Wedding Prep!

Vezza is getting married! I must have mentioned it here somewhere? Ahhhhh, yes, I'm a bridesmaid and I wrote a bit about making my own dress in this post here. I've done nothing. Literally nothing for her. Ugh. Bad bridesmaid. I did go wedding dress shopping (twice I think?) and then I was there to occupy t'babbeh during the fitting and we went shopping for earrings and some AMAZING makeup (seriously, it's eye shadow, eye liner, blusher, lipstick and NAIL VARNISH depending on what you put with it and I for one am going to use it in every single capacity during the wedding - call me the Tin Man).

But this weekend I did do something finally. I helped Vezza make the bouquets. Funnily enough there's not a lot of homemade stuff in the wedding - you expect everything crocheted wouldn't you? But I think Vezza's too stylish for that and the whole thing has come together in a matter of months so there hasn't been enough time. The dress, shoes, veil etc. are all very English rose and bought from shops, hubby-to-be has sorted the suits and buttons holes, the venue itself is doing the decorating (including seasonal flowers for the middle of the tables <3 nbsp="" p="">
The hen do is a bit difficult with a three month old so it was never a question of a booze up outside of the house and then other options were things like spa days but the other bridesmaids and female guests are scattered around the country and work lots and.... blah blah blah... we never got a real thing organised. I think Verity's doing something with her mum and the other bridesmaids that involves pampering but I'm a bit anti-social, I've got no money and I work every hour that god sends so we decided that our hen do - just us two - was going to be wine and making the bouquets! Brill!!!!

AND WE EXCELLED OURSELVES! Even if I do say so myself. Look!

There was always going to be some crochet!

We started like this:

Verity has some lovely customers... not as lovely as mine obvs... but lovely nonetheless and lots of them contributed crocheted flowers in the colour scheme knowing that it would be part of the bouquet. They came from all over the world - seriously! V was talking about Italy and America and... Devon! :)

We poured some prosecco and sewed in all of the ends:

Then we started attaching the big ones to each end of a piece of wire - just poking it through and twiddling with the ends and the smaller ones each had their own wire:

The cat enjoyed this:

At around about this point, the husband to be marched in - gave us loads of food, had a political rant, told us we could have more wine, took a shower and headed back out of the door. That's why she's marrying him. :)

A beef sausage roll of some sort. Delicious.


Then we carried on.


There were a few flowers that we thought needed a bit of a showcase - some from Iris (both mine and Verity's customer so she must be extra brill!) in teeny tiny crochet cotton (and there were four and we were making four bouquets!!!), one from the lady at Fleabubs Handmade by Lala that had all sorts of colours in and some pom poms - there were only three of those though so I quickly knocked up another:

Slightly misshapen so it went in my bouquet - by this time I was getting tipsy...



So we sorted the flowers into a pile for Verity and then a pile for the rest of us and we got on with making the hers - it's the most important afterall. She chose all of her favourites and put them together and promptly took about half of them out - these things are heavy you know! It's just a shame that they were all so lovely! The ones that she didn't use in the end were popped back onto the bridesmaid pile.



She bent the wires with two flowers in half and arranged them as she wanted, filling up the spaces with the individual flowers on wire and finally placing the pom pom and Iris' flower.

Once she was happy we wrapped the stem in some green florist's tapey stuff and then a big cushiony layer of yarn, some more florist's tape and finally some white stretchy lace. This was twirly wirly fun:

And then. It was done. And Vezza let me pretend I was getting married:

Amazing, yes?!


But we weren't done... Oh no. Wine first, obvs:

Whilst baby was having her dinner we split the remaining flowers in roughly equal piles (mine's a bit bigger because I'm a bit bigger so I need more to balance. Also, I was bloody making them. Haha). And started preparing them in the same way - less photos this time because I was squiffy and I think V was too, we'd already done it once and it was getting on for dinner time... But look!
 

Aren't they just perfect!?!? Seriously! Love!


Dinner was Chinese which filled a little hole but I was so drunk by about 9.30 that it was deffo home time. I left Vezza dancing to Sean Paul in the living room. What a night!


And then here are some random photos that I couldn't fit into my story:

We used Alf's toy pliers! :)

Some rainbow sock yarn that may end up in your favourite yarn shop of all time.... 

The girls at Knit Club, especially Jem, will appreciate us trying to keep our bubbles in with a spoon. Not sure if it worked, we were too busy to notice - the prosecco was purely for energy not enjoyment. 

I (secretly) tried on the wedding shoes. Haha. Love wedding shoes and hand knitted socks... 

And not so secretly tried on the veil - I don't really have enough hair, or class, for one of these....

Verity's got a teeny, tiny, Fleabubs hook on the end of her bouquet and apparently it's the perfect size for doing up the teeny, tiny buttons of the back of her dress. :):):):)

Vezza's been knitting this for Alf!!!! I've got to sew it up. I've no idea where I put it in my drunken state. I will find it. I think there was Chinese grease on the camera lens...

And that's it! Good story yes!? I'll certainly be sharing some photos of the wedding here and other places but the husband-to-be is a bit more private than us two so he'd like to keep some stuff to himself. I'll follow Vezza's lead but I know so many of you are interested seeing as she's like my second in command. Haha.

Right - off to answer more e-mails - we've been atrocious this weekend (as in, I've not been here so nothing got done ;) ) so I'm sorry if you're waiting on me. I'm trying my best!

Love Eleanor. xxxxxxxx

We have new yarn.

And I really need to be doing the window. But I'm not. I'm crocheting with the new yarn. I think this makes me both a brilliant and a terrible yarn shop owner. So I'll settle for an okay one. Haha. Look:

 

It's perfect isn't it!? Isn't it just blooming perfect. *sobs with happiness*. 

It doesn't look quite like that now, I've sold two jumpers worths and about 15 one balls and I took one of every ball of the green shelf for my new project. I'll show you in a minute but first I ought to introduce the yarn, yes?

King Cole Merino Blend DK. 50g, 112m, 100% pure new wool, £3(!!!!!!!!) Three whole pounds! Now that is a price!

This replaces the Cygnet Merino Superwash DK that was a massssssssssive favourite of mine, so much so that I callously ignored the Merino Blend every time they came out with a new colour. Gold?!? Nah, we've got gold. Copper?! Nah, we've got copper. Beautiful, deep, luscious olive green!? Don't need it, don't tempt me. Until suddenly (and funnily enough it coincided with Cygnet starting to sell in charity shops...) I decided that I needed more more more colours in a Merino DK. We've stocked the aran version for a long while and it's just brilliant - strong, bouncy, hefty but not too heavy and WASHABLE and then I found out that there are 43 colours in the DK as opposed to about 15 and I was there. Looks like you lot love it as much as I do.

Vezza certainly does - seven balls bought yesterday for two beautiful projects:

So, you know how I've made my new year's resolution to make a knit and crochet shop sample in each yarn? Well, I was looking at the green shelf yesterday and I was thinking how lovely a big ripple wrap would be set out much like the colours in my mohair dress - can you remember?

So like, slowly introduced? Yeah? I'm sure there must be a word for that.

But something else that's been playing on my mind is the Summer Dress that I made about a year ago (is it that long!?!?):

I must drag that out from it's hiding place. It's almost time to wear it and I bet it would look brill with my galaxy cardi! ARGH! CLOTHES! NEWISH (or at least forgotten about...) CLOTHES!

So the obvious choice was to start one in the Merino DK. Yeah? :) I've made some changes:

• I used a smaller hook - if it's going to be in wool it may as well be warm.
• I chained far too few at the beginning but I'd crocheted two balls by the time I'd realised so it's staying. Which leads me onto: 
• I'm going to make it into a pinafore. I've no idea exactly how but to that end I've chained four under the armholes so that it looks a bit more pinafore-y. 
• I'm not doing the ripple because I couldn't work out how to introduce the new colours without there being a big step and the yarn is so smooth that there's absolutely no fuzziness to hide that like there was in the mohair. 
• To introduce a new colour I am going from tr's all around to 2htr's, 2dc's and then a sl-st, breaking and finishing that colour off. Then I'm going back on myself with the new colour and working 2 dc's into the htr's and 2htr's into the dc's and then carrying on. Does that make sense?
  
  
  
  
  
  Anyway, it looks like nothing at the mo but I think I've made the decision not to do the window today which means that the Valentine's stuff stays up but really - it's just like a big heart for wool so it matters not. AND I do have to keep my skills in tip top condition and I do have to 'test' the new yarn AND making samples sells loads of wool so I think I'm making the right decision. Besides, I did wash the windows, fill three shelves, answer some e-mails and serve customers today. I think I'm allowed, maybe? And now I've written a blog. :)
  
  Love Eleanor.
  
  P.s. I just went for a fag before checking this and there was a double rainbow! The first I've ever seen in my life. I think that means that God/dess/Nature/The Universe is telling me that this is the right thing to do. :)
  
  
  

Bouncy Bouncy.

(If you just want to get to the good stuff, here's a link to the pattern for the Bouncy Hat and here's a link to the Rav Page). 

If you know me at all you'll know that I luuuuuurve Beyonce. What a woman! What a voice! What a career! What a body! What an everything! Seriously:

The day before Valentine's a lovely lad came into the shop asking nervously if I could do alterations - I usually just say 'nah - I knit' but I liked him and he was smiling (which is unusual believe it or not...). Turns out, his girlfriend had seen a hat that Beyonce was wearing at some sports game...

(Jay Z looks a bit gormless there doesn't he but Queen Bey looks beauts as ever?).  

...and fallen in love but he couldn't yet find them in the shop so he'd been to River Island (I think) and bought two bobble hats and he wanted me to move the pompoms onto one. Dead easy for us lot ey? But not for the muggles. Mwahahaha!

I liked the look and it gave me a bit of inspiration for my challenge to make a knit and crochet shop sample in every single yarn in the whole entire shop! Yeah! Because I will run out of inspiration you know. Already I keep thinking 'no, stop with the bloody scarves, cowls and baby knits for a minute'. So I came up with this: 

 

Really, if I'm honest, the pom poms are a little small but boyf had never made pom poms before and I wanted to make sure it was as easy as possible for him so we used a pom pom maker rather than our hands (or a barbeque fork as one customer delightfully does... in the summer I am totes trying this!). 

It's worked in the delectable Merino Blend Aran on a 5mm hook and the front post, back post ribbing means it's thick and cushy like a good hat should be. I reckon it's pretty simple but if you've been on our Learn to Crochet 1 and 2 lessons then it'll be a good introduction into patterns - especially as there's a gauge (so often there isn't with my patterns because I like people to think about things... and I'm lazy...).

I made another one today because a). I couldn't actually remember what I'd done and b). it's been in my head that this would be a good bloke's pattern - perhaps without the pom poms (or with!). And I think it would be! It's quick and interesting enough to crochet without being overly chunky or too complicated for men's tastes (actually v. sorry to generalise but if there's one thing I've learned whilst running this shop it's that masculine taste is preeeeeeetty conservative...).

Just on another note, please please please, if you're using this yarn (and I recommend that you do because it is beautiful!), make sure to block it, it stretches and relaxes so much once you bathe it in warm soapy water, much like ourselves, and the pattern definitely gets better because of it.

So, without further ado, the Bouncy Hat and the Ravelry link. 

(I totes photoshopped myself for the photo - can you tell?! Goodbye chin spot! Your time is up!). 

Love Eleanor. 

xxxxxxxxx

P.s. I've also updated the Finite Cowl to actually have a stitchtionary in there and a few bits like commas that were missing. Let me know if you find anything else wrong! Click here for the link. 

P.p.s. Tomorrow I have a sweet little tale and a request. Hopefully.

Finite.

This whole post is an explanation of my beautiful new infinity scarf - the Finite Cowl. Click here for the pattern and click here for the rav page. Read on for the explanation. 

A couple of weeks ago I had a lovely day out in Beeston. Boyf left me alone in the house and the sun was shining for the first time in weeks so I went for a wander to the Sewing and Knitting Centre (or maybe it's the other way around) at the opposite end of the High Street to Yarn. It's definitely more of a sewing shop - lots of machines and embroidery kits, buttons and zips and those weird motif things you sew on stuff (I don't think I've ever seen one of those in the wild but somebody must buy them...). There's a tiny bit of yarn - mostly acrylic dk which has it's place but it's not what I'm looking for when I take a special trip to a yarn shop, know what I mean?

Near the till they had a stash of 400g aran balls and the James C Brett Marble Chunky that comes in 200g balls. I'm a big fan of James C Brett's Marble range (we hopefully will get it in when we've got a bigger shop). I bought a ball a few years ago at a shop in Wollaton that's since closed down but I had in mind to knit something for my nan that I never got round to but it was a kinda yucky orangy and beige concoction. Ugh. The ball that I bought this time though was beautiful! Basically black with peacock and oil colours running through it. The only photo I have is from York when boyf took a terrible photo of me outside of Ramshambles and because I lurve you lot I'm going to show you...

 

Haha. What a photo! It's the cowl by the way. 

I've been in the Creative Crochet Group on facebook for a while now. It's essentially a group where members post project photos and ideas and patterns for crochet and it's really positive and lovely. There's a lot of stuff on there that isn't my cup of tea, to say the least... and one of those things was the corner to corner blanket that everybody's doing. Literally. Everybody. It spread like wildfire through this group and mostly it's being done in horrendous pastel pink/blue/lemon/mint and white combo's that make me want to barf. But when I got home with my big ball of Marble Chunky, placed and filled the cupboard that I'd bought for boyf's (hundreds of!!!!!!) Doctor Who dvd's and made the bolognese with the pork from an actual butcher (told you it was a lovely day), I knew that it had to be something a bit special. I wanted to learn a new stitch and I wanted the stitch to be something that showed off the striped effect of the yarn. Corner to corner it was. I had in my head that I might make a proper oversized scarf out of it but actually 200g of chunky doesn't really go that far so when I was coming to the end of my yarn I decided to join it up to make one of them there infinity scarves. And I bloody love it! It's the only bit of knitting or crochet that boyf's ever commented on without me having to suggest that he does. Wow!

I really do hate calling it an infinity scarf but it's definitely different to a cowl. In my head a cowl is fairly tight to the neck - something like this:

Another brill photo! 

And then an infinity scarf is more like a scarf that's sewn together at the ends so you loop it round twice or three times or just leave it hanging or whatevs and I do believe that the Marble infinity scarf is the first one I've ever made so you have the only ever photo of me wearing one above.

The thing is, it doesn't go on infinitely, does it? It's a scarf with a beginning and an end that's sewn together. Were it crocheted in the round it would be an infinity scarf wouldn't it? As in, no beginning and no end. But then you had to start somewhere and end somewhere (and sew the bloody ends in). Hmm. Which leads me to my newest and shiniest pattern for your delectation - it is the Finite Cowl. And I am dead pleased!!!!

I tried to make a version in the Fab DK a few weeks ago but it was just a bit mental, then I tried in a plain colour on my way to York and it was just a bit boring so eventually I had to admit defeat and work it in the Riot Chunky. I have no idea why I was so reluctant to work it in this - it's a similar weight, stripe effect and deep, rich colourway to my Marble infinity scarf so it's obvious but maybe I thought I was copying myself. Or maybe I thought I'd get bored? I am terrible for not knitting or crocheting the same thing twice - such a low boredom threshold. But I am so glad that I did and it got worked in a few hours really on a nice big 6mm hook.

Now, don't get me wrong, I haven't actually made this pattern up but one thing that frustrated me on my glorious Beeston day was that I couldn't find a nice quality written pattern for this - they're all videos. Which is fine. But the way that I work, being fairly experienced, is that I read a row and then I do it. I don't want to do one stitch and then wait for a 30 second explanation of what a treble is, and then do the next stitch and then have it ripped out and redone to really show what's going on before the next instruction. Gah! It makes me so bloody mad! I think I did it in the end by watching the whole (10 minute) video and then just getting on with it. But.... if you're not experienced and you think that might work for you then go ahead and google corner to corner scarf or blanket and it's all there. I've just written this out so that you can scan it and get on with it like I would have preferred.



It's a really repetitive pattern once you get going. It starts a little weirdly but from row three you repeat until you get to the width that you want, then you repeat two rows until you have the length that you want and then you do a decrease row until all of the shells have disappeared. Like this:

Yeah? Then it gets sewn up together at the end and bish bash bosh.

It's another one of those patterns that I haven't tested though, and I actually realised last night that I hadn't put a stitchionary in which makes me quite a lot of a tit so I'm going to get that changed and then get ready for the lesson tomorrow. That involves printing some bits so I might get a few of those printed out too and have the printed version for buying in the shop. Organisation! This is my game!

Now, I also wanted to mention that I'm going to do a shop sample for everything that we stock in both knitting and crochet. This is where the spreadsheets come into play that I talked about on facebook a couple of days ago. At the moment I'm feeling quite energised about this but give me time and it'll trail off I'm sure. Hopefully I'll have a blog on Monday or Tuesday about the thing that I started last night and I've almost finished crocheting and writing up a pattern for a hat inspired by Beyonce (what a woman!) so you've got that to look forward to too. AND! I've had an idea for another chunky infinity scarf but this time knitted! So watch this space - lots of inspiration to come.

That's it. I'm off.

Love Eleanor.

Obligatory Holiday Post

It seems the only things that really inspire me to blog are my holidays (and rants haha). Perhaps I should start a separate blog just for that??! But anyway, here I am making my count of two posts a week come true with a blog about my weekend away. Me and boyf went to York to see the vikings and the wool and it was bloody brill!

I think I'd happened upon York as the place to go when I was looking for my annual coach trip holiday but we decided it'd be much nicer to go on our own so that we could do what we wanted when we wanted (and visit my sis on the way back).

On the Saturday which was the only free day we set off nice and early but boyf got half way to London before realising that we needed to be headed up north. That was a lie but it was the first of three times we got totes lost. We got into York at about 11 I think and obviously the first place we visited was Duttons for Buttons. Somebody had told me about it (I think Lynsey??) and I'd said that I would go but not done any research because I thought we'd be too busy but it was on the high street (Coppergate?) just near the Jorvik Centre so we found it dead easy in the end.

Oh my gosh.

And I couldn't photograph most stuff because there were other humans in the way... There was too much for me, I couldn't make up my mind so we headed to see the vikings and said we'd be back later. 

 There was a bit of a queue to get in so I got my crochet out (natch) which was promptly stolen by boyf because I'd taught him to chain t'other day and he wanted some of that:

 

I didn't mind too much though because the weather was good and there was an AMAZING busking band playing brill songs to dance to. :)

I couldn't work out whether we could take photos at all inside so I didn't bother but what I would say is, on the ride, about half way through there were two models who were supposed to be builders on a break and eating something but one of them was definitely real! I swear he smiled at me! Last night as we were going to bed boyf told me he thought the same thing - without me having to say it! WHAT A WEIRD FEELING! Why would somebody sit doing the same thing all day? How much does he get paid for that!? Are we going mad!?

 I knew after the vikings that we needed to go to the wool shop - Ramshambles. I've followed them on twitter for a while and they seem lovely and I like the name and... oh... why am I making excuses to visit an LYS - of course we were going to go! It's right at the end of the street and it is beautiful!

It really does remind me of my little shop inside. Lots of mismatched furniture and stuff everywhere. There's a lot of King Cole products, some Regia and then some bits like Rowan, Debbie Bliss (I think?) and some bits that are a bit more local and a bit more special.

I plumped for five colours of the Austermann Merino Lace (£2.99 for 350 metres!!!!) and two balls of Aire Valley Aran in a beautiful purply shade for some thick socks for boyf.

I started this in the lace in the car on the way back:

 

 It's a pretty simple half and half scarf which I've had in my head for a while and I'm joining the granny squares as I go and it's the first time I've done that and it's worked out - I think because the yarn is so delicate! I've got all sorts of combos in my head for the Truly Wool Rich 4ply so watch this space for a pattern but I must say I'm pretty taken with the laceweight enough to perhaps stock it? It was on the cards a few years ago but I couldn't justify the price then because most of our customers wouldn't have had a clue what to do with laceweight but you've grown with us and I can think of a million things to do so we'll see.

Anyway, the girls were delightful - didn't take their names because I would never remember. I loved their stock room! One day I'll have my very own:

 

And in particular I luuuuuuuuurved this display:

I hope you do too because we might have one very similar in the not too distant future... ;)

 And I most enjoyed their blackboard: 

The girls were helping other people when we left so I didn't get the chance to do a nice goodbye but I hope that they read this and know that they did a good job - lovely shop! I'll go back one day!

Then we found a bloke on the floor. 

Some sort of street performer obviously but he just wouldn't shut up so we walked off and then he did the thing that he was threatening he'd do just as we turned away. Oh well. Patience is a virtue but I'm sure it wouldn't have made a difference anyway. 

Then we found ourselves back in the button shop where I noticed that they had a sign for wool upstairs! It was in a hidden medieval room that apparently had been forgotten about for 500 years. How does that happen????

There wasn't much wool - I got the impression that they were just starting out so I'm sure it will get better and the stuff they had was perfectly nice. The room was spectacular though!

 I bought what were deffo the best buttons in the whole shop and we went off to find somewhere to eat. 

We totes failed at that. Everywhere we went there were stinking (literally) football fans. Ugh. I can put up with a fair amount of olfactory battering but one pub had me heaving. So we went to a museum instead where we were able to talk about both carbolic smoke balls and liquorice twigs. Got there a bit late for the old fashioned sweet shop though...

Back in the hotel boyf requested that I teach him to crochet properly and he made this:

Which I promise is a granny square if you just ignore the bottom right hand corner. And he enjoyed it that much that whilst we were waiting for dinner he had a go at a ripple!

I think laceweight yarn and working into actual stitches rather than holes was a bit much for him though. At least he tried (and didn't bugger it up too badly so I couldn't fix it...).

On the Sunday we visited Cazza and there's not much to say about that really - lots of gossip, some fish and chips and t'babbeh being a rotter! She did finally get this through the post though: 

Which was the project that I started the day after I said I wasn't going to start any projects until the bridesmaid dress was finished. Oh well. Too beautiful not to. It's the Skull Shawl from ravelry and I used five or so balls of Patons Diploma in black. Dead good.

And that's that! A blog! It's only taken about four hours! Haha. Good little holiday.

Love Eleanor. :)

YARNDALE! YARNDALE! And thrice: YARNDALE!

AHAHAHAHAHAHA! You have no idea how excited I am about going back to Yarndale. Last year it was a stress, I admit, but this year will be different - it's nicely spaced out between our events and I'll have a printed list of your names AND I'm going to put them in alphabetical order! Oh yes! 2014 is the year of organisation here at Knit Nottingham!

Read more here at Yarndale's site. And here on our blog about the day. And then look at this by the lovely Sam from Artisan Angel Creations:

Who wouldn't want to go there!?!?!

Now, we have a few things to sort out - firstly, would you prefer to go on the Saturday the 27th or Sunday the 28th?

I have genuinely no problem with either but June does! haha!! She couldn't go last year because we went on Saturday and she was needed for the shop so I did kinda say that I'd ask which one you wanted... I asked on Facebook a couple of days ago and it looks like the Saturday is the preference and that means she can't go again and she wants you all to know that she's got your names and if you set foot in the shop on Saturday (I'm off to York so she's in) then she'll be having words... I suspect the vendors will be more knowledgeable this year so I doubt there'll be as much running out of stock as there was and I suspect that people will buy more tickets in advance too so the organisers will be more able to accommodate the masses so I think it matters less if we go on the Sunday but it's actually up to you. (So far we're seven to one (June) in favour of Saturday right now with a few people who are happy with either day).

I also want to set an actual coming home time this year too. I think 4pm should do it but it's another option. Last year I purposefully left it open ended to decide on the bus as we were travelling up but a few people booked things in the evening which meant we were in a bit of a rush to get home. This time I want to make it clear from the start so that plans can be made around it. Yeah? Options are 4, 4.30 or 5pm.

Looks like the prices for the coach haven't changed much so, depending on the ticket price (which will be part of the money you pay us) I think we'll stick at £24 - it might be £25 - don't quote me.

Let's have a show of hands who wants to go and when you want to go and if you have preferences for going home times.

In case you're wondering - I've specifically asked everybody for a *working* toilet on the coach...

And that's it - contact me with your preferences please!

Love Eleanor. 

Left.

As in, what's left after I've finished the day's business and I'm lying in bed at night and I must admit recently it's been a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. I want to talk about body positivity and how it relates to my shop and it will be a bit political and it will be a bit feminist and I don't apologise for that and I hope that even if you think they might be bad things you'll read on and know that this is just common sense and common humanity.

I have a 'thing'. I am fat. Not 'curvy', not 'fluffy' and there's not 'more to love'. Just fat and pretty fabulous yes? Haha.

It's a funny thing to come to terms with in this world, being fat. It's difficult. The most positivity I've had in regards to the way that I look is when I was suffering from an eating disorder at around 14-16 years old. People would stop me to comment that I looked 'so much better', 'wow look at you!', 'can't believe how much healthier you look!'. Gee, thanks. That made me feel so much better when I was sobbing into the one apple a day that I allowed myself to eat. Brill! Looking back I'm utterly stunned that people didn't think that the muscly, bright, cheery, fit but chubby little girl who swam, danced and rode horses competitively was 'healthy'. But comment they did and I can see a direct correlation between things that were said, faces that were made, assumptions that were held about me and my later eating disorder.

At 15 I injured my hip pretty badly so I couldn't manically exercise in the same way and it's much easier to eat when you're not walking miles every day so I did and, as a metabolism is wont to do after it's been abused for two years, I gained weight at a terrific speed. Throughout uni and afterwards I tried various diets, fads and exercise regimes which all left me sad and disappointed when I failed and I turned, dare I say it, into a meek little thing. Honestly - I couldn't look people in the eye, could answer questions about myself, wore drab baggy clothes. Ugh.

Then the shop happened. Which was, and still is, a massive shock. Slowly I gained my confidence. If you ask me, I'm still doing things by the skin of my teeth, scraping by, never with enough money but people are impressed and proud and they let me know! More than any other thing the way that people have acted towards me has been a huge boost to my self esteem. Hopefully, I don't need to tell you how important self esteem is - without self esteem what's the point of getting up in the morning? If you're not worthy what's the point of eating healthily or exercising? How are you going to behave kindly towards others if you're not kind yourself? How can you see beauty in anything if you can't find it in yourself?

I guess I'm trying to explain how important actions (and I include in that words because speaking out loud is an action but also body posture, facial expression, where and how you spend money, kind deeds etc.) are. Towards other people and towards yourself. But I've been noticing more and more microaggressions lately, in my shop and elsewhere. As I understand microaggressions, they are tiny little negative (or aggressive) sayings or thoughts or sentences made - knowingly or not - about me, my shop, my customers or people that they know. (Read more here). It seems that the concept of micro-aggressions don't sit with people that haven't been on the receiving end of them (as in, they don't believe microaggressions happen) so let me take you through just a few to illustrate what I'm trying to say:

• To me who was eating celery for lunch (something that I do regularly - celery and carrots... mmmm) - "Oh, it's good to see that you're finally looking after your health". 
• Man to his wife in my shop - "Fat women should only wear dark colours".
• Customer to me - "I don't think designers should include fat sizes in patterns, it's their own fault" (WTF?! How does that affect your small sizes?!).
• Customer about herself - "I want to hide my fat arms". 
• Customer about somebody she knows - "I'm dead lucky because I got all the hips and boobs, my sister's skinny like a rake... hahaha". 
• On showing a picture of a (fit!!!) mixed race knitwear model to a customer - "Oooooh, I don't like them interracials (sic)". 

Can you see? These are just off the top of my head (and fat is my 'thing' as I said above so apologies for not being more inclusive) and four of them have happened within the last two weeks so goodness knows what's been said and I've forgotten about and don't get me started about stuff that doesn't happen in the shop (suffice to say I'm happy to be a little more aggressive when I'm not asking for money...). It's not right and it's not on. It doesn't fit with how the world should be - i.e. the connection between how people act, speak and behave towards one another and self-esteem.

I want people to leave my shop feeling happy, inspired, healthy (if I can - I'm sure there's some sort of colour therapy in here haha) and that cannot happen when people are still making the kind of assumptions that lead to statements like this. It doesn't work.

I've been a bit cut up about it recently - I don't know whether it's the change in the sort of websites I'm visiting and books that I'm reading, or the people I'm around (hello Dee and Vezza) or the way that I feel about myself, but it's becoming more and more apparent to me. It is, of course, entirely possible that it's happening more. I'm going to be the change that I want to see and I hope that you  all want to be the change that we all want to see (and if you don't want to see it then... well...). Not only am I going to be positive to all of my customers (their body types, their colour, their style of dress, their ethnicity, their shape, their everything!) which I hope I already am, but I'm going to call out every micro-aggression that happens in this shop including micro-aggression towards oneself (I did it today to a woman on a downer about herself!). 

And now for a list of sites I think you all should visit:

Dances with Fat (Thanks Dee for sending me here!).
XOjane.co.uk (not entirely body focussed but lots of lighthearted articles interspersed with some hard hitting stuff). Particularly - Do This Don't: Be Fat and Go Sleeveless.
Volup2 facebook page (a high quality online magazine focusing on non-traditional beauty i.e. fat people, disabled people, people of colour, older people etc.).
Tess Munster's Facebook Group (an amazing plus size model who's political to boot). 
EverydaySexism project on Twitter (you've probably heard of it, it's an incredible mine of micro-aggression stories).

Have you got anything else I can add to this list???

I do hope this blog is taken in the spirit that it's intended i.e. empowerment and if it's not then I suspect we'll be having words about micro-aggressions sooner rather than later... ;)

Any thoughts?

Eleanor. xxxx

Right.

Can you remember the glorious month when we blogged every single day? March 2012 apparently. Well, I'm not bloody doing that but I am going to use some of the tricks from that month to get some blogs done. I want to write an average of eight blogs a month every month this year so that's six that I need to write for January and seven that I need to write for this month (this one counts! Yay for making up my own rules!). So blogging will happen and seeing as I've spent all of today so far making the thing I'm going to talk about in a mo (and dealing with customers obvs) then I'm going to write at least three of those 14 blogs today. And three a day until I've reached the target? Maybe that's pushing it...

Sooooooo. Here's the thing!!!

Can we all just take a moment to think and reflect upon the pure beauty that is that thing? And it's not even blocked yet! HOW HAS THAT COME OUT OF MY LITTLE FINGERS!?!?!?

 So, it all started yesterday when I went wedding dress shopping with Vezza (she's getting married. Not. Me. Still going well with boyf btw just not that well...). She handed me over a little Dior bag (which I'm going to keep forever. As if I'll get another Dior bag in my life). Inside were loads of little goodies - handcream, body lotion, lip gloss and this....

I must admit, I'd kinda forgotten about it. I think she sent me a photo about a week ago asking how to get the kinks out of it and I literally fell in love. It was one of only two skeins she'd dyed and the other she'd given away on her page - Truly Hooked. So I knew when I asked for it that I was asking quite a bit but I guess it is what she does now and not everybody feels as viscerally as I do about wool either...

The yarn is dyed on a blank which essentially means a knitted 'thing' is dyed, ripped, rewound and Bob's your uncle. I know that Verity is stepping up her dying business since t'babbeh was born but this came out of nowhere. AND I LOVE IT!

So, I had the ball in my greasy little mitts all day and didn't touch it and then when me and t'boyf were settling down to watch The Musketeers (are you watching it?!? Amazing!!) somehow it was this that fell into my lap and now the jumper I should be knitting for Amy Singer or indeed the bridesmaid dress that I need to make for the wedding. Funny how that happens isn't it?

I chose the Fantasm pattern pattern from Ravelry after having picked it out as a possibility for some other of Verity's yarn that she dyed for me. It seemed simple enough without being mental-making and the chain-y nature of it means that it uses less yarn so the yarn therefore goes a lot further... However, my little phone would only download the written instructions which I generally have no problem with but these kind of felt unfinished - they stop abruptly after row 13 for example and it's not a 'pretty' layout (not that that should matter I guess but apparently I've become accustomed). I'm pretty sure that some of the counts are out on some rows (row 9 for example) but I could be well out and it didn't make any difference in the end, I just kind of did my thing. I think it may put off a newbie though - so perhaps try the charts (for which I can pass no judgement. Yet. I will be able to because I will be doing this pattern again. I ADORE IT!

Look at that!

Can you remember when we had a little spurt of Elise's in the shop? I love that pattern - look here! Genuinely love it but there's only so many I can cope with - I've made two myself seen about six of Verity's, Lynsey's done one, Lindsey's done one and Lisa's done one aswell as god knows how many other customers. The Fantasm is my new thang. So if you come into the shop looking for something to crochet then expect to have this foisted upon you. And you'll love it!

I took so many photos of the yarn as I went along that I thought I ought to share them:

I think they're in the right order and just a quick little one of my favourite colour changey bit:

Now, I'm in the process of trying to get Verity to wholesale this to me so would you mind adding your voices to the fray? She might do it then (or do it quicker...).

Love,



Eleanor.