Warning, cross posted to my own blog......if you read both then this is not deja vu, just sorta deja blog !!

Warning, cross posted to my own blog......if you read both then this is not deja vu, just sorta deja blog !!

So here I talked about washing the fleece, so here is what came next.

Whilst the fleece was still damp I placed it in a large cat litter tray which is one of my standard pieces of dyeing equipment ready to add the dyes. I generally use either colour craft all in one acid dyes or Landscape dyes depending on the colour needed although I will soon be in need of a restock so will expand the colour range at that point.  I mix a little of the dye powder/crystals with hot water in a jar then top it up with cold water. Now I know that people would like to know how much dye powder but I generally dilute and mix until I get a shade I want!!!

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Care should be taken when handling dyes and associated chemicals - rubber gloves and protective clothing should be worn when necessary.  Precautions should be taken to avoid accidental ingestion, inhalation and skin & eye contact.  Keep containers closed and away from young children.  

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Once I've added the dyes, taking care not to get  the fleece too wet, I wrap it in cling film ready to go in the steamer.

My electric steamer has three units so I can steam quite a large quantity in one go, it is also kept for dyeing only. Once the fleece has cooled completely, I give it a good rinse, a quick spin in the washer and hang it out to dry or near a radiator in this case.

I'm sorry that this photo is a little dark and doesn't show that the dye doesn't penetrate all the fibre in this case.

this is a little better, shows the variation of colour.

using the wool combs produces lovely little nests of fibre ready to be spun

resulting in this..................

washed and hanging out to dry

waiting to be balled up and sent to its new home

I hope this wasn't too boring for you, I had promised to show how I coloured the fleece xx

This wool will be winging its way out of the country soon, I have some natural brown Bond fleece on the wheel at the moment which I am hoping to knit up myself...........photos will be posted!!

Yesterday

That's a sad song for a show off thread but it's been buzzing around my head all day because yesterday was seriously the most productive day that has ever taken place almost exclusively in a bed. Let me tell you.

I woke up, naturally, at about half past nine. That's the first time in about a month that I've woken up without a hangover and without the help of an alarm clock. The first thing I did was made an order with Cygnet. Without a coffee or anything!!!

Then I started on a commission for a balaclava. Not just any kind of balaclava - one without holes for the eyes or nose. Just holes for ears. It's some sort of uni project to do with how people don't listen anymore and he might have mentioned how everybody's always listening to ipods all the time too. I don't know, he was too handsome to concentrate on really. Ha. (I can say that now because we saw him out the other day, on the fateful night when I found out that I am not just a local celebrity and pillar of the community but an international superstar too!!!!! Masa made a right tit of me whilst I was trying, in a pissy-arsed manner, to be as professional as possible - Masa just kept saying 'but you're soooooo handsome, so fit! How does that even happen???'. Oh god, why did anybody let me loose with a shop!??!). Anyway - photo:

I love a bit of easy intarsia I do. 

We couldn't work out before we started how he wanted it to be finished so it is still on the needles at the bottom and we'll work that out later. If he likes the crochet around the ear then I'll probably end up doing the same on the bottom. But he's got to come in first. 

Then I did a bit of selfish knitting and finished up this: 

It's a version of the Adult Pinwheel Sweater.

I made it before, probably about four or five years ago now in Cascade 220 which cost a bomb (to me at the time) and bobbled like a bastard pretty much as soon as I wore it. It was in a lovely aubergine colour and I wore it to death but it's pretty much only good for a pj cardi now. One of my mum's friends liked it so much that she paid me to make her one! That's probably my first commission!!!

Anyway, it's a really weird construction - you start in the middle with 8 stitches and work outwards, increasing every row in segments. When the diameter matches your cross back you work the entirety of the first and fourth sections with spare yarn (breaking and rejoining the original at the beginning and end) and then carry on as before until it's as big as you think you need it and complete with some garter stitch. Afterwards, you come back, pick out the spare yarn stitch by stitch and pick up the resulting live stitches on either side (a bit like a peasant heel if you're interested in socks) and then knit that in the round, decreasing a bit until it's the length of your arm. Repeat on the other arm and there you go. If you can imagine, you get a circle with arms coming out either side of one half and one half just plain (as in section one has an arm, sections two and three are free, section four has an arm and then sections five, six, seven and eight are free of arms). That means that you can either wear it with sections two and three at the neck and five, six, seven and eight hanging down (which is what most of the ladies on the rav entry are doing), or wear it with five, six, seven and eight around the neck which makes it fall down like a kind of sailor collar. 

I've just realised that that it a terrible description but I've not had anybody in the shop that I know well enough to make them take a photo yet... So I've tried with the webcam: 

Does it make a bit more sense? I'll get a good photo soon (hopefully today because my hair is looking particularly urban). 

I only had to finish a couple of inches on each sleeve to do and sewing the ends in so that took about an hour and it got sent off to blocking land. 

Then I started on another commission that should have been done a good couple of weeks ago. Finished the back and got most of the front done. It's a kiddies jumper with a big shawl collar and I've left a big space to embroider 'Big Brother' on the front. As soon as it's finished I'm doing a baby cardi with a big shawl collar in opposite colours with 'Little Brother' embroidered somewhere on it. They will most definitely be sweet. 

And then! I knitted a little bit of a sock leg as a shop sample in the Jungle colourway of the Regia Sock with the leftovers from the pair of socks that I also finished yesterday. They're all in the blocking pool as we speak so photos at a later date. 

AND THEN! I did some embroidery on the tummy of a cute teddy bear for the same lady as the jumper/cardi above. Looks a lot like this:

It isn't this though. It's for the same lady (she loves my teddies, I think this may be the fifth one I've knitted) and it has the same initial but it's a different embroidering yarn (I used some leftover wicked as she likes the colour-changers). 

AAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNDDDDDDDDDD THEN, I thought I'd settle down for a good hour of selfish knitting. Went to pull out a WIP Mythos only to discover that half of it is bloody missing!!! A whole half of the sweater! You work this cardi from the end of the sleeve to the middle and then the other side the same before grafting together at the back. Half of that is missing. I definitely knitted it but it's a yarn that we don't stock anymore and I hate the idea of reknitting something I've already done so I got on with another WIP which is the drapey poncho in the King Cole Opium that's been on the needles since the first day it came in. But then I realised that I didn't have the pattern with me and I didn't know how long they wanted it to be. So I put that down and rode the crest of the sock-knitting-obsession-wave and cast on some more socks in some Regia from stash: 

As you can see, I didn't get very far, but the beauty of socks is that you can pick them up and put them down and pick them up and put them down... 

In between all of this I made dinner, changed my sheets, put on and hung up a load of washing, drank five cups of tea (and regretted it when I wanted to sleep) and completely caught up with all the tv I've been missing over the last month of being unusually social. 

Despite all of this I am still three commissions deep. Ugh. Best get on with it then. 

Love Eleanor. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Trigger, Rabbit, Fish, Jungle, BBC!

When I'm putting stuff on the internet I have to add the colourways as an option manually before I then attach the option to the yarn itself. So, a long long time ago we added 'white' and 'black' and 'baby blue' etc. and once they're added we can use them again and again.

How many times do you think I'll use 'triggerfish' and 'rabbitfish' again? Personally, I'm hoping I get to use 'jungle' a bit more. I'm talking about the new shades in the Regia Sock. LOOOOOOOK!

I really should make these collages before I lower the resolution of these photos (not that I know what that means, or even if it makes sense to people who do, but I know what I mean...). 

How much do you just want to cast those on and keep people's feet warm!?!?!?!?!!?!?

Well, I did just that! Straight away, which was a bad idea because I have a tonne of stuff to do and I know I get obsessive. I finished the first sock the very next day and tried to take a photo at my friend's house with her beautiful fluff-cat, let's take a look at how interested she was... 

Yes, it does have a slightly nipply toe - I forgot when you're doing a sort of top-of-a-hat-toe (that's deffo not the technical term) that you have to change the rate of decreases to every row at the very tip - I haven't done one for a while and we were in a really interesting conversation and I didn't want to have to stop and kitchener so I carried on regardless. Look where that got me. The bloke who I am making them for has much bigger feet than me so I'm hoping he fills them out a little better. 

Anyway, let me tell you about Regia. When you order most yarn you do it by number (smaller companies like Cygnet often know the names of the individual shades but Regia and Coats in general is blady massive so you can't expect them to know everything). When they come in to me, the only shade identifying info is the number but the numbers get ridiculously long, they're difficult to remember and mostly, they're just not inspiring. So I generally choose to either find out the names of the yarns or I choose the names myself. Regia is a German brand so all of the names are auf Deutsch. I make good use of google translate and get to the root of the issue and we end up with some stunners ('funny red' anybody? :)). Anyway, I am really excited by 'triggerfish' and 'rabbitfish' because really, what names for yarns?!!?!? They're both part of the Südsee range which appears to mean Pacific (sounds like South Sea to me???). Ahh, brings back memories of GCSE German and trips to Mainz in year nine. 

Anyway, imagine how excited I was when I found these lovely photos whilst translating colours:

That's a rabbit fish.

That's a trigger fish. 

And imagine how little my customers believed me when I said I was genuinely working and not just looking up pretty fish... Why would I look up pretty fish?!?!? 

I'm really not that sure how they got from those fish to the colours in the yarn but I'm not the one in charge here am I? I just choose the pretty colours that they provide. Brill!

Anyway, whatevs. It doesn't even matter what I think does it? All that matters is that you love the wool as much as I do and get some lovely socks with a ten year guarantee out of it!

So that's that - buy it by clicking here!

And now a bit of housekeeping...

WE WANT TO WIN ANOTHER AWARD. Or rather, actually win it this time, but we have to be in it to win it and we depend on you for that. It's the Knit Now awards and at the moment we have a month or so to get our name in to the competition, after that we'll hopefully be shortlisted and then you can vote again for us to win. I also think that it's fair that anybody that has benefited from our wool, and by 'benefited' I mean 'been in the same room as', also votes for us so that includes, husbands, wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, cousins, inlaws, outlaws, pets etc. etc. You get the idea.

CLICK HERE AND VOTE AND WE WILL LOVE YOU ALL LIKE OUR VERY OWN!

Secondly, I WANT TO GO TO SKIPTON. Or rather, 13 of you have now booked to go to Yarndale with  us and I need 18. The deadline is not until the end of June and we're pretty much there really because there's at least 10 more people who have said they will deffo be there so brill! But I need some money and I really want to go and I think it'll be a bloody brill day so get to it. 

CLICK HERE TO BOOK AND WE WILL LOVE YOU LIKE WE LOVE PORT!

Thirdly, I WANT TO BE ON THE TV AND FAMOUS. Or rather, I already bloody am!!!!!!!!!!! Can you remember when I was telling you about being on Sky News? Well, Charlie Brooker (married to Konnie Huq), was obviously listening and he only put me on his bloody program didn't he!?!?!? That's Charlie Brooker! BBC 2! And he wasn't taking the piss out of me!!! I was at the pub after pub knits at the time and things got a little silly - I don't think the bouncer was impressed when I shouted in his lughole but he let me off... Probably because I'm so bloody famous!!!

CLICK HERE TO WATCH AND WE WILL LOVE YOU MORE THAN SAUSAGE ROLLS!

That's it folks, it's twenty to nine and I haven't done any prep for the lesson tomorrow because a handsome man came to talk to me for the last hour of the shop being open and I couldn't bring myself to tell him to leave. Oooof. I'm regretting it now I want to go to bed. Oh well, a handsome man is a thing to behold ain't it!?

Love Eleanor. 

Your Yarn Shop Needs Your Votes

The new issue (18), of Knit Now magazine was published today and, for those of you who haven't seen it yet, it contains a little leaflet announcing their first ever awards.

You know where this is going, don't you. We want your votes! We need your votes! Just click on this linkydink and tell them WE are your favourite shop to buy yarn.

Please. Pretty please.

We were so thrilled when we came third in last year's Let's Knit awards, but this time we want to do even better.

Fleece prep or getting mucky on a Saturday morning

Hi Guys,

Now Eleanor has been asking me for some time for a more detailed post about how a prepare and dye fleece so today I will take you through the smelly bit and I will go into different dyeing effects in a later post. Saturday mornings are usually my fleece washing times simply because I tend to have the hot water on for other things as well, also hubby is often out the way so reducing the chances of me soaking him with a bucket of water!

Talking about buckets....I use a large flexible builders type bucket as it is easier to carry over to the garden to empty out and I have smaller buckets to half fill it.

FIRSTLY CAN I SAY THAT THIS RAW FLEECE , WEAR GLOVES AND CHECK THAT YOUR ANTI TETANUS JAB IS UP TO DATE....health warning out of the way, here we go ( BTW a close friend of mine found barbed wire in one pack of fleece so warning is needed)

So first step is to buy some fleece, usually I'm able to pick some up at the local guild or fibre festivals. I've made a few mistakes over the years but now have a better idea what to look for. I also have a copy of the Fleece and Fibre Sourcebook  which is pretty much a fleece bible with around 200 breeds photos of the locks, spun yarn, knitted and woven yarn. I have a couple of etsy and ebay sellers that I use as well.

This mornings package comes from an ebay seller that I have not used before but the combination of excellent feedback from people buying multiple lots of fleece, the half price sale and a small amount of money in my paypal account from selling some hand spun made me take a gamble. This pack contains 2KG of raw Romney Fleece.

Its pretty much the cleanest fleece I've seen for a while and a whole new breed for me to play with,  the book says that its easy to spin,dyes well and fine fleece can be used for sweaters, mittens , hats, shawls though prob not next to the skin soft unless lambs wool.This is a shearling, the first ever shearing of a sheep so pretty soft. No a whole fleece but the nice bits !!

Here you can see the length of the individual lock. As I have so much to play with, I pulled out around 500 grams, checked it wasn't felted at all and divided it into to large mesh washing bags.

I use a good squirt of fairy washing up liquid and very hot water the hottest water from the heater plus a kettle full of boiling water as I want to melt the lanolin as well as remove the dirt. The bags are placed in the water and left to soak, no agitation as I really do not want anything to felt.

After one or two really hot washes, usually max 15 mins each in winter temperatures and several hot rinses I'm let with cleaner fleece and my heart in my mouth as wet fleece never shows whether its felted or not and always looks really dark at the tips. Now for the next stage I generally cheat, I have an old washing machine and the spin programme does not squirt water onto the clothes or spin in both directions to settle the load. This makes it ideal for spinning out the water from the fleece.

So I tie the bags tightly and chuck them in and spin them one at a time.

Result, clean, damp fleece ready to go out on the line ( in the bag) or in a warm room to dry out though not today as I will be dying it first..............more about that in a later post.

If you have any question etc about spinning and fibres, please feel free to contact me through the shop email address.

Now I've bored you senseless, I will let you get back to usual knitting blog posts :-)

Sue

Settle Down.

Settle down and settle in with a cup o' char because this is going to be a long one and it's entirely my fault. 

Exactly one week ago yesterday I taught a crochet lesson. It's probably my favourite lesson to teach. If I'm honest it's because it's easy but mostly it's because there are a hell of a lot of people out there who have tried and failed to crochet and ended up frustrated to the point of tears. To be able to sort them out so easily is brill. A few days before, we'd started the sale and to replace the Cygnet DK (which was in the sale) we introduced the magnificent King Cole Pricewise DK (which still deserves its own blog post and I will...). Usually, on lessons, I use bits of leftover stuff to show them how its done but on this lesson I decided to use the Pricewise to test what it was all about. AND I FELL IN LOVE!!!! It's beaueaueaueaueaueautiful! A perfect acrylic yarn, nice and soft, lots of it, cheap - beauts! So, that evening, whilst watching Blandings and Call the Midwife (good old BBC), I sat and crocheted the bloody two balls. And then some more from stash. The next day I bought a couple of balls of Cygnet DK from the sale and crocheted some more. Oof! An idea! But, this is going to be too long a post to explain it here - suffice to say, I'm making three blankets almost exactly the same... Obsessive much? 

On Monday I spent a delightful day catching up with an old friend, eating the best steak ever, getting right royally drunk and crocheting squares (I also finally filled out my tax return!!!). If I'm brutally honest with myself the rest of the week followed suit. Not much work was done. 

THEN!

On Thursday I got a call from a lovely lady at the Federation of Small Businesses (a sort of union thing that we're part of with free legal advice!). She asked if I'd like to go on national t.v. and I was like 'well, maybe, yeah, what's it about?' but in my head I was like 'OMG OMG OMG OMG I'M GOING ON TV I'M GOING TO BE FAMOUS! PEOPLE WILL LOVE ME! THE SHOP WILL TAKE MILLIONS! GIVE!'. Anyway, it was sort of organised and I decided to dye my hair, put some make up and clean clothes on the next day (I made such an effort!). Then I went to the pub... In the morning I woke up early to wait for a phone call from London and low and behold at half past eight I got the fateful phonecall and it was all arranged - I was going to be on Sky News at half past ten! SKY NEWS! ME!?!?!?! So, I let everybody that I knew know and then I caught a taxi into town. 

I had to knock on a locked van door to speak to the camera man. Which felt awks. He set me up with a microphone and ear thing that didn't fit very well and then we waited. And waited. And waited. So I facebooked this photo:

I told him it was for Twitter and he looked a bit shocked that a LYSO would even know what that was... Mwahaha!

Then came my time to shine! And I can't really comment about it because I've only watched it once peeking out from behind my fingers. Ugh. The worst part about it is at the beginning. The cameraman didn't tell me when I was on and there were some kids making a noise in the square and my eyes kept wandering over to them and then I'd think 'oh no, I've got to be ready' so then I'd jump back to looking at the camera and smile. Ha. Oh god. What do celebrities do!??! Anyway - I'm going  to try and embed it here, hope it works:

We must thank Debra (of Jazzy Pants Creations) for this video because otherwise I'd never have known how big my chin is... He seemed to like my scarf though! :)

Yuck!

But I was on a massive high all day! I did some bits and bobs in town like the post, the bank, buying more bloody storage boxes, all with a massive smile on my face, and then I headed back to the shop - I think I was in for about half 12. Verity turned up and had a present for me! Only a granny stripe cowl that literally hasn't been off my neck since - in every colour that I LOVE!

Later on, Marsh Marsh rang to ask me for a celebratory drink and who am I to say no? It ended up being a messy night finishing at about five in the morning in a kebab shop speaking to Jake Bugg's cousin about Jamie Oliver... In the meantime, we took some drunken photos trying to get a good one of the cowl to share with Verity's Truly Hooked page. This is all we could come up with... but it does show the cowl and my bloody brill jumper to great effect!

Verity says she doesn't want photos of drunken farts on her wall. I say, Knit Nottingham wants all the drunken farts on their wall!!!

As you can imagine, I was in no fit state on Saturday so June came to the rescue and covered for me in return for me doing today. Which leads me to why I'm in the shop on my day off and how I've got so much done!!!!!!!!!

The first thing I did this morning was wait for the bloody bus for 40 minutes. Wrote a brill post on Trent Barton's wall about it because it meant I was too late to get to the Post Office to send off the last of the Cygnet DK which was bought last night by a woman in Wales who makes blankets for the homeless (her name is Eleanor too which makes her just about the best person I've ever spoken to I think...). Anyway - nearly 60 balls heading over Wales as we speak because June, stunner that she is, volunteered to take it to the Post Office this afternoon. Dead good seeing her rolling down the road with a box as big as her on a metal trolley thing. Especially when the wheel got stuck in the paving... 

In the meantime, I finally took down the last of the Christmas decorations and shiny stuff and did the window ready for spring - lovely blues, creams, baby pinks and greens. It also features a hyacinth plant bought by a good friend. Not flowering yet - perhaps I ought to water it? Anyway, here it is: 

Looks lovely and clean after the months of Christmas stuff...

Then we got a BIG order from King Cole (a few things that were missing were pretty crucial - in fact the reason for making the order - aye me!). But, most importantly, THE new yarn turned up! Bloody brill!!!!

It's the King Cole Opium which is a brand new cotton blend for this spring. It's got a big space in the window and there it is looking glamorous on the shelf. It's a proper grown up yarn and I cannot wait to get my grubby little mitts on it... Maybe tonight, though it's five past six and I've not finished here so maybe not... 

Anyway, it's on the internet here. And the patterns are on the internet here.  And I will get back to you when I've made the poncho (even if I've spent the last two weeks talking about how I don't like ponchos for one reason or another...). 

Dead good. 

And then, I realised that in all the excitement I'd forgotten that I'd order the four new colours in the beautiful Bamboo Cotton DK. I love each and every one of them but I must admit, it's been a subtly kind of an update hasn't it?

What's wrong with a good grass green King Cole!?

We don't currently have space for it on the shelf but I'm betting that because of the Cygnet DK all having sold, I could get some of the cottons out of the back cupboard and into the right hand one (which is apparently where 90% of consumers turn when they walk into a shop...). For now, it's being wonderfully displayed in a pile on the table:

Finally! I got the shock of my life t'other day when I got my electric bill. Well. Actually. It's not that bad because I am tight as anything and prepared to spend the whole day on the phone when I negotiate my contract but the lovely June had the bright idea of buying a cheaper heater! She nipped to Aldi today and here it is in all its glory:

I'd have given it a little kiss if I wasn't so fond of my lips. Lindsey who works across the road says it makes me glow orange but I think that might be the three carrots, two oranges and some cheese that I've eaten today. 

All in all, good job ey!? If I'd have just put the crochet down for a few minutes last week I would have been able to give you this update in little bits. But I didn't and now I'm one week and over 100 squares into my three identical blankets... 

Oooooooh! And before I forget. Last Monday, which was the boozey, steakey, friendy one, I bought some royal wedding memorabilia cups from Barnardo's. If you're on facebook you'll have seen them but if not - look!!!

Beauts aren't they!? If you ever come on a lesson that's what you'll be drinking from until I lose/break them all. 

Right, if you've reached this far you deserve a medal!

Love Eleanor. 

P.s. I'm too late to read through this so I hope it makes sense.... 

Three Important Things and some Pyjamas!

Wow. It's been quite a week. Culminating (well, for those of you who work a normal week...) in this bloody big snow storm. I think. Or maybe it's just snow. There's been so much 'snowpocalypse' malarkey on facebook I seem to have lost the ability to judge for myself what's normal. Just in case you've forgotten what snow looks like...

Can you see it? You can't really, can you? Suffice to say it's sort of round, white and cold and it. comes. from. the. sky!

Anyway, on with life... 

WE HAVE A BLOODY SALE ON! 

Those of you on facebook will be bloody sick of hearing about this but tough. Not everybody's as obsessive as us... Apparently. 

The first thing, and the thing that's going quickest is the Cygnet DK. Yes! The Cygnet DK! It feels like the end of an era. This is the first yarn that was fully in stock at the opening that we're getting rid of. And I am saaaaaaaaaad. See it in the glorious circle cabinet by clicking here. It's been a loyal favourite around here and there are some colours that I will be very sad to see go but I have my plans folks, plans, plans, plans (is there ever a blog post where I don't mention plans?). 

Here's the gossipy bit. For those who are interested: 

When I was a young (waaaaaaaaarthooooooooooooooooooooog) woman I worked at Indigo dry cleaners down on Upper Parliament Street. It was a bit of a shithole but we had delirious-on-the-fumes fun and I learned to press garments (a skill that has laid dormant since). When the recession hit, people tightened their belts on  dry cleaning and the shop went under. It was empty for years. Then I expressed an interest in it for the shop and all of a sudden it was under offer - sod's law. After about a year it opened as a charity shop. I'm all in favour of that. But, on the way home from knit club one night, I passed the shop and noticed that there was yarn in there! And the colours looked suspiciously like the Cygnet DK. Well I got up early the next day to check it out and it bloody was wasn't it!? For £1.95!!! 20p more expensive than we stocked it for. I was dead angry, I'm sure most of you have seen me in a rant-y mood and by god was I rant-y! Here's a very condensed version of why: I'm never happy about charity shops selling new goods anyway, what's the point? I thought it cheapened the brand (you might think differently). I thought that Cygnet should have showed more loyalty to a good customer. Why would anybody walk up a hill to come to my shop if they can get it smack bang in the middle of town? And how the bloody hell can they justify 20p more per ball than me!? Ugh. 

So I calmed down and rang Cygnet but they couldn't do anything - they weren't going to stop selling to a customer which I can understand, money is money ain't it? But they did keep saying 'oh well, they only stock a few colours'. I made it clear that I wouldn't be stocking any colours if they carried on there and they did. So that's that. I'm hoping that we can stick with them for other yarns in the brand but I am hearing some ugly rumours about other shops stocking it so, we'll see. We want to be different, we don't want to stock what everybody else stocks. That'd be sad wouldn't it? 

We've replaced the Cygnet DK with the King Cole Pricewise DK but that deserves its own little blog post so I'll just leave it there. Stunning green in the guacamole though - boom!

So that's the gossip. Now let's move on to something else/more interesting shall we?

Other yarns in the sale are the King Cole Wicked DK and the King Cole Shades DK and I think they're in for the same reasons - that they're maybe too bright for people? Each have their loyal followers but they haven't sold like I wanted them to and, being such a tiny shop (and, let's be honest, actually wanting to make some money), we can't afford to have yarns in stock that don't sell on a daily basis. I'm most sad to be seeing both of them go because the Shades is a beautiful yarn to work with and wear and the Wicked really caught my attention during the 80's fashion phase that we're having/have had. Anyway, I started a jumper in it on Tuesday that was supposed to be a Knit Club project but actually turned out to be an every-minute-of-the-day-when-I-can-possibly-justify-not-working kind of project. Beauts: 

Excuse the horrendous photography - it's getting dark and I'm planning a blog post about the jumper on its own anyway because it's all gone stupendously right (crossed fingers, touch wood). 

It's been described variously as fireworks, liquorice allsorts and a starry starry night (one of my favourite songs ever). :)

Anyway, there are jumpers worths left in both the Wicked and the Shades. Really, there are blankets worth which is apparently the name of the game in this weather (literally, eight blankets worth of sale yarn sold this week!). 

Moooooooooooooooving on...

I've confirmed the coach for our little trip to Skipton and I'll not shut up about it until all the places have been sold. There was interest from about 20 of you in the end and plenty of you said that you'd like to bring mothers, aunties, sisters, friends - me? I'm hoping you bring single, rich, handsome men who aren't scared of needles. Failing that, a bottle of port? You don't have to pay for a seat for the bottle - I'll look after it up front...

CLICK HERE TO BOOK!

I've settled on £24 with the hope that enough of you book for me to be able to pay for the parking when we get there (which will be about £50 for the day) and, if we're really lucky, the entrance into the place. But like I keep saying, it all depends on who books. I've given a deadline for getting the money to us as the end of June because that gives you six paydays from now to get everything together and gives me a good chunk of time to get my act together and pay the coach company after that. I can't emphasise enough that it won't happen unless we have enough people because I'd rather pay for yarn than a half empty coach. :)

I'm trying to think of other things I have to tell you. But I can't. All that's in my head now is to crochet this lovely jumper and watch things on T.V. I'm trying to work out if it's worth me going home? I can't think that it's going to be as bad as facebook seems to think and if all I would do is crochet at home then I may as well be here. So. Decision made. Though I would like to be wearing pyjamas. Would you judge me if I brought pyjamas in tomorrow? I have some beauts, courtesy of Cazza (the sister) and Sports Direct: 

That's Batman in case you can't see... And it says 'boom' all over it! BOOM!

Right, my lovely blogees, I'm offski,

Love Eleanor. 

A Possibility.

Right. You all know I'm an avid reader of the Attic24 blog and I love coach trips. Or you should know. Have a little look at this post and come back to me. 

Back? Right, settle down for a big bloody idea....

A KNIT NOTTINGHAM COACH TRIP!

For those who couldn't be bothered to read - there's a yarn-y type festival going on on the 28th and 29th of September in Skipton and Lucy of Attic 24 is going to be there as well as lots of little suppliers and yarn shops and designers etc etc. I want to meet LUCY! I WANT! I WANT! And I thought that maybe you lot would want to too?

I rang the lady who's contact number is on the Yarndale site and she was as lovely as I imagined those Skipton ladies would be. The price for entry to the show is £5 which is nice and cheap as far as yarn festivals go but they couldn't afford to do online processing so it'll be pay on the door. What we would have to pay for in advance would be the coach and it's a bloody nightmare getting prices for that. 

The only price I've been able to get so far is from Skills Coaches (incidentally the marvelous company who took me on holiday nearly a year ago, booked almost exactly a year ago - something about this time makes me want to get. away. Kwim?). Anyway, the price is £450 (at the most, maybe a little cheaper). This coach takes up to 40 people (I think he said) so the least we'd be paying each would be £11.25 for there and back. If 20 people booked then we'd be charging £22.50. 

Now, I've done as much research as I can (be bothered to do today...) with trains and, they won't let you book so far in advance anyway, but if the event were to happen this Saturday we'd be charged £12.00 one way and a return would be £24.00. The train includes two changeovers which I hate. But it's led me to conclude that I wouldn't want to be charging more than £25.00 per person which means we need at least 18 to make it worth anybody's while. We'd probably be looking at going on the 28th which is a Saturday. 

Are you following me?

It's also got to be much nicer travelling with a load of knitters/hookers with some choccers, fizzy pop and maybe a film on (I'm thinking Sightseers because I might have some bloody knitting in it! I'll tell you about that another day). Just close your eyes and imagine. 

Anyway, I don't think we'll make any money out of this, but I certainly don't want to lose any, so before we do anything serious, I need a good head count of who might be genuinely interested in going. The more of you go, the cheaper it will be and the happier I'll be but if we're getting less than 18 people interested then it's a definite no. Let us know here, on facebook, twitter  or e-mail us on knit AT knitnottingham DOT co DOT uk. You can talk at me in the face or in my lughole ((0115) 9474239) too if you want but don't expect me to remember if it's not written down....

I hereby declare that day booked off though because I'm going come hell or high water. Apart from really really really wanting to meet Lucy I don't really know why this has taken a hold of my heartstrings but it has. 

Anyway, let me know lovely readers. See you soon,

Love Eleanor. :)

Tickled.

Something tickled me last night. Not literally but figuratively. Which is nice.

Masa and I went to Verity's house for dinner - we had lasagne, chips, peas, chocolate (lots), tea from a pot and pink lemonade. Bloody marvelous readers, bloody titting marvelous! We watched Miranda (I think I may be her?! But without the two FIT men loving her... Can't wait for the next episode). Verity and I crocheted, Masa knitted. We bitched a little bit. Laughed a massive lot. And then the baby cried so I was left to appreciate Verity's ever growing stash (books and yarn to die for!) and two shawls sort of fell about me, which is what I want to talk about today.

Before Christmas, Verity came to me asking what to make for the MIL. She had some leftover Regia Laceweight in the beautiful Plums colourway and knew she needed to make some sort of scarf-y thing and that it probably needed to be triangular. I told her to make the gorgeous Elise Shawl which I thought was just perfect. Took me a while to persuade her. Then she tried it and it went tits up. Then I told her to try with the chart which I thought was much better written than the pattern pattern. And it worked. She made this beaut:

We hope it went down well but Verity couldn't gauge the reaction. 

She did however, fall in love with it and made another in some aran-ish handspun yarn that her sister bought her for Christmas on a MASSIVE hook: 

Look how different it looks!

And then just after Christmas, I logged onto facebook and saw that she's only gone and done it again, hadn't she?!

This time in the Wicked DK and something from stash which is the equivalent of our Cygnet DK. Beauts?!

So, yesterday, I had to set out early early early in the morning, I had an appointment at half past bloody eight which is about half and hour before I usually get up. I grabbed any items of clothing I could and just happened to include in the maelstrom, my version of the Elise Shawl:

(That's my dad. I'll tell you the story. I was blocking this beaut on a spare bed, he heard me, decided to be a wanker, and lay right down on it. I had to roll him over to get the pins on that side in place. I took a photo and put it on facebook and rav. He wasn't very happy. I told him it's his own pissing fault for being such a wanker. I'm now making it my lifes mission to disseminate the photo as widely as I can. That'll teach him). 

It's not quite so well blocked now, it's been a while and I rarely reblock scarves. 

So, Verity's first shawl was out of the house but the purple aran, the green dk and my foresty-kinda-berry coloured laceweight were all in the same room. At. The. Same. Time. 

COLOUR ME TICKLED!

So, whilst Verity was doing a sterling job of keeping the next generation content, happy, comforted and sleepified, I took a load of really shit photos with the flash on her lovely patchwork blanket. I'll share them with you. 

One of the loveliest things about seeing something worked in lots of different weights is the different aspects of the pattern that show up. I really thought that the most important part of this pattern were the 'shells', like the actual crochet parts rather than the holes. Turns out, when you see it done on a massive needle that the most important parts are the flowers that are created by the holes:

Once you can see it in one shawl, you can see it in them all: 

Once I'd got over that excitement - I moved on to cat porn: 

I didn't get to see my favourite of V's cats - a massive ginger tom called Ollivander (the girls are Minerva and Ginevra. Geek) but the girls are sweet, affectionate and purr like you wouldn't believe. 

We rounded off the evening by preparing for Masa's hot date tonight. She won't thank me for this photo but I think you lot might: 

Note the beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyoooooooootiful Humping Reindeer Hat. 

So that's that folks, I thought I might say something more interesting than I have. Instead I've splurged a little of the inside of my head. I have been making tea cosies and I will share them with you soon, once ends are sewn in. And I'm still working on my new year's resolutions - I don't think it's a bad thing to take my time because I'd like a more successful haul in my next years 'have I done my resolutions?' post. 

Lastly, and most importantly, I'm trying to work out if I'm allowed to eat a proper greasy chicken and mushroom pasty today even though I had a sausage sandwich and a bucket of chocolate yesterday? Thoughts? Suffice to say, I'll have had it by the time you answer so please be positive... 

Love Eleanor. :)

P.s. I forgot to say. I was also tickled by the fact that V and I were both crocheting with the new shades of the Galaxy DK (which haven't yet made it onto the internet yet - that's a job for today...). I was making a tea cosy and V was making some sort of small triangular shawl that you might have heard of.... Here's a photo of the new colours in case you missed it/aren't on facebook: 

I think I may finally have found love. 

P.P.S It has now reached the internet - click here for the Galaxy DK.

And I've also added the Knit Now magazine because we're now a stockist and this is dangerous for me because it's all I want to read all day.....