What a week

This week has been so busy but a lot of fun.

First, K-Tog in Lustleigh, Devon on Sunday afternoon was fantastic. Terri and her group had put in a lot of work putting it all together. I was there to do a mini sock workshop and I'd brought two baskets of yarns to sell and some patterns. I also brought some of my knitting and 3 jumpers my Mum knitted for the girls when they were younger to display.

There were ltos of displays, a felting workshop, spinning and dyeing demos and a stitch n bitch cafe which I'd planned on visiting but I didn't get time. Adn the cakes looked so gorgeous. I'd also wanted to check out hte spinning but no time for thateither. It was so busy. I had peopel around the stall all the time. I had six people for the workshop and they all started at differetn times and they were all great and we had a lot of fun. One of the ladies I knew from the knitting group at Spin A Yarn and one lady attended my workshop at Spin A Yarn on Tuesday.

I also met 2 Norwegian ladies who were there on holiday. It was such a surprise to meet a Norwegian on the edge of Dartmoor but very nice. Also met a lovely American lady, Trudy, who had lived in Sweden and spoke pretty good Swedish which is similar to Norwegian so we could understand each other. She was at my Tuesday workshop too.

Here's a pic of my stall at K-Tog

and here's Joyce's stall (Spin A Yarn) before it opened. It was crammed full of people once it opened.

On Tuesday I drove up to Bovey Tracey (which is close to where I was on Sunday) to run a sock knitting workshop at Spin A Yarn. I had 4 ladies and they were all fantastic. One lady is Norwegian but have lived over here most of her life and she was down in Devon on holiday.Another lady was Trudy who I met on Sunday and who spoke Swedish. Then there were two other local ladies. We had a great laugh and I hope the ladies enjoyed it and learnt a lot. It's amazing how quickly the time goes.

And I was amazed at how many people were in and out of the shop all day. Apart from a quite period at lunch time the shop was packed all day. Joyce and her assistant, Alli, were kept very busy. We had a few stop and look out our mini socks too and admiring our skills with 4 dpns. And yes I did buy something but not for me, it was for someone else as a pressie so no photos. Only got a circular needle for me as I needed a 100cm long 5mm circular needle for a shawl in progress.

I'm teaching another workshop at Spin A Yarn in November. It's lace knitting for beginners next time and Ithink it's on Tue 27th Nov. Get your place booked quickly as places are limited.

Talking of lace. I've got a secret project on the go. I charted for it last night and coudn't wait to get started this morning and so far it's looking great. No pics or design details. All I'll say is that it'll hopefully appear in a mag next spring. My lips are sealed for now. But I'm so excited about it.

What else have I done this week? Well I dyed the rest of the club yarn on Monday and taught my daughter's Guide pack to knit last night. Taht was fun. They all did so well and enjoyed it. Even the ones who'd thought it'd be boring. The ones who struggled with the knitting did fingerknitting and I had some furry, glittery yarns with me. Jan, the Guider, who's a friend of mine and my massage therapist, made a gorgeous mobile phone holder out of some gorgeous soft novelty ayrn, I think it's called Gypsy and it's unbelivably soft.

Most of the international club parcels were posted yesterday and the rest are goig tomorrow togehter with the UK ones. I had planned to take the to the po today but I was just exhausted. Fell asleep in my chair this morning and struggled thsi afternoon.

And this evening we've had a B&Q consultant around to design and give us a quote for a new kitchen. I love the design he came up with. Our kitchen room is a difficult room as it has 3 doors and abig window and it's not that big. But his solution looks good. Bad news is that they won't be able to do it till January. We're getting another quote from someone else though before we decide.

To finish, a pic of some yarns I dyed about two weeks ago but I thougth they looked so good on the line. They're all South American Merino, some lace and some 4ply and some are in the shop now.

Nite x

Club Yarn & Ktog in Devon

It's been a busy week, well actually I don't think it's actually been that busy it's just I've beenrecovering from London. Been very tired and so much housework to catch up on.



But I have had time to experiment with colours for next month's club yarn. I had dyed one skein before we went to London and taken ti to start the sock hwile we were away. But when Istarted knitting the socks it didn't give me the look I wanted so it was back to the drawing board this week. I dyed another skein, which although closer, one of the colours wasn't quite right. I also dyed some other yarns and one of them looked great and I tested it with the sock pattern and it looked good. So now, do I go with m yoriginal choice and just change the one colour that was slightly wrong or do I go with this new version? I can't decided. But we're going to start dyeing club yarn tomorrow so got to make up my mind.

The first sock in the original trial yarn is done. As we were away I decided just to carry on knitting it in the original colour. And finished it today although it's been enarly fone for a while now. And I've event typed up the pattern this afternoon. Just got to test knit it on 2nd sock and do photos and it's all ready to go.





If you fancy joining the Sockamania PLUS Merino Sock Club in time for November there is still time and afew places left. Head over to ETsy to order. If all current places listed sell out then that may be it until at least January. I'm not sure whether or not to add any more places to start in December, but it's highly likely we won't. So next chance to join won't be until January and then current members whose membership is about to expire will get first refusal. So if youwant in, grab a space quickly. Sign ups are supposed to close tomorrow for November but I'll leave it on until the end of the weekend.





And while we are on the topic of clubyarn I'm going to reveal October's yarn. If you're one of the 3 unfortunate members whose parcels got lost in the mail (new parcels posted today) then close your eyes quickly.

A pile of all hte yarn, and yes it's not all quite identical. Photo taken late in the evenig so not very good.Most of the parcels waiting to be postd. Taken lateon a Friday evening.

I've been requested to show pics of my spinning, well here you go



This is the lilac merino tops I bought at Coldharbour Mill udring FibreFest. It's so fine and so difficult to spin. So I stopped here and started spinning some of the red Touch Yarns fibre I got at Ally Pally instead. Pics tomorrow or over the weekend.


Do you live in Devon, Cornwall or Somerset? If so, pay attention. Terri is organising an event on Sunday (this week) in honour of National Knitting Week at Lustleigh Village Hall, which is somehwere near Bovey Tracey and Newton Abbot. There will be a Stitch n Bitch Cafe, workshops, spinning demo, Spin A Yarn (yarn shop) will have a stall. I'm teaching a basic sock workshop. It starts at 1pm. There is a small charge to get in which is for charity and a small charge (to cover materials) for some workshops. It sounds like it's going to be a great afternoon so come along if you can.

Then on Tuesday next week I'm teaching a basic sock workshop at Spin A Yarn in Bovey Tracey (just off A38 near Newton Abbot about halfway between Exeter and Plymouth). Its a fantastic shop btw and I'm really looking forward to teaching sock knitting. I've no idea if it's full or not but if you're interested or to find out more contact Joyce (check out the website for contact details). It starts at 10am and finishes at 2.30pm I think. I'm teaching a beginners lace knitting workshop next month. Lots of other workshops there too: felting, spinning, finishing techniques and lots more. And did I mention how great the shop is? It's fab and crammed full of gorgeous yarns from around the world and local hand dyed yarns.

I'm back

Can't believe it's over a week since I posted. Last week was really busy. Beginningpart of the week was spent getting ready for going to London, had to pack the kids off to inlaws etc so quite a lot to do.


On Thursday 6am we got on the coach to London and arrived at our hotel early afternoon. After a quick shower and rest we hit the streets for some sigthseeing. We had a look around Covent Garden, then walked down to Picadilly Circus and ended up having an early evening meal in China Town.


Friday was the big day. Simon set off around 8am for his museum/walking tour day. He saw the Terracotta Army at the British Museum and then did a walking tour around some of the main sites in London.


I set off at 8.30 am for Alexandra Palace and the Knitting and Stitching Show. I had volunteered to help out at UK Handknitting Assocation's Relax & Knit area for 3 hours in the morning. I thought it would be very much relax & knit and chat to people. It was actually a solid 3 hours of teaching teenage girls how to knit which I quite enjoyed but it was hard work but they were all keen to learn and some did really well but others struggled a bit.

By 1pm I was shattered and staggered off to find somewhere to sit and have my lunch and down a bottle of water. Then it was shopping time. There were some stalls I had planned to vist and lots of nice shops I didn't know excisted.

I stopped by Kerrie at HipKnits to pick up my copy of Yarn Forward and buy some Aran Silk. Couldn't decide on which colour so got two of each. I really wanted 4 of each but decided that'd be over the top. I may combine the two for a Clapotis as I must be the only one who has yet to knit one.

It was great to meet Kerrie finally and her little baby, Trinity, who is even more cute irl than on Kerrie's blog. What a happy little girl she was. The new Yarn Forward is fantastic. The content is excellent as always and this time the printing quality was excellent too. And inside the back cover there is something from me that'll be in the next issue due around Christmas time I think.

As you can see from the pic, I also picked up a copy fo the new mag, Let's Knit, which looks good although very similar to the other 3 big UK mags.

I visited the House of Hemp stall at FibreFest but although the colours were gorgeous, the hemp didn't feel quite as soft as I like my yarn to be. But I've read somewhere recently that it softens up qutie a lot so I endedup buying these little 50gr 2ply skeins.

Also got a pattern book. The ladies on the stall were all wearing hemp cardis and they wre lovely. And the company is based in Cornwall. I'm planning something that'll incorporate all hte colours into one item. Exactly what that will be is a mystery at the moment.

From Knit Witches, anotehr new company to me, I got this gorgeous skein of laceweight silk.

They had so much gorgeous silk yarn and I could have ended up buying a lot more from them.

Also got some silk from Natural Dye Studio. Four little 25gr skeins in gorgeous colours. I may use all 4 skeins for one project or split them into twos. Each skein is 250 m (or is it yards).

Ended up with a skein of Merino Tencel from NDS too.It's the same colourway as one of the mini silk skeins.

Knit & Caboodle had lots of gorgeous, useful accessories on their stall. I got some purple pins (very similar to Boyes) and some Hiya Hiya needles which are hollow stainless steel and a dream to knit with. Also got a wpi tool for my spinning and this fantastic sock wip tube which is really useful. Stops your stitches from coming off dpns during transport. Two tubes in a pack. Will be getting some mor eof these.

Touch Yarns from New Zealand were there too with their gorgeous yarns. Joyce of Spin A Yarn in Devon stocks thier yarns so I'm very familiar with some of thier yarn. In fact I knitted ashrug in some of their merino boucle last week which I wore daily in London. This time I was tempted by some of their roving which is merino/silk and gorgeous colours.

The red one is being spun right now.

I was after a couple of books too and managed to get this one by Twisted Sisters/Lynne Vogel. It looks fantastic and very useful. I got some Kureyon and some soya yarn earmarked for sweaters and will use this book to design them.

I missed out quite a few stalls due to time constraint. I left after 4.30pm absolutely shattered. They had some Quiviot for sale which was around £60 for 100gr. And someone I know bought some. It was gorgeous and soft but too expensive for me. One of the other volunteers at the Knit & Relax bought some yak which was gorgeous and I was tempted to get some. Cherry Tree Hill and Get Knitted had some fantastic stuff as did Fyberspates. I wanted to get some FAbel from Scandinavian Knitting Design but didn't even find their stall. I could easily ahve spent anotehr day there. Maybe next year I'll ahve to go for 2 days. We finished off the Friday with anotehr meal in Chinatown although we were almost too tired to drag ourselves out of the hotel. But hunger overcame the tiredness.

We went to the Victoria & Albert Museum on Saturday befoe heading homne on the coach in the evening. I've been shattered since we came back and have done very little. Although I managed to dye some yarns today including the new prototype for the November club yarn.

Back with more tomororw.

Beautiful

Here's a 360 degree video clip featuring the sea, the cliffs and our dog.

And for once I'm not talking about a piece of knitting or yarn. I'm talking about landscape. We're extremely lucky to live in Cornwall which has some beautiful landscapes. I've already shown you pics of the moors near were we live. We're also very close to the coast. Our nearest seaside village is about 15 mins away, Looe.

Yesterday we went to a place called Whitsand Bay, near the Rame Peninsula, just west of Plymouth. We haven't been there for years and yesterday we were wondering why. I don't think we've been since before the girls were born and I think the main reason why is steep path down to the beach which would have been totally inpractical when the girls were younger. Yesterday the girls were on a trip with Brownies and Guides.



Simon and I took our dog, Sam, she's a Jack Russell Cross and features in some of the pics. So instead of rabitting on, I'm just going to let the pics do the talking. They're taken on my mobile phone so aren't brilliant but they give you an idea. it was lovely and warm and we did see some people sunbathing. the man in the pic is Simon.

After our wak and the steep climb back up to the park we went for adrive around the coast and stumbled upon a lovely little restaurant along the side of the road called 'The View'. It just looked like an ordinary coffee shop from the outside but inside it was very stylish and the food that was being served looked gorgeous and very posh. We only had Cornish Cream Tea and drinks.

You can see why the restaurant is caled The View. This is the view from my chair.

And here's is one of my scones with a generous helping of cornish clotted cream and jam. I hadn't loaded up the second half of the scone yet. For any foreigners reading this who haven't discovered Cornish Cream Teas yet , they're a must if you ever visit Cornwall. And no other county in Britain do Cream Teas like the Cornish. Devon (our neighbouring county)tries to do their own Devonshire Cream Tea but it's nothing like the Cornish one. Cornish clotted cream is a dream

A video clip of some surfers.

I'm so annoyed

Why I hear you ask? Well, one of the things I'm annoyed about is that I started a silk cardi in the summer. I had 3 skeins of DK silk from Posh Yarn which I bought a few months ago because I just loved it. I had thought of doing a shawl or soemthign with it but I've done so many shawls, I fancied smething different so Ithought a shrug. The yardage is pretty good so I thought it would be enough. I wasn't quite sure how to go about it as I've not knitted a shrug before. Imeasured and swatched and decided I'd knit the back first, then go down the arms, just in case I didn't have enough yarn, that way I could knit it 3/4 length sleeves or soemthing. I wanted to knit from side to side. so I started the back with a provisional cast on and knitted the back and put the sts on a stitch holder at the end. My measuring/swatch was way out as the back was much bigger than the back of a shrug should be and I'd only used 1 1/2 skein so Ithought I'd do a cardi and get a contrasting colour for the sleeves. So I cast on one front back in August, a few days ago I picked it up again. Knitted a few more reps and measured and realised I'd done about 5 pattern reps too much so had to frog it. At lunchtime today I sewed the shoulder seam on one side and did a 3 needle bindoff down the side of thecardi, leaving a gap for the sleeves. As I've already got all the stitches around the armhol I can knit the sleeves top down. Then I thought I'd wind up the last skein and now I can't blimming find it. I'm so angry. I've searched my whole knitting basket in the lounge, a couple of boxes in the bedroom. Basically it could have been showed away anywhere.

Why am I so annoyed about this? It's not like I haven't gotten tons of other wips I can do in the mean time. Well, I was thinking if Iput some effort in to it I could get it done for Ally Pally next week and wear it. But without the last skein I can't do anything more. Do I spend ages looknig for the 3rd skein, do I put it on hold until the skein turns up? Do I finish somehting else to wear for Ally Pally instead. I got a aran silk shawl on the go that is fairly quick knit, that may get done on time. I've also got some Touch Yarns Boucle which I tought Imay make a shrug with, not sure if Ive got enough though. Shall I go ahead with that?

Or shall I be good and just plod on with my current wips?

Talking of wips, I've been putting wips on Ravelry today. And I've been adding some of my pattrns too. Some of them, mainly Sockamania were already on there which was great to see. So Ive added a few more. I'd like to add all my Anni Design patterns and all my YarnAddict Yarns varieties. At the moment I've added the Merino Lace to the database and merino sock yarn was already there.

talking of lace, I've had a shipment of merino lace and merino 4ply from Uruquay today. Not opened the box yet as I know I'd just be tempted to star tdyeing right now. Not dyed the 4ply before but it's so soft. If you've tried my Easycare merino 4ply and think that's soft, then wait till you feel this new 4ply. It's softer than cashmere. But it is strictly handwash as it will felt. So I'm thinking it may be better for shawls, baby stuff and accessories rather than socks. It'll be in the shop next week, hopefully before I go to Ally Pally.

Going to London on Thursday am and back Saturday eve. I'm going to Ally Pally on Friday. I'm helping on the Knit n Knatter stall in the morning, then browsing in the afternoon. Pop over and say hi. Anyone who's going and fancies meeting up, please let me know and we'll make arrangements.

Sorry no pics today.

More yarn and an Etsy review

I'm too tired towrite much tonight but check this out Lime & Violet's Etsy of the Day store. I'm speechless at the review. Don't want to brag too much, but this has just made my day.

And check this out too, also posted today is a link to a tutorial on knitting backwards. I've been wanting to do this for ages and this tutorial looks good. I'll give it a try tomorrow when I'm not so tired.

My back is a lot better today, although I'm still ina quite a lot of pain but it's not as acute as it was yesterday and I've managed to do some small jobs around the house today as well a a short wakl to the post office to post some parcels.

I did a quick Etsy update earlier today. Not much, but some gorgeous Alpaca DK and a few skeins of merino sock yarn.

Here's the Alpaca, there are 2 skeis of each.

And the merino:

More merino later in the week. I'm planning to dye on Thursday so hopefully get some in the shop on Saturday.

I'm also expecting a delivery of more gorgeous South American Merino Lace and some excuisite fingering weight merino from Uruquay towards the end of this week. The Merino Lace is so soft and although it's fine it's so easy to knit with. I'm planning some gorgeous autumnal shades and some great shades for shawls for the upcoming party season.

The new fingering weight merino I'm getting is quite different from my Easycare Merino Sock Yarn. It's even softer but it does felt so is strictly handwash. It'd make perfect winter accessories and shawls.