King Cole Big Value Super Chunky Tints

Hi Blogettes,

Apologies! HUGE apologies! The blog has suffered in the maelstrom that has been my life since I got back off my week away (and that's not much different to how it was before to be fair...). It's exactly two weeks since I last wrote a blog post but fear not! I have four (maybe five) blogs to write today. This is my one and only job. Kind of. Once I've got this one done, I'm going to check e-mails and sort orders and then I'm back writing, writing, writing. They're all salesy kind of blogs but I'll try and keep it light so it's not all like 'gimme your money' but naturally, gimme your money. Haha.

It's been a funny kind of two weeks - it's payday and it's October so everybody's up and knitting but we've had the scaffholding up for a week and two days now (helpfully put up during a lesson - bang, crash, wallop and builders singing badly to radio muzak. Ugh). So, I've had lots of regulars coming in and not many people off the street which has been a sweet kind of catchup for me. Often, nowadays, I'm too busy with customers and other stuff to take time to chat. I kind of miss the first few years where I spent a lot of time knitting and hanging around and having fun. But there was always a nagging feeling that I should be doing *something* even if I didn't know what it was. Now I have less time to knit and chill and there's a nagging feeling that I should be doing *something* and I know exactly what it is - recalibrating internet stuff, writing blogs, filming vlogs, making orders, writing patterns, tidying, accounting. Ahhhhh. A million things that don't even get done when they're written on a to do list. IMAGINE THAT! There's a relaxed sweetness to knowing that I can pay my rent though, which was nowhere to be seen when we first opened. Ha. Swings and roundabouts.

No idea where that little tangent came from. Shall we talk about wool?

 

King Cole Big Value Super Chunky Tints

And I love it. LOVE IT!

When I first opened the shop I was all about 4ply, even 2-ply. I still am to an extent but I also have noooooo time now. And sometimes it's just good to finish a project isn't it? And one that looks this good:

Boom. (Toni is thrilled about that angle...). This is the pattern number 4286 and I love it. I didn't realise whilst knitting and making up and even admiring it on Toni that there is a secret owl. Well done Jazz for pointing it out!

How cute is that?

I've already done a vlog about this - it's here. It's much easier to smash out a vlog and then have it uploading whilst I'm doing other stuff (sorry, blog readers, but do subscribe to us on Youtube because it does seem to be the way I'm going right now...). I did that when I first got the yarn so excitement was high but I hadn't yet had time to actually play with the yarn. And none of you lot had either. So it was me talking about the wool and the colours and hoping for the best. Now I've had time to actually work with it I can confirm how much I love it. Oooooh, I can also share a top tip for super chunky! It is possible to thread this onto a sewing up needle - you just have to squash the end so it's like a flat point - but I don't even bother with that. Usually, the gauge of the piece is such that you can use your fingers to push and pull the yarn through to sew it together with your fingers! Certainly means that You can get a little sewing up done in the most unexpected of places - in a queue, on a bus, waiting for the nephew to finish on the loo... All sorts of places and then it gets done! Woo!

Anyway, the colours are superb. I was a bit put off by the browny one - Cappuccino, but I've now seen it worked up along with the Autumn Leaves in a chunky striped garter stitch blanket and I like that too! Talking of blankets, new crocheter, Rachel has used it to make the most perfect blanket: 

That's the Thistle colourway, just under ten balls for a single bed size blanket in the Granny Stripe pattern with a lovely, subtle shell edging. Heaven. I just love how she's presented it too. Ahhhh.

I've got a few new customers recently that are smashing out the crochet.  Really exciting to meet people who have a natural talent so that you have no idea where they'll end up. Rachel is definitely one of them. :)

So you can see, the stripe it pretty subtle. And I think that's what makes it work. Super chunky has a tendency to look brash and chunky-crayon-y, do you know what I mean? So combining it with these lovely subtle colourways just calms it down a little to make a useable and relateable yarn. I know it's become one of my favourites because if somebody comes into super chunky it's not necessarily the first thing I go for - this means it's a staple, something that's here for the long run - it also means I don't have to sell it, which is great because I hate selling - I like chatting and imagining and daydreaming until a new project just pops out of the ether. Ahhhh.

Now, you can find all of the colourways by clicking here - King Cole Big Value Super Chunky Tints.

And you can find the appropriate patterns that King Cole have provided by clicking here.

And if you want to hear me chatting more about it, and going through the colourways one by one - click here.

And I think that's it! There's probably more to say about it but basically, it's beautiful, it's soft, it's kind of stripey, it works for knitting and crochet, it's very popular. That's all you need to know aint it?

Love Eleanor. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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

A holiday!

Phew! I had a week off and it was SO needed! I hadn't realised until a couple of weeks ago that I'd not had a week off this year. I usually have one in May but that didn't happen because I couldn't afford a holiday after buying the business partners out and then I usually have one in July but couldn't justify it because the shop was so busy and I had too much to do. I've had a long weekend off and I've been more savvy about lessons so I often get two days off when there are bank holidays but there's something about having a whooooooole week off isn't there? It's not going to be a long blog this, because I did nothing! Well, nothing that I can talk about really. But I'll just update you on the important bits like cake. :)

So I had a million little jobs to do. Like get to the bottom of the laundry pile that's been getting worse and worse for weeks because Chris only washes his own clothes and uses mine to make up a load, the big bastard. So I did my clothes (and his because I'm not a wanker) and all the towels on a hot wash because he doesn't do that either... That took a couple of days because there was nowhere to dry.

I then got out all of the projects that I haven't finished and decided to finish one. It's a blanket in the Drifter and the Authentic that I've been doing for a while, not that long really, a couple of months. I started it because the chair that Toni sits in in the living room doesn't have a blanket and it feels sad. And she's always cold. I don't have a proper photo of it sadly, but here it is with her on my bed:

That was all done and dusted by the second day - ends sewn in, blocked and dried. Have I ever told you how quickly the Drifter and Authentic dry? I think it's to do with the acrylic content. Perfect for t'babbehs and for blankets. Boom.

By the second day, I'd started my main project for the week. Which is one that I can't really tell you about but I can show you my office for the day:

I can't tell you how much I enjoy working outside but it wasn't warm enough to stay for long. Oh well. This was the day I made my first cake:

It's a chocolate beauty with homemade jam in the middle and nutella on top because Chris ate the chocolate that was going there, the bugger. Turned out surprisingly well and was mostly gone by the next morning....

The second cake was.... slightly less brilliant - mostly because I made it up:



A general cake with an orange smashed up in in. I baked it for longer than normal because it was wettish and it turned out fine. Marmalade in the middle and icing made with icing sugar and orange juice:



Chris didn't like it as much so it lasted longer than an evening...

And the final sweet bake of the week was my orange meringue pie! Toni and I had decided to make a chicken pie one of the days (and Chris has a bean burger pie that we made him) and they turned out great. So we decided that there should be more pies in the house and went through the pie book that my mum bought for Chris last Christmas or for his birthday or something. Anyway, of course it was supposed to be a lemon meringue pie but we didn't have enough lemons so I did oranges instead with a bit of lime juice to make up for the acidity. So far so good. But the orange bit was thickened with corn flour which we always have in the cupboard but we didn't this time. In my head though, custard powder is mainly corn flour so I put that in instead, and again, not as bad as you think! The problem came when in the book they told me to use cling film on the pastry for the blind bake BUT THAT SHIT JUST MELTS! It melted into the pastry! Is that right?! Is that normal!? Isn't it supposed to be baking parchment?! Who knows! I salvaged the pastry that I could, so there was less than there should be and carried on regardless. I'm gonna call that extra plastic nutritious. The real problem was that I left it too long in the oven, only like two minutes but apparently that matters.



Hmmmmmmm. I didn't like it but Chris did so let's hope it's gone by the time I get in.

This also happened:



I can't tell you what it is, what it's made out of, what it's going to be or when. But you can just appreciate the back of fairisle because it's good isn't it!? Even better now it's blocked. I kinda want to use the back instead of the front. Hmmmm. We'll see. More later, hopefully this week.

On Thursday the freezer broke properly so I persuaded Chris to get a different and better and smaller one. Which made space for a shelf or two in the little out housey thing that he has. And I filled it full of my favourite things!

 Wine, beer, drills, chutney and plants. No wool though, I have other shelves for wool. 

And finally, I'm getting to the end of the glut of tomatoes. It's been ridiculous! Absolutely ridiculous! I have enough for a salad tonight, some made into sauces in the freezer (about three big tuppawares full), some still on the plants red and more green, and then a big bucket of green ones. And I've got down enough that I'm not longer feeling overwhelmed. I also pulled up the last courgette plant to make way for the pumpkin plant which doesn't seem to be doing great but what do I know?

And that's about it. I left the house once to get drunk and come back and demand chocolate. Apart from that I sat in bed and knitted, washed the dishes, baked things and generally did nothing. How perfect is that!?

This week I promise to get my Yarndale blog finished and I want to talk about some of the new stuff that's in and the patterns and I want to get back to Pattern of the Week. Ahhhhhh. So much to do, so little time, feeling a lot more like I can cope with it.

Love Eleanor. xxxxxx

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!

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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!

Brand New Bumper Boucle

I am absolutely overwhelmed by the response to yesterday's post. It was really hard to write and it was a long time coming but the amount of people that have read it it astounding and the people that took time to comment and come up with suggestions really made my day. I must admit, everybody around me is pleased that I did it, Chris in particular. He gets the brunt of hungry, tired, overworked me and I'm pleased to be able to do something for him. So far it's worked! Only one lady was here when I got in a few minutes early and she's not a blog reader so... we can but hope that this is for the long term. Fortunately we've also been pretty busy in the shop so the tidying isn't where I hoped it might be but I have managed to get something pretty cool on t'internet so let's move this on shall we??

WHAT DO WE WANT?! MORE BLOODY WOOL!! WHEN DO WE WANT IT?! NOW!!

Okay!

Cygnet Bumper Boucle!

How cute is that? It's got to be the most beautiful colour that I've ever seen in my life. So beautiful I had to cast on a jumper:

It's taken like.... two days? Spread over a few days because of how manic the shop is and teaching a lesson and... stuff. But seriously. 12mm needles? Cropped jumper? No excuses not to get in done in less than a week, no matter how slow you are.

There's no pattern for this and I don't suppose that these photos make you want to jump up and cast on straight away but if you want to know how it was made. Well, my gauge was 2 stitches per inch. I measured my wrist and multiplied that by two to get the amount of stitches to cast on. Then I measured the top of my arm and multiplied that by two to work out how many stitches I should end with. And I knew I ought to get my increases done pretty quick, so I increased at each end of every 4th row. When I got to the length that I wanted on my sleeve, I cast off three stitches at each side and then decreased a stitch at each end of every right side row until it seemed like the right length for a raglan. That turned out to be 7 sets of raglan decreases. Which meant that once I'd made my other sleeve, I could start the body really easily. Measure my bust, multiply by two for the cast on, rib a bit, knit a bit, cast off three stitches at each end and then work seven sets of decreases for the raglan. For the neck I cast off a few stitches in the middle of the of the row when I first started my sleeve shaping, then decreased on every right side row at the side of that and at some point, between the neck shaping and the sleeve shaping I ended up with no stitches and I fastened that off and boom. Then I sewed up a sleeve to the front and the front to the next sleeve and that sleeve to the back, basically everything but one raglan seam, and then I picked up stitches all around the neckline, decreased a little bit on the first row of rib (thought I wish I'd decreased a little bit more), another row of rib and it was ready to cast off. Sew up the final raglan seam, sew up the sides and sleeves, sew in the ends, take some stupid photos. And boom.

Anyway, that's the jumper and it's lovely and warm and I can't wait to wear it with a skirt that it actually suits and maybe get some proper photos (me and Chris are going on a date on Saturday so maybe I'll persuade him then...).

Back to the wool. This is super chunky. This is super bloody chunky. And I love it! If you've worked with the Gypsy then it's a similar sort of weight to that and actually, the texture and colours are not dissimilar but it is very much softer. OOOOOOOOOH. Soft. This is the thing that sells this wool, how bloody soft it is. Like a cloud! Like a baby's bum! Like an angel's armpit hair!

Bluegrass - Cracker - Frisee - Tea

Kale - Waterweed - Dock - Willow

How cute are those colours? But so much richer and more gorgeous in real life, I'll try and show you:

Phwooooooooar!

I think lots of experienced knitters are almost a little scared of superchunky. Metre for metre it's not the most cost effective way of knitting, but it is super satisfying and sometimes we need satisfying. Like a good kebab or a bottle of wine or a second bar of chocolate. It's naughty. It's not right. But sometimes it's just what we need. So I've done a rav search for you which you can find by clicking here.

But here are a few that I think stand out:

Quick Slip Cowl

 

Broomstick Lace Infinity Scarf.


Hanging Basket.

Sentiment Shawl

Oohoohohoh. It's been a while since I took some time to wander/wonder around ravelry. That website really is bloody good isn't it??! Especially when you know how to do it well - have you seen out vlog about it?

So that's it! A brand new super chunky - Cygnet Bumper Boucle - 100g - 60m - £4 - beautiful colours - stupidly soft - boom!


Love Eleanor. xxxx

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.