Holiday Knits!!!!!

If you've been into the shop over the past week or so you will know that I am going on holiday. I am joining the grannies and going on a coach tour to Bournemouth in early May! I am over-the-moon-hippy-hoppy-happy-knock-me-down-with-a-feather-and-call-me-Wilbert-excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I haven't been anywhere but Nottingham for at least four years (I don't think... at least, I can't remember) so excuse me while I do a little happy dance. It's all down to June of course, who needs massive, humongous, big, cuddly, scrumptious love for allowing me to get some downtime without the bloody nephew.

This is the hotel and I can't work out whether to be worried about the reviews or not. I think as long as there are no stains on the bedsheets I'm happy really. Doesn't it look wonderfully dilapidated!?!? I'm hoping that the whole thing is going to be a lot like this which is one of my favourite programmes. Ever.

So, dead excited. But naturally, before I'd even booked the thing I was wondering what I might need to knit before I get there and what project I could take for while I'm there.

Obvs, I have a mind-queue as long as the phone book even if I'm not so good at getting that on rav but there's one project that popped into my mind the very day we opened. That's the 4th of September 2010. That's 552 days. 13248 hours. 794880 minutes. 47692800 seconds. Give or take... And it still makes my heart skip a beat with excitement about how fabby-dabby-spiffy-wiffy-delicious it's going to be!! (What's with all the ridiculous words today? I'll try to stop...).

BEHOLD THE MYTHOS!

Isn't it a stunner!? I've knitted it before in some scrumptious 4ply Noro in greens with a hint of grey and pink and I love it, it's my go-to summer evening cardigan even though it's getting on for four or five years old... I gave you the back view because I would like to be her right there: sun, green, lovely cardi, bike! What more could you ask for?!

This time, I'm going to make it in the Riot DK in the 'Bling' colourway (boy, oh boy, I hate the names they've given those colourways...). It's golds and oranges with a hint of camel here and there. Sounds pretty vile ey? But it isn't and I love it!

I can't even remotely get the colours to look as bright and vivid as they do in real life but what I'm thinking is, and don't tell me if I'm mad, won't that colourway look fab with a deep navy blue!? Oh ho ho yes! Which almost leads me on to what I'm also going to make before I go away, but forgive me, I forgot that I'm wearing the bloody cardi today! Maybe I should reword the above bit so I can look like less of a tit but I won't, you already know the truth...



What a photo ey! I really will write a blog complaining about o2 and Three explaining why I don't even have a bloody phone to take a photo on before this month is out. Let me get the so-angry-I-want-to-rip-someone's-arm-off out of my system first though...






So. Navy. I've told you before how much I love the Navy in the Bamboo Cotton. Oh me, oh my!!! But I don't think I've told you how much I love this pattern - King Cole, 3491,well, really, any of the new summer patterns, but that one in particular:

Terrible picture - I know, I know - damn you o2 and Three in combination!

It's a t-shirt shape with stocking stitch on the bottom and a simplish lace pattern on the top. I haven't actually ready the pattern but it looks to be a six row repeat so I'm sure it won't blow my mind.

That. In navy. Oh yes! Brilliant little summer top ey? And even better in combination with my orange stripy Mythos!

I'm going to write another blog about what I'm going to knit when I'm there because there are three options and I might need your input so I'll explain my thoughts fully and for now, I've got a bloody greyhound to crochet...

(Actually the greyhound is finished now - lots of stuff just got in the way before I posted this...).

Love,

Eleanor. :)

International Women's Day

Today is the day we celebrate the achievements of all women, great and small, as well as reflecting on how far some women have still to go in order to have equal rights.

There's lots of things going on in Nottingham, including this event at Nottingham Women's Centre.

In addition, there are other events over the next week all around the city. Details of these can be found here.

We hope you can find something of interest and, if not, at spend at least part of the day thinking about women worldwide.

June. xx

Hello Spring!

I know it's not Spring but I got a bit excited when I finished the last (bloody) greyhound and we had an order in from King Cole so I decided to spend the last two days moving the shop around! The DK is now (mostly) by the door. I couldn't quite squeeze the Heritage in. The 4ply and the patterns are across from the window:

 and the aran,  chunky and superchunky are all behind me. 

 Look at all those wintery colours - bye bye winter!

I think it all makes sense now anyway.

Also - look what two of my best friends did: 

Don't those little bits and bobs look sweet a-hanging there?? One of my missions over the next few weeks is to get a good few more baby/kids bits knitted up for the shop. When I get ten minutes ey?

Also - the red, white and blue yarn at the top left is an exciting prospect and I will tell you more soon. All in good time folks, all in good time.

Love Eleanor. :)

P.s. I promise a big ranty post some time before the end of this week. :)

Guzzisue felting not spinning ????

Hi guys,

From time to time we have natural coloured roving in the shop to use with drop spindles. It always amazes me the range of shades that you can obtain from different sheep and I try to include greys and browns when putting together one of our spindle bags for the workshops.
As you can imagine, my stash at home is less yarn and more fibre and I will post photos soon that demonstrate that point. My OH is getting used to seeing a sheeps fleece sharing the clothes dryer at this time of year!!
This leads me into a few more posts about using fibres for things about knitting, If you are an ardent knitting fan than this may not be for you but it you are a bit of a crafter, embroider a bit, like to play with things....the read on :-)

So we start with some felted bowls.......yes, those are balloons inside the felt




Pop the balloon, tidy up the edges




the red one works well,



the three grey natural ones look fantastic when placed inside each other.




So, does any one want any further info on how to do this? Just ask and I will sort out a tutorial.

Sue x

A Mediterranean Orchard

I have hated this past winter, it seemed to go on forever and, despite the lack of snow, has been mighty cold. So, to cheer myself up, I've planted a Mediterranean orchard. Even though I don't have a garden.

On my living room window sill I now have a lemon tree

an olive tree

and a fig tree.

These are making me very happy, as will the avocado (if I manage to sprout the stone!)

I'm really looking forward to drinking a G&T with a slice of homegrown lemon, while nibbling on homegrown figs and olives, and knitting. I think the avocado may take some time...

colour surprise part two

So how do I get the colour onto the fibre in the first place?? here's a quick photo guide, the fibre is wonderful organic merino ( which I must stock up on at Wonderwool) and I'm using acid dyes. All apparatus is kept for DYE use only and it is recommended to wear a mask when the dyes are in powder form. Gloves should be worn although I have been known to go to the day job with purple/blue nails.

 so now its ready to spin or maybe felt......more about felting later Sue xx

colour surprise

 Hi, so you buy some of that lovely coloured fibre to spin on a wheel or spindle, the surprise is always how it turns out :-)

 

see, it's magic, innit !!

Sue xx

Booze, Booze, Booze, Booze.

When we first started we were always going on about booze-ups with the shop. It seems to be a bit of an American thing - I guess that's the friendliness that they have inside of them. Isn't there a little story about how you can tell the difference between Americans and the English because if you're the only person on a bus and somebody gets on, the American will sit next to you but the English person will sit as far away as possible? Anyway, booze-ups (or not, no forcing booze on people...).

We've had a few. We did one for Halloween the first year, then I think a Christmas one, and one for Knit in Public last year (which was my very favourite!) and then we had one on Wednesday night.

It was bloody brilliant! We booked a room at Fade and the Hard to Find Cafe so that we wouldn't have to sit near non-knitters (oh the horror!). We set up a facebook event and a ravelry event and we told as many people as we could in the shop and it all worked wonderfully. I think we had close to 20 people all sitting there knitting, spinning, crocheting or just generally chatting. There was a lot of advice and inspiration floating through the air. And true to my rav name, I got a little tipsy. Sue, June and I stayed later to tidy things up and finish our drinks and as we made our way out I did a little dance here and there (as you do) but there were two miserable looking ladies giving me funny looks sat in the front window. If you can't have a little jiggle and a wiggle on a Wednesday night after you've had the best part of a bottle of wine and a lovely night out with friends, then when can you? I hope they cheered up later on!

Isn't it a mark of a good night out that there are literally no photos? Too busy having fun! But I'll give you this one which was taken just before we set out:

Oh yes, it's a double headed jumper commission... don't ask...

So, it went well and we think we'll do more. We're going to aim for about every other month for now and maybe have themes? What do you think??

Love Eleanor. :)

An Effort.

This is the little surprise I talked about a couple of days ago. We're going to make an effort to blog every single day in March.

We've been a little lacklustre with the blog for a few months now. I'm not entirely sure why. It's quite exciting doing a post: gathering photos, summing up thoughts, trawling your brain for ideas. I even quite like the writing aspect of it. It's been a long time since I've thought about colons, commas, semicolons, not that I'm very good...  I tend to make things up as I go along. My English teacher, the lovely Mrs Sidery, called it poetic license but I'll call it lazy grammar.

Anyway, we've not been blogging much so our task this coming month is to write a post every single day. I can't make much of a promise for photos - my phone has gone kaput, the story of that might well be one of my blogs if I run out of yarny stuff to tell you...

And wouldn't you know? That's a blog post done!

See you tomorrow.

Love Eleanor. :)

Today...

... I would rather be doing anything but crocheting another. bloody. greyhound.

Starting next week, I have a little surprise for you and I hope that you'll like it but before I commit myself I'm going to see if I can come up with some real and solid ideas.

Love Eleanor.

P.s. Sorry for the absence. I've missed you.