Blog Envy.

Sometimes I feel a little stilted writing this blog. It's a blog for the shop obviously, so we've got to talk about the shop and our lovely yarns and what's going on here. I don't mind, and I know that you lot like hearing about it but I've been trying to make a conscious effort to have a life outside the shop recently too. This time last year I had a series of about five colds that I just couldn't shake off - I think that's what happens in retail when you meet so many people, and I was rushed off my feet working every single day with no breaks. I'm determined for it not to happen this year so I'm taking vitamins, eating well and trying to take at least one day completely off the shop a week. Sometimes it doesn't work like that but June is trying her utmost to make it so and I love her for that! So this weekend, I had Sunday off because there was no lessons scheduled and I had my usual Monday off but a few days ago the sister decided she was going to pop down from Yorkshire where she lived with the baby and I thought it might be nice to take Saturday off too. June obliged and I started making plans. Which is where the blog envy comes into it...

You'll know by know that I absolutely adore Attic 24. I think she has a lovely attitude, fantastic colour sensibilities and I like how she appreciates the little things like cake and vases and shopping at markets. Jealous? Me? Never!

Her post about the ripple blanket contained a link to Little Tin Bird and I've become a bit addicted to her too. Similar sorts of reasons but she's younger than Lucy at Attic 24 so I guess I sort of 'connect' with her more - if it's possible to 'connect' with somebody through reading her blog.

I read other blogs too but these two are based in England (Heather at Little Tin Bird even had a post which mentioned Huddersfield where my Dad's from, Barnsley where I'm from and Nottingham where we both are now - weird ey!?) and I that means more to me I guess than blogs from America and Canada I guess. Anyway, they have lovely lives. I'm sure it's not all like that, you put your best foot forward in a blog, but they do lovely things and appreciate nature and go and do things on their days off. So I planned to have three days like that over my three days off. Cue Attic 24/Little Tin Bird style post...

I made sure to wake up early on Saturday to take advantage of the light and the fact that little man wakes up early too. I fed him, washed him, clothed him and wrestled with his pushchair and we were off for a little trip to Wollaton Hall. For those who don't live near us, Wollaton Hall is an Elizabethan house built in the baroque style and filled with dead things. Haha. There's a brilliant museum attached which has steam engines and knitting machines and the like too but it seems to be usually closed and I didn't think little thing would like the noise so we avoided it and spent our time in the natural history part in the main house.

We were both wrapped up warm because, blimey, it's getting cold around these parts! Between us we had six hand knitted things! Didn't we do well!?

We only live five minutes away from the hall so soon enough we had our first peek over the wall and into the park. Doesn't it look lovely?!

I got him out at this point but he wasn't happy that I wouldn't let him crawl over the sodden leaves and up the crumbling wall so I quickly stuffed him back in the pram and we zig zagged across the grounds making our way up to the hall.

The big main doors were closed though, so we veered off course and headed towards the courtyard cafe. Along the way we saw loads of dogs ('docdocdoc' in little person's language). I didn't take photos of that because I felt a bit weird asking... But the courtyard was lovely, we had some tea and some milk and found out that the hall would be open in about half an hour.

We admired the architecture.

Got excited about a pigeon on the roof.

And had a little 'hooky time' in the words of Lucy.

At 11 o'clock we headed off to the hall. I made a big mistake by forgetting that prams are not as mobile as feet and trying to get up a steep hill with lots of tree branches was probably not a good idea. But we did get to see a squirrel. Can you see him?

Getting up the front steps of the hill was a bit of a minefield. The lift was broken and I was on my own so out of the pram he came and with him on my hip and all the bags of stuff (how much stuff do you have to carry when you've got a kiddliwink!?) on my shoulders, I dragged the pram backwards up the steps. Phew. A nice lady helped me up the last few steps, only after watching me struggle up three quarters of it though!

Anyway, it was worth it. We saw cockroaches:

Notice his gorgeous hand knitted trousers. Well done Caroline!



















Ammonites:

Beautiful crystals:

Some warthogs, who didn't seem too impressed with our version of 'Hakuna Matata':

And THE gorilla!

Every now and then we got a bit lost but it was usually then that we saw some lovely views out of hidden windows.

And we were both definitely impressed by the magnificent ceiling in the main hall:

But I think the bit that was most enjoyable was finding some food shaped toys and two nice little girls to play with:

But all of that playing was thirsty work so we headed back home with a little stop on the way to play with the new tambourine. Just so happens that the bottle shaped cool bag was more interesting though...

It does feel good to drag yourself up with a hungry caterpillar though:

So, we said goodbye to the hall:

and hello to the walk home:

And in the end it was all a bit too much.

Later in the day Seb went to visit his great Grandmother and for a bit of retail therapy. I spent the rest of the day baking:

lovely lovely parkin:

and doing my hair, which more or less means brushing it but that effort doesn't extend as far as getting out of my pyjamjams:

in readiness for Saturday night when I went out with good friends, got a bit tipsy and had a dance. And Sunday afternoon when I spent time with other good friends knitting, crocheting and sewing whilst eating cake. Lots and lots of cake.

As I write this on Sunday evening, Monday hasn't happened. But the plan is figures for the shop and finishing a commission knit that will be detailed on the blog asap. Then making a big, tasty dinner.

Isn't that a wonderful weekend? I feel rested.

Love Eleanor. :)

P.S. As I post this on Tuesday afternoon, I now know that Monday didn't go as planned but I did get about half the work I should have got done done and I'm onto the 'J' on my blanket. More on that later.

P.P.S. The winner of last weeks 'proof-reading' competition was Kate from Carlton. We've been in contact and she'll be on a lovely night out soon!! Thank you everybody for helping us, it's amazing how much stuff I missed but I feel confident that it's all coming together. Now, if only I could scrabble together some time to put more stuff up...

The weaving bug claims another victim !!

OK, first a little update om the inkle loom, I have now warped it up with some yarn from the shop and I am busy practising following pattern charts so watch this space !!
In the meantime fellow Knit Nottingham spinner Wikkidknitter called round for coffee at the weekend and raided my toy loom collection! Now when I say toy loom, I mean circa 1970 spears weaving loom, rigid heddle 16inch wide supposedly designed to weave several feet if you can work out how to store the excess warp. Anyway after also raiding my yarn stash ( Eleanor, I need some more yellow please ) he started an experiment in making a checked scarf.
Later I dug out a smaller loom and made myself a narrow scarf from some hand spun that's been lying around for a while.




So if you've been wanting to learn how to spin but are not really sure about knitting weaving maybe the thing for you and is you can't wait to spin I know a shop full of yarn :-)

... . -... / .. -. / - .... . / .--- ..- -. --. .-.. .

Can you guess what it is yet!?!

Haha!

I've been writing a series of posts about designing for you over the last few days but it's coming slowly - photo heavy and it requires me to really think and maybe do some swatches so it could be a little while... But it's certainly keeping me on my toes and that, along with this lovely cold(ish) weather is getting my creatie juices flowing (hate the phrase). So here are my thoughts.

Christmas presents still aren't finished from last year. I'm convinced to be ready before the 24th of December for this year.

Mum's present is done.

Dad's present is my 'Big Brother' knittting and is getting done - about 10 rows off being half way done (I only know that because it's socks...).

Sister's present has been decided on.

Brother-in-law's present has been decided.

Only one other person is getting a present out of me seeing as everybody I know who should have remembered and therefore was close enough to be on the present list, forgot my birthday. Pfft.

Maybe you can tell that I only give handmade Christmas presents.

Sooooo, the one other person who's getting a present out of me is a little thing. A sort of pudgy, squidgy blob of a thing. But maybe the most important person! Let me introduce my nephew:

His name is Sebastian. A.k.a The Wool Botherer:

We've taught him well!!!

So, he loves wool, he's a bit podgy, deffo very cute and he's a spoilt little thing with a jungle themed bedroom. My sister, his mother, has some funny taste in clothing... sorry Caroline... which means that any sort of clothing or accessory for him is out. And I think he has everything else in the world. Including toys, which apparently are also known as 'Mummy's stash'. 

Then I read this little stunner of a post, purely as research for the shop mind you. And then I got too inspired and excited and full of thoughts and energy and the frenzy sort of culminated in 200 crochet chains that I knew just what to do with! 

Stripes!!!

Mega-stripes! In what I consider to be the most icky-in-an-omg-I-can't-get-enough-of-you kind of way in the whole shop! Let me introduce you to the Zig Zag 4ply in the 'cornucopia' colourway. A veritable Smörgåsbord of oranges, limes, yellows, creams, aquas and, oddly enough, charcoal grey. Weird. Sort of clown barfy but I love it. I'll admit here. I have at least 10 balls in stash, bought a long long time ago, at Knitty Gritty, just about every time I went in there I chucked a ball in my basket. I was so very excited when I was able stock this myself but I really don't have a need for anymore. Yet. 

I think that Zig Zag is pretty jungly looking - no?

But even for me this might be a bit bright, and it needs to be stripey so I've matched it with some cream that was also in my stash. 

So, blanket, stripey, Zig Zag with cream. And then the question is what kind of stripes? I couldn't have boring stripes. Oh no. I was going to fall back on my pi formation but I'll admit I'm a bit bored with that - socks, mitts, hats, jumpers... I'm over it. 

So I mulled it over for all of five minutes and I decided that I'm going to do MORSE bloody CODE!!!!! I'm going to do two rows for a dot and four or six for a dash - haven't got to that bit yet though... 

Oh yes, write a little message to Seb, not tell him what it is and maybe when he grows up to be a geek he can work it out!

Haha!!

Love!!!

Ignore the hair... there's the start!!

Love Eleanor. :)

P.s. The title is the message - can you read what it says?

little knitted thingies

As many of you know, I am a member of the Notts and District branch of the Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers. Which sounds very official but basically boils down to a good old chat and lots of fibre fun on the last Saturday of the month. Occasionally we get to meet other guilds and last week we mooched on up to Mansfield to take part in the Ashfield Guild Hospitality days and in amongst the usual lines of spinners and stalls were....... little knitted thingies!!

There was a farm.

complete with duck pond, fields and trees. The family were outside the house and the horses in the stables.

                                                                                                                                               And an ark complete with animals and family  . Sadly there was a bit of a blood bath later in the day when all the animals were found lying on their sides and the crocodiles had a decidedly evil look about them.look if you dare!!!            

and I loved the tortoise/turtles :-)

Sue

A Little Local Competition.

Hello Folks!

I hope all is as well there as it is here! The Autumn weather has come back to greet us, I finished my Dennis the Menace jumper yesterday:

(Blimey, trying to take a photo of a full jumper on a webcam is hard, you'll just have to cope with the blurring issues.)

and we've just had our BIGGEST WEB ORDER YET! YES! We're on track to become millionaires before the year is out.... sort of....

And I've been sitting on a little beauty of a prize for a week or so. Dangling it infront of your little facebook avatars like a morsel of delicious, scrummy Merino Superwash when all you're allowed to work with is Wilko's finest... Mwahaha! I promise it hasn't been on purpose, I've just been busy busy - still updating the webshop everyday, speaking to customers, knitting a bit, teaching workshops etc. etc. You know the drill. I get into the shop in the morning with a list of twenty-million things to do including telling you all about the prize and how to win it... and then life happens...

Oh well, here it is now: 

The prize is TWO TICKETS to the Glee Club in Nottingham on any Friday or Saturday night until the 30th of November this year! 

Oh yes, haven't we done well for you!?!!?

Haha. 

But we couldn't give that away without some sort of competition, could we?! A bit of hard work from you guys. Ten minutes work and you could win tickets worth up to £28! Here comes there hard bit: 

You know that feeling when you've been working on something for so long and every time you read it, you read it as you want it to be read, not as it should be, meaning that mistakes get missed. Then you come back days, weeks and months later and find hideous horrible mistakes? Yeah, I've got that feeling with the webshop! So your quest, dear Knit Nottingham fans, is to find those mistakes on our webshop! It could be as simple as a double full stop, a broken link or a capital letter in the wrong place but it all makes a difference to little ol' us. (Don't fall into the pitfall of thinking our prices are just so reasonable they must be a mistake - I promise you - the prices are all right...). 

E-mail us at knit AT knitnottingham DOT co DOT uk with the mistake and the info we need to get at it (i.e. in the British Wool Aran page you've written the word 'gorgeous' twice for example). We'll acknowledge your entry and you'll be placed on a list with a number to be picked by a random generator on Wednesday the 12th of October. All entries must be made by 11.59pm on Tuesday the 11th of October and each person can  enter the competition up to five times. 

TL;DR: 

• Competition to win two tickets to Glee Club Nottingham on a day of your choosing. 
• Help us by finding mistakes in the webshop, e-mailing the details to us when you do find them. 
• You can enter up to 5 times, entries to be made by Tuesday the 11th, winner picked on Wednesday the 12th.

Ready... Set... GOOOOOOOOOOO!

Muchos Lovos, 

Eleanor. xxxxx

Wired up

So I’m sat here thinking what can I write about now. Eleanor does the real knitty bit, I do the spinning fluffy bit but sometimes there's nothing new in the craft room or on the needles.

(at the moment its still the same braid on the new inkle loom and Spring Thaw on the needles making very slow progress)

Then I thought what about the wire??when I studied creative embroidery c&g part two (think its now called a diploma) we had to look at embroidery using metal threads and were encouraged to try knitting with it. Well in those days I had a real problem with knitting, didn’t like it, could not cope with the length of the needles etc. Anyone who knows me will have noticed that everything I knit is on circular needles!!!

Anyway, we had to knit and experiment a little using the wire either as inspiration for embroidery or as a base for it. So here are a few samples.

Each sample is around 2 inch square.

                                                                     

                                                                                            

I had forgotten how much i enjoyed french knitting as a child.

Sorry about the shadows in the photos, I tend to write these entries whilst drnking coffee in my favourite coffee shop so decided to take the photos whilst I was there the other morning.  They are quite used to the strange woman who sits and knits, weaves, makes lace, writes notes etc Suspect they see me as some form of entertainment  for their other customers :-)