Yarndale!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm really not sure who reads this that isn't on the Facebook, Twitter, Insta or Youtube but if that's you then GREAT! Yarndale is up on sale again! We're doing it a bit different this year. You have to fill out a form so I have contact details in case anything goes wrong and then I'll contact you in the way you ask for payment. You can still pay in the shop if it suits, or over the the phone or in paypal. Anyway, the details can be found by clicking here.

I don't want to say too much because I want to keep it all in one place - the FAQ which I linked to up there.

As we have for the last two years we're making a Yarndale Uniform. There's not much too this and it's not as exciting as it might sound. We choose a pattern on Yarn Shop Day and then we make it. Anybody can make it, in any yarn bought from the shop and wear it on the day. It's not an exclusive pattern to us but I can think of at least eight people who are giving it a go for the Yarndale coach so you'll be one of a tribe. If you've got an inkling to do it, do it!!!!!! Doing things with us is what makes you part of Knit Nottingham, no special hand shakes or anything, just being a bit of a dork with yarny friends.

 

I think it's a really good choice. And trust me, I stopped them choosing a fully lacework 4ply number (which is fit but deffo not inclusive). I'm considering an evening of Yarndale Uniforming where I can help with issues. Thoughts?

You can find the pattern with all the details by clicking here - Sirdar 7977. It's a fab size range and doable in an awful lot of yarns - many people have chosen Bamboo Cotton DK, but some have chosen the Rico Cottonsoft and of course, the Toscana which is the original yarn.

I think that's all I need to say on the matter. Any questions about Yarndale itself - check here before you ask - any questions about the uniform, ask away!

Love Eleanor! xxxxx

Zoe's Beautiful Necklace Pattern

This is the blog to accompany Zoe's vlog for Vlog a Day April. She was inspired by the gorgeous new Rico Fashion Jersey to make some lovely necklaces, so here's the pattern and if you follow through onto the vlog then there's a how-to video (the first instructional video we've made, so be gentle).

Materials:

About a third of a ball of Rico Fashion Jersey or Fashion Jersey Prints. 
6mm double pointed needles (or a size you have, down to about a 5mm, up to about a 7mm).
Some beads with big holes (we suggest heading to the Bead Shop Nottingham because they're wonderful!)

Gauge: 

Matters very little. Get on with it. 



Pattern: 

Cast on 3 sts and knit an icord until it was about 120cm. (Maybe a little less if you fancy. Maybe longer!)

Make a slip knot about 16cm from one end. Using your fingers chain for about 16 chains then knot leaving about 16cm from the other end. 

I then threaded beads, with a big hole, on each end.  

Tie the yarn ends together to wear or sew together and sew in ends. 

Bish, bash bosh!!

How simple is that!? Boom!

Love Eleanor (and more importantly, Zoe).

The Update

22nd of March!? That's when I last spoke to you! That was two days before the big move and 9/10 ish weeks ago and I feel like my entire life has changed!

If you'd have said to me three months ago that I would be happily skipping into work at 8.30am every day to do admin and tidy I would have called you a a big fat liar. But here I am! And here I am in our beautiful new shop!

I'm sure most of you have seen this photos now or been in to visit us but here's one any way:

 

And that's only half the shop - compared to this!

Truly, it's been a wonderful and daunting, exciting and tiring journey. So far. Everybody else seems to have moved on to the next stage of what I can do in my quest for world domination but I'm happy to potter around here, tidying and sorting and enjoying the space (tidying is so much more fun when you can lay things out and not have to smoosh it back into a pile again every time a customer comes in). It looks like we're going to have to register for VAT - this means that we are a. serious. business. It means more scrutiny from HMRC and getting my accounts in every three months (which is laughable given the state of what mine look like right now...). To this end I spoke yesterday with a lovely and friendly accountant (who made me not want to die at the very thought of it) and in our chat I had the sudden realisation that actually, I've turned over in the eight weeks we've been open here, a third of what we did in the whole of last year. That is, in two months, I've taken what we did in four months last year. And suddenly, I got a whole lot gentler on myself. This has been tough. Amazing but tough.

I keep hinting on the other social media platforms that some stuff has gone wrong at home - there's a significant amount of serious illness involving family members all over the place and little Versace died, and technology has really let me down in very stressful ways and I'm so tired when I get home every night that I'm living in even more of a shit hole than I'm used to but the shop has been a haven. And the wonderful support coming from all over the place has been more than I could have ever imagined or hoped for.

And just as I was at one of my lowest ebbs - I found out that I'd been nominated for not one, not two, not three or four, but FIVE nominations in the British Knitting Awards. That was a heart stopping moment! Now I see who we're up against and I'm less sure that we can win in any category but the Best Yarn Shop in the Midlands (which is such a special category to win that I'm not sure it matters to me if I only ever win that one anyway) but I'm taking a leaf out of Verity's book who is gobsmacked and in awe of who she's been put up against and thrilled to just be part of it (she's up for three!). Voting isn't live yet but it will be here when it is.

But I have to be realistic. I can only do so much, and at the minute it has to be whatever's easiest and quickest to market the shop which means that my focus will be very much on the facebook group, the instagram, and youtube. I will get back to blogging but it isn't as instant as everything else and it isn't something I can do on my phone whilst I'm out having a fag or on the bus or in between customers.

Once again - thank you all for your lovely support - especially the people that come in just to sort wool and bring food (although, I pretty much won't need any more food for like three months). You are, each and every one of you, a massive and important part of Knit Nottingham and I do not undervalue that.

Thank you.

Love Eleanor. xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Community Blanket

So, in the new shop we have space for a sofa. On this sofa we have space for blankets. I have a blanket in me that's getting going but when I mentioned it on facebook customers got really excited about making their own so I'm opening this up! I did do a vlog about it nearly a week ago - you can find that by clicking here but there have been many questions since so I thought a good faq would go down well. So here goes:

Can I can only knit/crochet - is that okay?
Yes! We are a knit and crochet friendly shop and this ought to be reflected in the blanket. Both please, and lots of them!

What size do they need to be?

I've chosen 10cm by 10cm which, coincidentally, is 4" by 4" so everybody's covered. I'm happy for them to be made up of smaller pieces say, four squares of 2.5cm (1") as long as they're sewn together. In fact, I think that'd be pretty cute.

What colour?
Green! All shades of green! Teal-y green, spring green, yellow-y green, forest green, mint green etc etc etc. I'm happy for there to be a little bit of other colours - have you seen lovely Phyllis's squares?

 

Love them! They're definitely green but they've got a good smack of an obnoxious colour - it's like all my favourite things together!

Charlotte made this:

 

 And I love it's simplicity. We need a mix of colours and textures and patterns.

Before I even launched the blanket quest I started a Pinterest board of all the influences I could think of - mainly colours but also textures etc. (I'm falling a little bit in love with pinterest but I'm finding I don't go back to it, I just like pinning, maybe that'll change when I've been on a bit longer, it's certainly not Ravelry...)

What pattern can I use?

Any! So far I have a lot of granny squares which I knew I would - they're easy and quick to make and the size is easy to mess around with. By all means, if this is what you can do then this is what you should do. But if you're able and interested I'd also love some more exciting and varied squares to mix it up a bit. I'm going to do a little bit of lace and some cables I think but moss stitch and variations of, basketweave, colour work, slip stitch knitting, the start of a sophie's universe? Hmmmmm!!!! Anything!!!!

You can by all means search ravelry for 4" squares (I've done that for you if you click here) but remember you can do the maths! Choose the right needles/hook to go with your yarn, work out your gauge per inch, times that by 4 so you get 4" and have at it! Some stitch patterns will affect your gauge - i.e. lace tends to make things looser, cable tends to make things tighter so you need to adjust your stitch count accordingly. 

Don't worry if you're a cm over or under - there's a bit of room for manoeuvre because whilst you're over somebody else will be under but they're fairly small squares so an inch will make a difference....

What yarn can I use?
Any! I'd avoid laceweight or super duper chunky but anything around 4ply to chunky should work out well enough and again they can be put together next to squares made out of something exactly opposite so balance it out.

Let's make it washable! You never know what will happen in a shop - all sorts of people, all sorts of kids. Who'd bloody have them?

When do they need to be done?

I've set the time limit as the 30th of April for squares to get to me. That's plenty of time and it makes sense because that's when Yarn Shop Day is happening (yes! it's happening!). You can drop them into the shop or pop them in the post any time until the 30th.

What will happen in you have too many squares?

 

One of two things - we'll either sew them together into a blanket/blankets for charity (maybe Framework) or, did the you see the thing at Liverpool Hopsital about 4" squares needed to help with breastfeeding? I'll get in contact with the Nottingham Hospitals (QMC and City) and see if they need it. I guess Liverpool will have been overwhelmed so I won't bother with them unless nobody else wants it. Yes?


I think that's everything - do let me know if you need to know anything and I'll update this faq.

Love Eleanor. xxxxxx 

This is not the blog I was expecting to be writing.

WOW! Wow wow wow wow wow wow wow! I literally am in awe and I don't know where to start.

Perhaps I'll start at what I said to Toni when she was in the shop as I pressed 'go' on the crowdfunder:

'I'll put an extra week on, that'll give us a bit more of a chance'.

Or what I said on my personal Facebook page:

'P.s. If you're thinking about donating, apparently if I get 10 backers within 24 hours I'm 90% more likely to reach my target.... Just sayin'.....'

Or what I said to Chris a couple of days ago:

'It doesn't matter if we reach the goal, it'll all help and I'll just have to borrow a little less but maybe I should put the goal down a bit?'.



Honestly, this was not the blog I thought I'd be writing. And I don't know how to thank everybody enough. I honestly don't. You know sometimes, when things are a bit shit - say, you're in the middle of a big fight with the council and stuff's going a bit wrong at home and you have a lot of people (solicitors, surveyors, carpet people, signage writers) bothering you constantly whilst you're trying to get on and do your job - you need a bit of a kick up the arse. And this was it! Smashing the crowdfunding target in four hours was all the proof I need that Knit Nottingham is a little bit magic and means something to a lot of people and for that I am ridiculously grateful and immensely proud and just a little bit daunted at how I'm going to spend this money sensibly and not just buy ALL THE WOOL IN THE WORLD!

I have allowed myself this morning to dream big about the till system I could get if we reached the stretch target (the original was £2000 and the stretch is another £2000. We're actually half way to the stretch target already. Astounded). It didn't actually enter my head that we'd be into the stretch target at all, never mind within 24 hours! So the plan was vague with what I'd do with extra money - there are options, different wools, sorting out the basement, a nicer carpet in a knit print - but I think, sensibly, a till will make the most difference to the shop.

With the increased stock we'll have being able to take a quick snapshot of what's available will be useful, it'll also save me saying 'I'm sure I saw it the other day' and scrabbling round to find a solitary ball that I might have sold yesterday and forgotten about. And that in itself should save messing the shop up like I do now which will save on tidying. And the tills that I'm looking at have the automatic loyalty cad thing going so lost cards will be no problem. And it'll keep a record of what you've bought in the past if you want to do a signing in thingy so we'll never forget again! And I won't have to trundle through scrolls and scrolls of till receipts to do my accounts. And, finally, when we get an upgraded e-commerce site (which is a looooooong way off) it will mean that the stock can be integrated and therefore you'll know what you're buying and whether it's in stock and therefore it not only helps the internet customers but it also helps those of your that are shop customers checking out wool before you come in. Boom right?! So I think I've made my decision that any stretch target money goes towards that and if I have to I'll save more or borrow (sensibly) to make up the shortfall.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I set a good target, higher than I thought that we could achieve and each and every one of you that contributed or shared or talked about this thing has honestly just about made my life.

I haven't read all of the comments yet, I tried to when I was on the bus last night but I just couldn't get through them. It was making me feel all weird inside to have nice things said - I prefer tough love... ;) But I love them and I will read and respond when I'm feeling less emotionally drained.

And thank you.

And sob.

Love Eleanor. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Crowdfunding!

Ahhhhh the blog as an escape. If you've been following the vlog or the facebook and twitter over the last day or two you'll know that it's been quite a rollercoaster! I now have the biggest headache and the shop has been fabulously busy (thank you!) so, once again, tidying has been left to the side and I have a lot of shop to tidy!

Hopefully soon much more shop to tidy!

Which is where you lot come in. This crowdfunder wasn't my original idea but I've been absolutely taken aback by the response to the new shop and the offers of help I've had. In terms of physical help, I'll be putting calls out later, but right now we need a financial boost. I have saved a lot and I was intending to borrow (sensibly) but I've already had people sending me money via paypal and now I just need to put it on a more formal footing.

You can read all of the information on the crowdfunder itself as well as on the accompanying vlog and I'm sure I'll talk more about it as we get there but essentially, if everybody that follows us and has had help from us puts in a fiver, we're there. We're more than there. Put in what you can and if you can't then do what you can by sharing the crowdfunder and related posts and talking about us to your friends and family and buying from us and coming to workshops and hopefully, with a little help, we'll soon be the most central independent yarn shop that Nottingham's had for YEARS!

I love you alllllllllllllllllllllllllllll.

Love Eleanor. xxxxx

P.s. Once more - the crowdfunder is here!

Merry Christmas

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I'm sad that I haven't had the time to do a proper round up post this year but I think I'll do a similar thing to what I did last year, or rather this year, where I do a series of them in January so that they each have the proper time and love put into them.

This year has ended on a massive high with the potential of a new shop on the horizon (offer went in yesterday) and Chris passing his PhD (yes, I am one step closer to being a doctor's wife!). The year has been incredible - hard work at times (in fact, most of the time), busy and full of life and creativity to I'm here to say a massive thank you to each and every one of you for supporting this tiny little business and being part of our lovely community. Here's to next year when we get bigger, hopefully a little less messy and maybe, possibly, more organised (no promises...). And let's win some more awards!

And more full of wool, obvs.

Love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love you!

Love Eleanor. xxxxxxxxxxxx

Christmas Opening Times

Ahhhh, poor neglected blog. Sorry! I've been veeeeeeeery busy and I'm writing a blog today to explain that, but before I do all of that I have to do this which should have been done last week or even the week before. Blurgh.

Christmas Opening Times 2015/2016:

Up to Christmas Eve - as normal.
Christmas Eve - 10.30 to 3pm.
Christmas Day, Boxing Day, 27th and 28th - Closed.
29th, 30th, 31st - 10.30 to 3pm.
1st - Closed.
2nd - 10.30 to 3pm.
3rd - Closed.
4th onwards - open as usual, 10.30 to 6.30.


There's a little confusion about the 2nd - June's in you see and I can't remember whether she said she would but it's not a special day or a bank holiday so I think she'll be in 10.30 to 3pm. I'll let you know if she's not.

That's it.

Love you,

Eleanor. xxxxxx

Small Business Saturday!

So, American Express put on this thing (or maybe somebody else but it's well advertised by American Express) every year where the idea is that you celebrate and support small businesses. I like to think that I do this every day and I'm sure I'm preaching to the converted so I just though I'd share a beautiful little story that happened to me as a small business owner this week:

I'd popped next door to get a cuppa tea from the independent coffee shop owner there (see what I mean? Every facking day Amex, not just once a year...). I always stay by the door in there because I have to lock the shop up and I end up chatting to Sandra and her husbeast. She makes the tea and he brings it to me and bish bash bosh, dead easy. I see a customer coming to my door and trying it so I walk out and say 'hi, sorry, I got chatting, silly me... blah blah blah'. She says 'have you got some black wool?'. I say 'can you be more specific?'. She says 'thick'. I say, have a look at the Cygnet Seriously Chunky'. She says ''Ow much?'. I say '£2.50'. She says 'too expensive'. I say 'have you looked at the Cygnet Chunky?'. ''Ow much?'. '£1.75'. 'Too much. I've seen it in the Poundshop. It's a pound'. I say, 'have you seen the Dolly Mix, it's 75p. Or the Pricewise which is twice as much yarn for less than twice the price'. She says 'no, I think I'll go to the Poundshop'. I said 'brill, they need all the support they can get'.

This is what we're faced with people. Haha. Happily, I popped back to the cafe next door to grab my tea and was able to let off some steam but there are people that would rather shop in the Poundshop or Lidl or Aldi or Asda or whatever shitty shop has decided to sell wool than come to a proper shop and generally because they think it's cheaper. Never mind that it's usually not or that you don't get the service or the options or repeated orders of the same yarn (the amount of times I've had to explain that I can't 'just get the Aldi wool in' because they've run out of it, ugh).

At the same time as dealing with this woman, I was uploading a vlog, designing for a lesson that I'm teaching in a couple of weeks (crochet edgings - still space if you want it) when chatting to customers, e-mailing back and forth about the 'thing' for the Christmas boxes, planning the Christmas window, and thinking about when or earth I'm going to fit in doing my accounts before Christmas. On a daily basis I'm writing blogs, tidying, sorting, making orders, sorting accounts, paying people, reaching out to potential indie makers like Gill, Helen and Jem, helping customers who've got problems, helping customers choose wool, speaking to customers 5000 miles away about design options, adding more stuff to the website, answering facebook messages, e-mails and phone calls, dealing with the advertising, designing the advertising, making stuff to sell, cleaning the toilet, making designs, social working, counselling, being friendly to children, cashing up. I love it! I genuinely love it. But the bigger we get the more work there is. Obviously, the easier some of it gets - getting shit on the internet is now second nature, finding time to do it.... not so much...

I don't want this to be some sort of sob story, because it isn't. I know for a lot of you it's a dream job and in a lot of ways it is. But you don't get the flexibility of a lot of self employed work when you're in a bricks and mortar and the overheads are much more than say a wahm. We're stuck somewhere in the middle between big businesses who have people doing stuff and tiny businesses who have more options. It's a difficult position to be in but also exciting because what I want to do, if I put in enough effort, I can do - Christmas boxes, going to Yarndale (remember that only started because I was desperate to go and couldn't afford to so I made you lot pay for me... ;)), boozy birthday parties...

In return for this I get an incredible insight into your knitting and crocheting lives, a chance to celebrate when it goes wrong and the chance to help when it goes wrong. I'm there for new babies and divorces and birthdays and Christmasses, new jobs, new partners and and and! It's hard work but it's not all doom and gloom. It's a fucking community, isn't it? That's what we're building here. Love it.

So, today, we're celebrating, a little. Not a full on party but a nice relaxed day where I hopefully finish these bloody socks for Chris (his birthday falls on Small Business Saturday, fancy that!) and make a bit of money. The weather has not been great for us this year. I'm still in summer dresses, albeit layered with winter cardigans. We're making more than summer but this is the time of year when I get to get up to date with all of my suppliers and this year that is later than usual. Blurgh. The Daily Mail promised me snow goddammit! Anyway, I have two brilliant reasons for you to spend your money:

The first one is that when you spend £30.00 tomorrow, in the shop or online, you'll get a £5 voucher to use in July or August. Where you spend your £30.00 will be where you can spend your voucher i.e. in the shop will be a shop voucher and online will be an online voucher (I know I'm great but I just can't work out how else to do it, or rather, I can but I know I'll not get round to the admin involved... Just another reason to love small businesses, we're honest... ;) ). And, just as an insight into what it is to be a small business, the £30 cannot include the beautiful bags from Gill or the gorgeous pins from Helen because we only make a tiny profit on those because we're trying to give as much back to the makers as possible. Hope that makes sense.

And the second one is a new pattern from another small business - Jem Weston! Most of you will now Jem, she's a regular at Knit in Notts, a regular here and a general all round good egg. She used to work for Rowan, becoming my rep for Coats for a year or two before deciding to go it alone and become a full time, freelance designer! And here we are supporting her supporting us! Love it!

She's designed the beautiful Dice Cowl which is available from us, in print, for £3.00 but for a little while (probably until I run out to be fair, I expect this to sell well) you can get it for £1.50 if you buy one of the colourways that me and Jem chose when we filmed this vlog a few weeks ago. Have a click here for the internet version of this offer or just come into the shop, it's good to chat. :)

And that's your lot! Really excited about both of these things! But, being a small business owner, I can't sit around chatting all day, I got shit to do.

Love Eleanor. xxxxxx

P.s. I don't think I've said THANK YOU enough for allowing me to be a small business owner. This shop could so easily have gone down the pan so many times and yet, you keep coming in and fawning over our wool and attending lessons and celebrating at parties and generally being bloody fantastic. Love love love.


P.p.s. Just as I was writing this, somebody came in to put a poster up and asked if I'd like a free ticket to the event, I said nope because 'I hate people' he said 'I hate to tell you this but you work in a shop' and I said 'yeah but, they're knitters, they're not like normal people'. Applies to crocheters too.

P.p.p.s. LOVE.

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:

It's only taken three days

******This has taken a lot longer than three days to write but I'm leaving the title there for posterity.... ******

for me to decide that I thoroughly loved Yarndale and can't wait to do it again! My anxiousness and stressed-ness over the last few weeks meant that I had a feeling of impending doom throughout the whole weekend and into yesterday. There's lots going off behind the scenes here and I've got very little time to stop and smell the flowers. I did try at Yarndale itself, I'll talk about that later, but I found myself overthinking things there too, as if sitting and looking at trees would magically make everything disappear. Anyway, misery, misery, let's talk about the good stuff. :)

So. It's an early start. My natural state is to turn up to anything juuuuuust before it starts but you can't do that when you're organising stuff, can you? So I woke up when it was still bloody dark. Ugh.

 

 I was at Chris's house, where Toni resides and her nan had come up for the trip, so when we couldn't persuade Chris to take us in the car we hopped in a taxi. There were people there already which is always lovely and more and more people turned up as the minutes wore on. A few coaches popped through, most of them going to seaside destinations and I very nearly jumped on one of them. But then the lovely Mick turned up with the Tiger European bus and it was time. For the most stressful thing in the whole of my year. Getting people on the bus. There are so many people that come, more every year, and some people book online or on the phone or in person, and every year people cancel and rebook and cancel and rebook and stress, stress, stress so I'm always worried that I've overbooked the coach. There was one lady whose name I couldn't find but I remember her booking so I sent her off to sit down and was thinking 'I'll sit in the toilet' or 'I'll give the list to Toni and she can sort it out' haha. But the lady was on there. I needed a really quick fag after that. And we were off!

 

I think this was actually on the way back actually, haha, but I do love a coach shot.

The journey was uneventful. I helped the driver as much as I could by telling him that at some point we would reach a road surounded by fields. Really helpful I'm sure you'll agree. Apart from that we saw cows on a hill and discussed deep philosophical things.

We got there roughly on time, the tickets had been printed out previously and I'd passed them through the coach on the way there and so once everybody was off and in I wandered over to the loo and had a sit down and a fag. The loos always make me smile:

 

The toilet at the back on the left hand side as we're looking at it. That's the only one 'gents' toilet. Every other toilet, lining the whole side of that area is a 'ladies' loo. Haha. They know their client base.

Anyway, I finally made it in and I was absolutely overwhelmed and trying to work out where to go first when I got accosted by knitter after lovely knitter after crocheter after crocheter. I don't know where everybody knew me from but I suspect it was the vlogs... Photos were taken and people touched me and 40 minutes later I managed to steal away. The first place I went to was Jem Weston's stall. I am DEAD proud that she had a stall there and even more proud that the three or four times I found myself there there was no room for me! :) I bought myself a Dice Cowl kit (she wrote about it here) because I just couldn't resist the bag which has this picture on the front:

 

How gorge is this?! And then I headed right over the other side to have a fag on the front lawn, although apparently they banned that (?!?!!? Nobody told me... sorry...). I was just about to get up and head back in when I thought, nope, I'm going on the yarn walk. Honestly, Yarndale is SO overwhelming. So many people and excited people and the occasional miserable and bored partner, a few old ladies saying 'fuck' (which it think is great btw...) and just SO many people. I think it's because the very first year was pretty disorganised, it must have been really hard for them to figure out how many people might have been there so the queues were horrendous and people ran out of wool and blah. So the next year, last year, it was so much better organised. They did advanced tickets and the food was moved elsewhere and there were many many toilets. And that mean that this year, they sold three times as many advanced tickets (apparently) and I guess some of those were new people and some of those were people that came to the first year but were put off. I'm proud that we supported them through the hard year. But I still couldn't cope with it on Saturday. So I followed the sign for the yarn walk:

Saw some amazing sights. Look here:

And actually didn't get all the way through. I saw a lovely little copse-y type thing and sat down and ate some cake. I also answered some customer enquiries on the facebook page and listened to a podcast or two. It was lovely. And then I got a text from Verity wanted to know where I was so I decided that I had to go and rejoin society. Haha.

I found Verity and her buddies easily on the front lawn and then just behind them were some of my coach people so I sat with them for a while and had a coffee and a chat with Sarah who moved awaaaaaaaaaay so I don't get to see her enough. And then it was time to head inside. This was serious business, you can tell by the selfie we took:

The first stall that we got to, Woosheeps, honestly took my breath away. This is the first brown thing that has ever made me gasp. How beautiful is that!? Elizabeth would be proud.

The man that we spoke to, and I got his name but I forgot it, was lovely too. Really good salesman so he got £60 out of us in like two minutes ha. I bought the same set that the brown shawl is made in but in yellow-y greens:

(And this is where the blog writing ended. But since then I've cast on the thing that I'm going to do with it so maybe it's a good thing. It's the Fox Paws by Xandy Peters and it is like feather and fan on crack. Seriously. It's the first pattern in a very long time where I've gone so wrong I can't work out how to fix it, it needed ripping. And because of that it's the first pattern ever that I've used a lifeline. Haha. But it will not get the better of me. It'll just have to wait a little longer until I finish some other projects so I can deal with it properly. Anyway, a photo:

How gorge is that!? Anyway, back on with the scheduled Yarndale post....)

Ahhhhhh, this is so hard now it's been weeks! I knew I shouldn't have left it weeks. Hmmmm. Let me find the photos, I think I'll stop trying to do this on a timeline but rather just exciting bits.

We saw this beautiful blanket made in Navia. Ahhhhhhh. And I got a good chat with the lady who didn't recognise me, but it's okay because I didn't recognise her either.

Ahhhhh. I remember another bit! I found Lucy the Tudor again! This is deffo my favourite stall. They dress as Tudors and sell little wooden and metal bits that have been worked like they are Tudors. I have a real soft spot for the Tudors, one of my favourite historical periods (not as much as the Georgians though) and it's just lovely to see. Sadly I didn't get to meet her this time, just her husband who wasn't in a chatting mood, but I bought a beautiful wooden spindle which I've used a fair bit since. Not got anywhere with it though. Didn't feel right asking for a photo from him so you'll have to put up with my description. It's never a fancy stall, I think that's why I like it. No banner, no colours really just old fashioned, hand carved stuff laid out sparsely. It's such a relief from the other stalls around it all crammed from floor to nearly ceiling full of rainbow-y colour (not that I mind that, obvs) but it's like a rest for the eyes and it's never that busy because everybody's so interested in all the colourful peacock stuff. I'm sure they do well though because they've been for at least two years running. Lovely Lucy the Tudor.

Looking at these photos, and thinking about what a breath of fresh air Lucy the Tudor was, do you think I'm getting boring in my old age? Do you think it's to do with the stupid hair? I've got all the colours on my head so I don't need them in my knitting? Hmmmmmm.

Anyway, because I'd bought a spindle, I quickly went and bought some fibre. Just a few merino tops in a rainbow of colours. I plan to spin them up and ply half the red with red, then half the red with orange, orange with orange and orange with yellow, yellow with yellow and so on and so forth. To make? No idea. It's superwash so it could be more or less anything. I think I had a big and simple shawl in mind. It'll never get there though, I never get to the end of spinning and knitting/crochet projects. Fact.

And then I went back to Jem Weston's stand, managed to capture Steph and we went for a bacon sandwich but when we got there I realised that I needed pork and lots of it. I had a bacon and sausage sandwich and then a bloody pork and cranberry miniature pie thing. OMG! So good! Now Chris has turned vegetarian I'm just like 'oh god, give me meat'. Before that I could take it or leave it but now I don't have it for every meal or most meals, I need it all the time. Ahhhhhh. Meat. We took it outside and sat looking at the carpark and beyond that the Dales just chatting. Lovely. 

This isn't the bit we were looking at, but it is the Yarndale carpark so you get the idea...

And then my lovely customers turned up and we chatted and showed eachother our buys. And this is where I saw the customer with her beautiful woven basket. And all the stuff I missed but there wasn't enough time to go back. I did promise myself that I wouldn't rush about trying to see everything this year, and I'm glad I didn't. Yarndale is such an overwhelming, exciting, mass of creativity that it can get all on top of me but I think the key is to relax and not worry about seeing it all. So, we're deffo going again next year (maybe next year we'll have a bigger bus!) despite the paddies and breakdowns that this year caused. Just don't Chris, I think he'd kill me.

Oooooh, I forgot, before we got on the coach there was just enough time for a photo shoot with the lovely Steph and Gen. We bought the yarn for and started making the same cardigan on Love Your Local Yarn Shop day this year saying that we'd wear them at Yarndale. I got mine done agggggges ago and I'd been wearing it quite a bit. Steph finished hers a few weeks ago and Gen's was touch and go because she spend so bloody long sewing up but the buttons got on the week before we went. The photos weren't great, we were too giddy, but this is deffo the best one:



It's pattern number 4125 from King Cole (of course, it's the name that clinches it as King Cole isn't it?) and we all did it in the Authentic DK - Indigo, Red Denim and Black Denim from the left. I love this photo! We took it here because it said prime cattle behind, which of course, we are, but because we're such good models all you're looking at is us ain't it? :)

I am SO pleased that this is done! Sorry it couldn't be earlier, I did try but there is so much that going on! Anyway, it's done now, woohoo, and now it opens up some space to get other stuff done including blogs and getting stuff on the internet and all sorts of other things! Beautiful!

Love Eleanor. xxxxxxxxxx

Guess what I forgot today!

The certificate and the keys to do the grilles! That is exactly why I'm the best yarn shop owner in the Midlands. Haha.

The shop is also, as usual, a mess, but I need to get this blog done because it's been weeks since I did one! The Yarndale one is half way written and I was going to try and finish that but seeing as the Knitting and Stitching show is still fresh in my head, I'm gonna blog out of sequence and if you don't like it - tough!

So, as you might have heard, we won the award AGAIN! We are, for the third year running, the best yarn shop in the Midlands. This is voted for by you guys - first of all everybody nominates and then it's shortlisted and then you vote again so at every stage it's voted by the customers which is why it's such a bloody privilege to win! As you all know, it's a bloody hard job doing this. It's like a normal job, plus some. I do the selling and the ordering and the picking and packing, the social media and the public relations, the filming and the writing, the teaching, the cleaning, the tidying, the customer service the escalated customer service. I'm in a constant state of stress because none of these are done as well as they should be but I'm trying hard not to let perfect be the enemy of good, the main stuff gets done and everything else will follow (hopefully...). Which is why it's more important for me to be writing this now rather than tidying, if you can still fit in the shop and touch the wool then that's good enough for me!

Anyway, the awards feel like a big thank you for that and I do like to take the time out to celebrate. It costs a bloody bomb to get to London, and I hate London so it's a stress getting there but the awards ceremony is a separate part of the Knitting and Stitching show at Ally Pally and once you're in there, past the Palm Court it really is like being in a little woolly paradise. Well, wool, fabric, dyeing, beading, reading.... all things crafty. It's bloody fab! I've toyed with the idea of doing a coach trip like we do at Yarndale but to be honest, Yarndale, being small and independent and a bit frantic fits more in with our ethos and it's nice to take some time out on my own.

Usually, I go with Verity. I don't know how that came about really but she came for the first two years. This year she couldn't make it because of the bloody kids (I'll let them off, even I find them cute) so I ended up taking Chris. He was the only one that could take time off so easily and I thought it might introduce him to some exciting stuff. He's also a nice travel companion because he doesn't give a shit - I'm a flapper and a chatter and I get myself into situations, he's just off doing what needs to be done. Anyway. We set off pretty late really, we didn't need to be out of the house until half ten so that was a bit of a lie in. We caught the tram to the train station, bought some lunch from Morrisons and for onto the train in plenty of time.

 

Chris was really looking forward to the amount of selfies that I was promising to take.

 I bought us a chocolate tea cake-y thing and we struck up conversations with two women sat opposite us about knitting and theatre, London and the Great British Bake Off (YEAH NADIYA!!!!!). It was lovely. Getting into London wasn't so great though, Chris has developed travel sickness (at the same time as turning vegetarian, coincidence?! I THINK NOT!). Anyway, I kind of know what I'm doing now, we get on the underground on the Piccadilly Line and head towards Cockfosters (snort). We get off at Wood Green and head out into the open air, then we can either catch the W3 or the free bus that the Knitting and Stitch show put on which are both just over the road (one is one stop left and the other is one stop right). Once you're on, it's five minutes to Ally Pally but up a hill all the way and I wouldn't trust myself to actually be able to get there...

Ally Pally is beautiful. It sits right on top of a big old hill and you can look down over the whole of London which actually looks kind of attractive from that far away. There are still the massive sky scrapers which drive me mad but you can see green space as well as grey and glass buildings. Also, there are a lot of colourful people milling around eating lunch and swapping tips for where to go next. Yesterday there was also this miserable bugger sat on the steps.

 Anyway, as usual I was sure that I wasn't going to spend anything. We went into one room and I spent nothing and then the second room where I saw stuff I might have bought but resisted and then into the third room where I ended up in a group of women looking at this sewing machine thing. Nobody else was brave enough to try it and I don't know why because they were all sewers but the lady looked like she really wanted somebody to give it a go and I always like to help an independent make a sale so I said 'ahhhhh go on then' and I was dead impressed. After I'd broken the seal other people tried it too. And then she told me the price..... TWENTY BLADDY PAAAAAAAHND! Got:

So, the idea is that it's just a little sewing machine basically. Apparently they've been around forever but I've never seen one before. I was amazed. You can only really do edges so it's not for big projects like quilts or anything but the only things I really sew are bashing two bits of material together at the edges, usually with a French seam because it's all I know and it's easy and it's tidy (ish) and I can deffo do that with it. So I bought the gun and a load of pre loaded bobbins to go with it and then we went looking for a  'jelly roll' which I've only really ever read about and only kind of knew what they were but I knew that that was what I needed. I suppose I sort of thought I'd make a cushion but I'm not really a cushiony type of person so be fair so by the time I found Jem Weston hanging around on the Lady Sew and Sew stand I knew that I needed to get more material to make something to wear. I ended up with a metre of this beauty:

Which is Kaffe Fassett of course (those colours!), and about £4 cheaper than it should have been. In the interests of keeping this blog from being a dissertation and because I only have 47 minutes until closing and I'm due a desperate customer and I want to go home, I'm going to tell you about that another day. Maybe when it's done.

 

 Jem won't thank me for this photo but it's the only one I took. LOOK AT THAT DISPLAY! How could you resist?! It just looks so delicious! I'm dead jealous that you can set material out like that. Wool doesn't really work like that does it? You need to keep fibres and weights together and then set out the colours. I've heard about shops that do it colour first but most actual knitters who want to make things and not just show off that they knitters don't appreciate that. One day I might have a shop big enough that I could have fabric as well as wool, although I'd totes have to employ somebody that knew what they were doing because all I know is that I shove the material into my sewing machine gun and hope for the best. Haha.

MOOOOOOOOOVING ON!

I bought no wool! IMAGINE THAT! I bought the sewing machine gun, the jelly roll, the fabric and this:

 

It's one of them there Kenyan woven baskets, they were at Yarndale too under a different (but kind of, maybe connected) company and somebody on the bus bought one and I fell in love. I knew I was going to get one next year but you never know what will happen - maybe they wouldn't get a stall, maybe somebody would die, maybe the shop would shut, maybe there'll be a nuclear war. Basically, the baskets were in front of me and I had a little bit of money and I was celebrating. It took me aes to choose this one, there were more exciting ones but this one had a 'mistake' in it and it kind of matches a blanket that I made for Chris's living room and I loved it. And I don't need to explain this to you do I? I had to have it. Bit of a nightmare to take home though. Hahah.

I also bought a hot dog.
 

Because they were on sale. No vege option though, tough tits Chris but the woman that was selling them was a vege too so she understood.

We went back into the hall to have one last look around and on the Lady Sew and Sew knitting stand we saw Arne and Carlos! It just so happened that I had started a sock from their yarn that very say so I though it would be funny to do a Yarn Harlot and have the sock in a photo with them in the background:

but because I am a celeb, somebody from the stand recognised me and introduced me to somebody else on the stand and she said she'd introduce me and I was like no no no nnon no nnonononnofijbdjndhbrhbfwedknsd\kvhbrfiuhefowjefnsldjnd and I got all sweaty but she did it anyway! And they both got up and TOUCHED ME! hahaha! I WAS SWEATY AND THEY WERE TOUCHING ME! I bet they thought I was some sort of sweaty monster, I hate touching sweaty people. Oh god. THE SHAME!

|

AND I WAS SWEATY AND I NEEDED TO FART! So embarrassing.

And then it was a case of hanging around. I was very clear that I didn't have a lot of money to spend - quality over quantity. And I didn't want to get carried away and buy stuff that I would never ever make, like last year I bought the most fabulous beading book but I've still never completed anything out of it. I can deffo use the sewing maching gun thing and the project I bought could be finished tonight if I ever make it out of this shop alive (so busy today - thank you!).

And then, at 5.30, it was time for the awards. I felt a bit more comfortable in there this year, it's the same room as always and the waiting staff were coming to us rather than us going to them which was great. Me and Chris sat down at a table, I got my knitting out and we had a chat. Then some other people sat down at our table, talking about serious algorithms and stuff and we didn't really join in and they didn't really looked like they wanted us to. Sam from Let's Knit came to speak to her, I know her well now and she's gorgeous and we had a little laugh and before I knew it I had my award and I was having my photograph taken:



Hopefully this year I'll find the official photograph that was taken. Maybe. Never found last years. I found the year before's one once but it is better hidden forever in the annals of the interwebz...


When we got back to the table, Chris wanted his photo taken with it like he'd won the award and as he was messing around her ended up smashing the guy to his right in the blue:



The guy did not look amused. Turns out he's from LoveKnitting and I suspect he doesn't do enough knitting to keep him from being miserable... ;) I made a joke about not being able to take Chris anyway and that made the lady to the left of me laugh. Turns out it was only DEBBIE BLISS! Ha. I have some difficult feelings towards her yarn but the lady herself, now I've spoken to her, was absolutely lovely. SHE TOUCHED ME!



I carried on knitting. Ha.

Just before this all happened the lady who'd come second in our category, Alison from a shop in Leicester came to introduce herself and she introduced me to the ladies from the Birmingham Shop who came third. All lovely women who think that they're going to win next year. Mwahahahah. Not really, it was a bit awks at times but it's lovely to be around people who 'get it'. I've told you before I think about the new union type affair that we're putting together for indie wool shops and I've spoken to them and other owners through there and it is a bit of a relief to know that it's not all sunshine and roses for everybody. But the awards are all sunshine and roses.

We left about half an hour early because Chris was getting hungry and made our way back to the train station. There are plenty of places to eat around and in St Pancras and then we knew we couldn't get that badly lost when it came to getting on the train. The underground is a funny old thing isn't it? The men there seemed absolutley amazed that I was knitting - I've never had so many stares. And one guy in particular was really weird. He was a man spreader - legs as far apart as possible as if his bollocks need constant air circulation but he went one step further and spread his arms too. Covering three whole seats for one normal sized human being. He spent the entire journey staring directly at me and then when I looked at him, he looked me straight in the eye, didn't smile or anything and gave me a really slow double thumbs up. I didn't smile at him. Manspreaders don't get smiles from me.

Talking about bastards. When we got on the train to come home, the reservation system wasn't working but it wasn't a full train so over the tannoy they told us just to sit roughly where our seats should be. This meant that we were sat just across the aisle from a couple of drunken slimy business men making weird sounds. After a couple of minutes, and after the announcement and young woman came on. She could only have been 18 or 19, not English, a student and wearing a hijab. We vaguely smiled at eachother like you do as normal human beings and me and Chris carried on our conversation. I heard her ask the business men where her seat was and one of them said 'you can sit on my lap love, there's loads of space here'. UGH! Me and Chris both heard it and turned round suddenly. I couldn't think of anything to say but I stared at him, mostly out of absolute shock and disgust. It took him about two minutes to turn to face me which he did and he looked sheepish. But I wish I'd have said something. He spent the rest of his journey being obnoxious and there was a half naked woman on his phone screen despite the fact that he'd just been to a business meeting. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

That really did spoil the day for me. Not just that he was there, you have to put up with prats in life don't you? But the fact that I didn't say anything. I felt guilty and stupid. Once the man had left the woman said thank you to us because we'd invited her to sit on our table and made some space for her, and generally not been sexually aggressive towards her. I think she felt safer knowing that there were people there who heard and were angry. But I should have said something. Surely the best yarn shop owner in the Midlands could have come up with something sharp and scathing to put him in his place? Apparently not. :(

Anyway, I've got to go. I'm having a week off next week, Elizabeth will be in instead of me and she just wants a refresher on some bits so there is a little more to say and I will say it tomorrow and then I will finish the Yarndale blog then and then I will do a blog on all the new stuff and then I will tidy the shop and then I will and then and then and then. Blah. I'm offski.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR VOTING!

Love Eleanor. xxxxxxx

P.s. I'm so hard nosed on the fact that this is going out today, that there is no time to re read it. I know you all love the spelling mistakes/typos. It's a bit part of why we win awards. I'm sure.

P.p.s. LOVE!

An Announcement

This almost kills me to say but I have to for the health of me and my shop. I'm setting boundaries. And these boundaries are the shop opening times - 10.30 to 6.30 every day apart from Sunday when we're closed.

One of the best things about this shop is you! I love hearing and sharing stories and emotions and histories with you. It's fascinating and sometimes mind blowing and heartening and important. But this is also a shop, first and foremost. And more than anything, this is a bloody busy shop right now. We  must be doing something right because things have seriously gone off the hook and I suspect a lot of that is the heart and soul that's in this place - mine and yours.

So I am really mindful that that can't disappear but I'm also mindful that the shop has been a shit hole for a long time and e-mails are answered too late and orders are placed a day or two late because other stuff needs to be done and that has a knock on effect with everything else in the shop. There is nothing that I can do, and nothing that I want to do, about how busy we are in the day but I am increasingly aware that I'm staying over time chatting or getting in an hour early to get some of the to do list done and there's already a queue forming outside of the shop or people popping in for a couple of hours to chat and not buy and I'm a softie underneath it all and I find it really difficult to say - 'sorry, we're not open yet, come back in an hour' or 'gosh, it's that time already, I have to go now' or 'I'm sorry I can't chat now, I have a tonne of stuff on, let me help you buy the yarn that you came in for'. But really, it's for you and for me. Imagine coming into this shop and it's tidy! Imagine how much more you could see and discover. Imagine how much less pulling stuff out on the floor I'd have to do if I had time to actually tidy! Imagine how less stressed I'd be if orders were placed on time and the accounts were done! IMAGINE A HOOVERED FLOOR!

I think that there's a little bit of me (or actually a lot of me) that really enjoys being the 'magic wool lady' who can just get everything done with no stress but in reality, everything that the shop is and everything that I do for the shop (and I need to emphasise that not everything that the shop is is stuff that I do, some of it's just a special kind of magic caused by everybody that spends time here) takes time. So the Yarndale e-mail, that some people are still waiting for, took about two hours to sort out. There was no time to do it last week when the shop was open and a few times I stayed late with customers so there was no time then and then some nights I just needed off. So that two hours came out of my one precious day off. And now there are some people that haven't had it but I spent a lot of yesterday explaining that it is coming and please be patient rather than actually sorting out the problem, so I'll probably stay late tonight and do it. I won't be the 'magic wool lady' if I don't get at least some time off, I've learned that the hard way, I'll be the 'jibbering wreck in the corner surrounded by piles of wool' which is very much how I feel today. Haha.

And therefore I'm asking for everybody to be mindful of the fact that I'm a human being and I need time to do stuff. I love being around you and as loud and obnoxious as I can seem I'm really bloody shy at telling people where to get off. So I'm going to work on that, and if you could work on being out of the shop by 6.30 and not turning up before 10.30 and just popping your head around the door to say a friendly hello when you're not buying or not coming on Sundays when I'm teaching my lessons so that I have to stop and explain that we look open but we're not open then everything should work out much smoother in the long run. Yes?

I STILL LOVE YOU!

Love Eleanor. xxxxxxxxxxx

Pattern of the Weeeeeeeeeeek - Union Onesies

You knew it was coming. It couldn't not, could it? And what a way to relaunch Pattern of the Week!

I'm going to start early with my top tip.... Don't enter into a speed knitting competition. It'll only break your heart when you lose/you fingers when you can't stop.

The Union Suit. 

So, let me set the scene. Toni has started covering the shop on Wednesday morning for an hour or two whilst I have a regularly scheduled appointment. So far, every single time she's covered, for one reason or another she's ended up staying all day. One of those days somebody came in looking for interesting baby patterns and ended up with a onesie type suit. Toni speculated that it might be bloody brill for her to have a onesie and started looking on Ravelry. I started wondering whether it might be reasonable for me to have one too. She found the Union Suit. I couldn't resist and we both cast on that evening. The photos that really set this in our minds were these:

 

Look how much fun he's having chopping wood! 

And this one:

Cheeky.

We got over excited and started talking about pockets and hoods and detachable feet but we were both very definite on there having a fairisle bumflap.

The pattern is fantastic. Fan-bloody-tastic. This is not for the faint of heart. This is a lot of knitting, knitting in the round, knitting flat, fancy increases, fancy decreases, picking up stitches, short rows, counting rows, knitted all in one, button holes.... Anybody who's made a jumper confidently should be fine but be warned. It is really well explained and all the way through there are options for short or longer or wider or thinner or curvier or less curvy bodies. Both me and Toni made adjustments, some of which worked and some of which didn't. I'd definitely do my legs shorter next time and Toni would definitely make hers a little baggier. Overall though, we felt pretty well supported throughout the pattern but I think it helped that we were doing it together so you know when you don't read the pattern right? Well, the other one would. And to be honest, once I got down and finished the legs I didn't touch the pattern again.

At some point, the knit-a-long turned into a competition. I think it turned seriously when Jean offered Toni £50 to beat me. Toni was in front for most of the way and then, somehow, when she went away for the weekend, I got ahead. AND THEN AT THE LADY MINUTE SHE BLOODY FINISHED! But have you seen the side of her compared to me?

Although that photo makes her look almost as tall as me I'm about a good 6 to 7 inches taller, and to give you some idea of sizing.... my thigh is two inches smaller than her chest... Haha. I believe, even though my knitting finished the day after hers, that I won. Also, she never got a single pocket on hers.

The bumflaps were dead fun. For some reason I got it in my head that I should definitely have my name on mine. I roughly worked out how many rows I'd have to work and split that into seven sections which, give or take, gave me seven rows per letter. So I spent a bus journey working that out meticulously...



As meticulously as I get anyway... If you can't make that out (and I barely can) it's a series of scribbled grids with letters blacked out. It's all I needed anyway. And it ended up looking like this:



You can probably tell that I spent very little time centering the patterning, just went with it. I'm of the passionate belief that fairisle really should be done in the round and steeked where you want it flat, so every row of doing this made me cringe. Better than leaving this though...

Toni's not so bothered about how to make fairisle though so she just ploughed ahead with the cutest bunnies ever in the world.



I think she roughly took the pattern for a monster eighties jumper, but basically looked at it and made it up from there. Each bunny is separated by a line of fairisle jamming and there was a little bit of heartache about whether she could fit another bunny and another line of fairisle in. Especially seeing as she decided on having a useable bumflap. I was convinced I wouldn't use mine so I sewed it up (forgot to put buttonholes in anyway....) but Toni assures me that it is useable!

Which leads me to. I'VE GOT TO MAKE ANOTHER ONE! I decided to put a zip up the front of mine - no idea why seeing as I hate sewing - but I did. Only, I decided this on a day when I knew that I wouldn't be able to get to a sewing shop before I had to wear it at the party so I had to send Chris in. Good old Chris. Only, I couldn't decide on the colour, seeing as they didn't have burnt orange in a 30" zip. (You mean not everybody is making burnt orange plus size onesies around here!?!?!?) so I got him to pick up a red and a black. But then I didn't want to take the black back because I want another onesie. I was tempted to make an all black onesie. I have a beautiful long black velvet dressing gown that I wear all the time and it almost makes me feel classy in my sleepwear. Surely I would feel classy in an all black onesie - perhaps with some crystal beading detail around the yoke??? But then Steph from Nettynot suggested a multi coloured onesie and it all came into focus because a loooooong time ago I got a bag of all of my aran bits together fancying making a big oversize sweater for me and never got round to it. Add a few full balls in there and I have enough for an all over mental onesie! IMAGINE THAT!

Anyway, for these original onesies, knitted in three weeks and one/two days respectively if you must know, we both used the big balls of aran. Everybody loves a big ball don't they? Toni used the Grousemoor Aran in Pink Mix (marked 'Pine Mix' on the internet.... how have I missed that?! It's on the list of stuff to fix. It's a very long list...), three balls of it. And I used the King Cole Fashion Aran in Mull, three and a bit balls of it. Note the difference in metreage - the Cygnet Grousemoor has 660m and the Fashion Aran has 800m so even though I only used half a ball more, I used a good 600m more. We shared a ball of Cygnet Grousemoor Aran in cream for the contrast and used most of that although there's some left over that might make it into my next onesie seeing as I don't have that much cream.... not usually my thing... It's knitted on a 4mm needle and I think a 3.75mm for the ribbing and we both ended up using a circular all the way through even though some of it's back and forth. It's just much better for your wrists this way because the extra weight is not being supported by your arms or wrists but laying on your lap as you knit (or under your arm if you knit whilst waiting for the bus like I do). This might seem like too small a needle, and technically it is, and parts can be hard going to be honest but you really don't want a loose gauge on something like this. You'll be wearing it when it's cold and probably without a bra and can you imagine a nipple peeping out of your loose weave? Nobody wants that.

And I think that's all I've got to say! I really, genuinely recommend this. It's one of those projects that you really regret casting on when you're half way through but we've both worn these to death since we made them and they so impressive and technically interesting that I say just bloody go for it! £30 for a woolly onesie made by oneself? Boom.

One last proper photo:

I'm off to prepare for tomorrow's lesson.

Love Eleanor. xxxxxxxx

P.s. Just to help her our a bit, here's the pattern again - Union Suit by Megan Grewal.