoping to do a sheet of handy hints for you so you won't feel alone.

And I think that's it! I ended up having a good old chin wag with a customer so I don't have as long to write this as I would have liked, therefore there may be another blog if I think about stuff that I haven't talked about.

Love Eleanor. xxxxx

P.s. I FORGOT TO TALK ABOUT THE COLOURWAYS! It's so hard to name colourways when you're a creative invalid like I am, so I just named them after all my favourite things about Christmas including PIGS IN BLANKETS! Which is the pinky colourway in the crochet version. You are going to LOVE it and not enough people have ordered this. Not enough by far.

P.p.s. I ought to link to them again didn't I? Bad business woman. Here are the knitted boxes (not boxes) and here are the crocheted boxes (not boxes).

P.p.p.s. There aren't enough photos in this blog are there? That's the nature of the thing. Have this instead:

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