This & That

It's been another bad weekend. I seem to be going from one health related thing to another. This time it's my teeth again. For the past 5-8 years (i really can't remember) I've had a lot of problems with my teeth. I've always been reasonably good at looking after my teeth and have check ups regularly. But I've suffered from regular abscesses. Every time I have a deep filling I seem to end up with an abscess a few weeks later. I had a deep filling after loosing a filling in July and last week my gums were a bit sore and then got very sore by Friday. I do take a lot of painkillers for my back/neck and they were probably masking something more serious. Saturday morning I woke up in agony and i knew it was a tooth abscess. Emergency dentists are a waste of time. I've seen them before. This was a long weekend in England so I had to wait till yesterday before I got to see my dentist. I need not 1 ... but 2!! root canals. I have 2 deep fillings next to each other and my dentists thinks that once he does one the other one will start playing up and need doing too. And he said it's easier to have them both done at the same time. 

I was also given two lots of anti-biotics which are kicking in and the pain is slightly less today.

On to more pleasant subjects. I've finally cast on for the mystery shawl design. I'm hoping to run this in October and so far it's going really well. I love the yarn - Twinkle Lace - and the pattern. It doesn't look that great in this photo. Lace never does till it's blocked. You'll have to wait till October to see the details of this pattern though.

A lovely parcel arrived today and the main purchase was some new needles, which I'll talk more about another day. I also got this lovely skein of Handmaiden yarn. It's Great Big Sea which is a blend of wool, silk and seacell. It's a thick dk/thin aran thickness. Lovely and squishy and soft and silky and LUXURIOUS. I've got a very special project in mind for it, which I'll tell you all about in a few days. It'll need a whole blog post.

This morning the girls and I (and the dog) went up on the moors for a photo shoot. Em was in charge of Sam (the dog) and Vanessa was modelling for me. I wanted some photos of the large Daisy - pattern will be out very soon, it's with the testers now - and a secret project. We had a beautiful location: The Hurlers at Minions on Bodmin Moor.

And it was SUNNY. One of the best days we've had for weeks.

Being a model is hard work and this is what a model does after a photo session:

Sunday was another sunny day and Vanessa was baptised. Our church does baptisms in the sea if possible. About 5-6 people were baptised. Simon helped our pastor baptise her. The baptism took place at Looe Beach and as it was sunny, there were lots of people around.

Fibre Fest 2011

wow, it's taken me a week to do a Fibre Fest re-cap. That's partly because I was exhausted afterwards and partly because I don't quite know what to say. I'm a bit mixed about the event.

But let's start with the positive parts. The event was set in a the beautiful grounds of Bicton College near Exeter. There was an animal area. It's always nice to show people were our wonderful yarns come from.

There were some very cute lamas:

and some gorgeous alpacas:

I especially love their haircuts:

Several different sheep breads were on display. Unfortunately they were not keen on being photographed. I ended up with a lot of sheep bottoms. Perhaps it was too early for them. But I did get a good photo of these gorgeous angora sheep:

Or I suppose that should be angora goats? Angoras are goats, not sheep, right? Or are there angora sheep too? Someone correct me please.

I chose to have a 'shell stall' this year. That means I would have 3 walls to display my shawls on but it also meant i could only afford a small stall and we were a bit cramped. all the photos are taken with my mobile phone and some are a bit blurry. Sorry.

I had a small table showing off The Easy Lace Collection booklet and a couple of other patterns. The Easy Lace Collection sold really well at the show.

My display of sock yarns:

Three of my scarves:

The Daisy Shawlette was very popular. And the larger size will be published next week. I'm finishing the cast off and blocking it today. Will also e-mail the testers today. They've been waiting patiently for me for so long.

We have 3 rather blurry shawls:

From the left we have Sophia, Lazuli and Two of a Kind.

Lace yarn and patterns:

The Midnight Stole which always gets lots of admiration from knitters and non-knitters (there were a lot of those at this show) at shows.

Ok, now for the not so nice bits about the show and I've been wondering about how honest to be but I'll be honest. Sales wise this show was a waste of time for me. I only just covered my expenses. The show was so well organised and the setting was beautiful that it was a shame that the organisers didn't bother advertising the show properly. To stall holders I felt it was promoted as a national show. I paid twice as much for my stall as I did at Woolfest and my stall was a lot smaller than my Woolfest stall.

For some reason the organisers didn't advertise in knitting mags. I can't remember seeing a single ad in knitting mags and I read a lot of them. I spoke to an editor last week who said she don't remember seeing a press release about the show either. Apparently the show was advertised in places like 'Devon Life'. 90+% of the stalls sold knitting and spinning supplies. And there were quite a few spinners there. I sold a lot of patterns to spinners. But there were very few knitters. A lot of people told me they didn't knit. I heard from one stall holder that a lot of people thought it was a gardening show.

So this is my plea to any knitting show organisers: if you want quality vendors and they sell mainly knitting supplies then please advertise your event where knitters can see it, like knitting mags, Ravelry etc. If you're charging 'national fees' for stalls then please make sure you advertise it nationally and make it a 'destination event'. For Woolfest and Wonderwool knitters come in coach loads. They make a weekend out of it. and they come from all over the country. Fibre Fest was very much a local show. it's great for those of us who live in the south west to have a good show with national vendors. But at the next Fibre Fest I think a lot of those vendors won't bother coming because most businesses can't afford to do shows if they make a loss and most people don't want to give up a weekend to only just cover their expenses. Most of us who run craft businesses rely on partners or friends to help out at shows. I picked Simon up at work on Friday and he gave up his weekend to help me out at the show and then he went straight back to work on Monday. He doesn't mind but he did feel a bit like it was a waste of time since I didn't actually make any money.

Okay, rant over. I did meet some lovely knitters. I met  a lot of knitters I already knew from my workshops and knitting groups especially at Spin A Yarn but also from Cornwall. I met knitters who I'd met at Wonderwool and Woolfest. A HUGE thank you to all those who stopped by my stall and to all those who bought my yarn and patterns and The Easy Lace Collection. It was great meeting you all and you made the weekend worth it.

On a different note. There is an error in The Easy Lace Collection. It's not an error that affects the patterns. On page 10 where I show how to do the crochet cast on the last sentence above the photo in column 1 should read:....... crochet a chain a few stitches longer than the number of stitches you want to cast on.


I will update the e-book and upload a new version on Ravelry so if you've purchased the e-book on Ravelry you can download the new version. You'll get a notification to your e-mail address. If you've purchased the print version please make a note on the page so you don't forget. I'm having it corrected for the next print run.

Double Celebration

This was supposed to be yesterday's post but I never got around to it. There are a lot of things I haven't gotten around to this week. I've been meaning to blog about Fibre Fest too. Will save that for next time.

Yesterday was my birthday but it was also Vanessa's GCSE result day. (For non-English readers, GCSE is the exams the English take when they leave school at 16 years old. It's the end of compulsory education). Vanessa did very, very well. She got an A* in History (she got 100% on her last history exam - clever girl), B in Additional Science (she's already got an A in Science), C in French and A in everything else including Maths, Media, Humanities, English Lit & English language and I'm sure there were some other subjects she did which I've forgotten about. She's staying on at school to attend their Sixth Form College and is planning to do English Lit, Maths and History and possibly either Psychology or Ethics & Philosophy.

As I mentioned yesterday was also my birthday. We celebrated my birthday on Wednesday with a meal out and cinema. We saw 'One Day' which is an amazing movie. I highly recommend it. Apparently it's based on a book.

I had some lovely presents for my birthday too. Simon bought me Ysolda's new book, 'Little Red In The City' at Fibre Fest

 and a handbag (actually I chose and bought the handbag and pointed out the book and told him I wanted it). I haven't got a pic of the handbag but I love it but I did buy another bag in Padstow today:

Isn't it gorgeous. sorry for poor pic. Its taken with my mobile phone.

Emily gave me a little, pretty heart and book mark (both were bought at the craft stall at church a few weeks ago).

Vanessa got me a pretty necklace.

I got this very pretty handmade tea light holder from my in-laws. They bought it this summer in Scotland. Sorry I forgot to take pic.

From my parents, inlaws and sister in law and her family I got money which will be put towards buying a new camera.

My lovely knitter & friend, Pixie, gave me these beautiful stitch markers and stitch saver from Fripperies n Bibelots. Just looked at their website. Gorgeous stuff!

this is a cool little tool to use when you drop a stitch. I love it.

My friend, Marianne, who I met for lunch on Wednesday, gave me a beautiful pearl necklace but unfortunately it was too tight for my fat neck so she's going to try to change it. It was so pretty though.

This week I've mainly been trying to recover from Fibre Fest. Monday and Tuesday I was completely out of it. Horrendous headaches and neck/back/shoulder pain, which has eased a bit but has still been coming back at times this week. I had to go to bed last night because I was in too much pain.

My knitting has been a bit unfocused this week. I've been swatching and charting for some new projects, been working on some new magazine submissions. I did cast on for 2 new projects yesterday. One is the mystery shawl I've been thinking about for months.

 I'm now hoping it'll go ahead in October. The other is a shawl which may be a sample for my book proposal which i'm determined to finally finish & submit somewhere. Been talking about that for far too long now. I'm just not sure about how many projects to knit up and how many to swatch and how many of the proposed final projects I need to finalise at all. Or if its best to not finalise too much so I can be more flexible.

I'm also about to cast on for a couple of deadline projects which need to be done this weekend, they're small ones though so should be quick.

Next post will be some very cute animals from Fibre Fest and maybe some knitting.

Newsletter

I just sent out a newsletter with a big discount. Take a look here.

I'll be back soon to tell you all about Fibre Fest and knitting news but I'm too tired now.

Nite x

Want to learn something new?

It's nearly September and the kids are going back to school. It's that time of year where we think about learning new things. Or at least I always think of school start as a fresh start and learning new things.

Fancy learning some new knitting techniques? Well, I've got a HUGE schedule of classes for this autumn. You can find them all here. But let me give you some highlights.

Kicking it off in September is a 4 week course for those wanting to learn to knit or who've not knitted for a while and need a refresher course. The first week you'll learn to cast on, knit, purl and various combinations of knit and purl patterns and cast off. For the remaining 3 weeks we'll knit a mini sweater teaching you various shaping techniques, basic sweater construction and how to sew up your sweater and do the neck band.

Do you know how to knit but never knitted a sweater, then come along and learn all the basics you'll need to knit a fashionable sweater for yourself.

The course is held over 4 Tuesday mornings from 10am to 1pm starting on 13 September at The Cornwall Yarn Shop in Launceston, Cornwall. Contact the shop to book. The last group who did this course in January loved it and all bought a sweater pattern and yarn to knit at the end of the course. I met one of the ladies a few weeks ago and she'd finished her sweater.

Fancy knitting lace? I'm teaching Easy Lace at both The Cornwall Yarn Shop and Spin A Yarn, Bovey Tracey, Devon this autumn. This workshop will give you the confidence to tackle easy lace patterns. You should be able to knit any of my shawlette patterns and some of my lace weight shawls too. We'll cover topics such as yarn overs, directional decreases, how to use stitch markers and lifelines, how to read charts, how to shape while keeping your lace pattern correct. At the end of the workshop I'll give you a shawelette pattern to take away. This is a popular class so make sure you don't miss out.

Already take one of my Easy Lace classes or feel ready to take it a step further? Then my Lace Improvers class at Spin A Yarn is perfect for you. You'll practice knitting from lace charts using slightly more difficult lace patterns, you'll learn provisional cast on and how to work a knitted on edging. After this workshop you'll be able to knit any of my shawls with knitted on edgings.

Seen my new Daisy Shawlette? Think the stitch patterns look difficult? I'll teach you everything you need to know to knit this shawlette. We'll practice different dropped stitches and how to add beads in the morning and in the afternoon we'll work on a swatch of the shawlette focusing on the stitch patterns used and the shaping for this crescent shawl. I'm teaching this workshop at Spin A Yarn and The Cornwal Yarn Shop.

Ever knitted cables? Cables are a fantastic way to add texture to your knitting and much easier to knit than they look. I'm teaching a Fabulous Cables workshop at The Cornwall Yarn Shop which will teach you to knit cables, simple and more complex, with and without cable needle, how to knit from cable charts & written instructions, and how to knit reversible cables, so the fabric looks good from both sides.

This is only a taster of what I'm teaching. There is basic socks, toe up socks and continental knitting as well. See them all on my workshop page. Contact the shops to book.

I'm also teaching two workshops for The Liskeard Knit & Knatter group which meets at Stuart House, Liskeard, every Thursday morning. We're doing Professional Finishing Techniques over 2 Thursday mornings starting on 15 sept. This workshop is sponsored by the knitting group and costs £20 for non-members. Please e-mail me on ahallis@yahoo.co.uk or call me on 01579 340558 to book.

I'm also teaching Basic Crochet on 10 November. You'll learn basic crochet stitches such as doubles, trebles, double trebles, clusters and more. We'll also practice shaping and crocheting various shapes such as squares and circles. This workshop is also sponsored by Liskeard Knit & Knatter and costs £15 for non-members. See above for contact details.

Dont' live in Devon or Cornwall? Then give my details to your local yarn shop or knitting group and ask them to book me for a workshop. My current list of workshop available is here. I can also do combinations of those workshops and teach a project workshop on any of my designs.

The Easy Lace Collection is published

Yesterday morning I uploaded the finished version of The Easy Lace Collection e-book. Yay. I'm so happy! I started this project at the beginning of the year. Originally it was just going to be a collection of small lace patterns that could be knitted in one skein of sock yarn. As the projects developed I realised that they weren't quite as easy as I had planned and beginner lace knitters might need something extra. So I started working on a 'how to' section.

The 'how to' section is very comprehensive and covers topics such as yarn overs, directional decreases (k2tog, ssk, sk2po), how to read charts, how to use lifelines and stitch markers, how to knit top down triangular and hem up triangular shawls, how to knit half-hexagon shawls (although there are no half-hexagon shawls in this book, The Frosty Diamonds Shawlette is a triangular/half-hexagon shawl hybrid), how to add beads using a crochet hook and two different types of provisional cast ons (crochet chain cast on and invisible cast on). I've included lots of close up photos. I've used my extensive experience from teaching my Easy Lace workshops for the last 3 years when I wrote up the how to section.

There are also schematics for all the shawlettes and the scarf showing cast on, cast off, direction of knitting and increase/decrease lines if appropriate.

The book is 34 pages long. Originally I planned this as an e-book and then I decided to look into having it printed so I could sell it at shows and maybe to yarn shops. I ordered the print copies yesterday and they should be here tomorrow. I've listed print copies on the website. If you order a print copy, you'll also be able to download a pdf version of the e-book. Why would you want a pdf file too? Well, you may want to print off individual patterns to keep in your project bag to avoid having to carry your book around.

If you've already bought the e-book, you can upgrade to the printed book if you e-mail me. I'll send you a Paypal invoice for £2 (difference in price between print book and e-book) plus postage which is £1.96 for the UK, £2.39 for Europe and £3.96 for the rest of the world (which is the same as what you would pay in postage of you ordered 2 skeins of yarn). The print copies will be posted from Friday.

If you're going to Fibre Fest this weekend, you can buy a copy from our stall. 

All the individual patterns are or will be for sale individually too. I've uploaded the e-book to Patternfish too but it's not gone live yet. Those who've won a copy of the e-book, I will contact you tonight or tomorrow, I promise. Life has just been very hectic recently.

Overwhelmed

I keep thinking about blogging but so much has happened in the last 2 weeks I feel a bit overwhelmed trying to get it all written down. Also, i have no pics to accompany my post as I still don't have a camera and my phone still hasn't been returned. Simon's SLR is too big to carry around with me.

First, I'll have a moan about my phone. I love my new HTC mobile but I dropped it 2 weeks ago. I posted it to HTC for repairs which I had to pay for. They told me it would take 7 working days. After 4 or 5 working days i finally got a quote which i paid immediately. It's now been 10 working days and still no phone. I've run them every day this week and yesterday afternoon my phone had still not been repaired. Last week HTC said it takes 7-10 working days for non-warranty repairs. Well, time's up and where's my phone? I got very stroppy with them yesterday and I will be making another phone call very soon.

Last week was out church's annual Bible Week which was great. We had great teaching every day from our two pastors. It was a busy week and I was exhausted by the end of it.

On Wednesday last week my parents arrived. They had thursday and Friday on their own as we were still at Bible Week. But we had a great weekend with them. On Saturday we visited Castle Drogo on Dartmoor. If you scroll down a month or two you can see pics from when simon and i visited a couple of months ago.

On Sunday we went to the Eden Project. Again, photos from there in previous posts. One of my big challenges over the weekend were all the meals out we had. We had 2 lunches out and 1 evening meal out. I have to eat a no-fat (or in reality as low fat a diet as I can manage) diet because of gall stones. Two of the places we had meals the menus were full of red meat, fried food and chips with everything. I'm not allowed any of that. Even salads contain cheese (not allowed) or fried, battered chicken. At one pub I did manage to get them to make me a gorgeous chicken salad with roast chicken but it wasn't cheap.

My parents left on Monday to drive to Spain where they're spending 2 months. Lucky them!

Simon is still on holiday this week so we've had more days out. We've been to Creation Fest, which is a christian festival taking place in Wadebridge, twice this week and we're off there this morning. Vanessa is camping with her youth group this week.

Next post I promise some knitting updates and knitting pics.

Pattern Of The Week - Candace

I've not done a pattern of the week for months. I kind of forgot about it for some reason. So I've decided it's time for a Pattern Of The Week. One of my latest self-published patterns is 'Candace' which was first published in Let's Knit a year ago.

This beautiful shawl is knitted in one skein of Supreme Lace but Bambino Lace, Silky BFL Lace, Twinkle Lace or any other 800m/100gr lace yarn is suitable.

You can get the pattern for half price by using code: candace before Friday 12 August.

What a week!

Another long absence I didn't plan. If you follow me on Twitter you will know last that last Wednesday I was taken ill. We went to a BBQ at a friend's in the evening. We had a great evening. I had a sausage and a burger with some salad. Then I had a slice of pavlova and some apple pie. I didn't eat much as I started feeling a bit weird.

When we went to bed I felt like I had indigestion. I woke up at midnight with abdominal pain. Remember 2 weeks ago, the night before we went to London? I think I mentioned that i had severe stomach pain that night. I thought I had severe indigestion. Really, really severe indigestion. On Wednesday night i had the same kind of pain. But it quickly became much more severe. I was sick. By 2.30am the pain was so severe I wanted to pass out. I just didn't know what to do. Simon called the doctor and we were asked to go to the local hospital, which is only 2 mins drive away. I struggled in the car and i really struggled how to walk into the hospital. The doctor diagnosed gall stones and gave me a painkilling injection and an anti-sickness injection. The painkilling injection worked very quickly and by the time we got home the pain was easing. My Mum and my sister have both had gall stones so I suppose it wasn't a surprise I would get it too.

I'm now waiting for a scan on 1 September. In the meantime to avoid any further attacks I need to stay on a no-fat diet. No fat! that's easier said than done! But I'm trying really hard and haven't had chocolate, biscuits, crisps, red meat (apart from 1 table spoon of bolognaise sauce on my spaghetti on Sunday), cakes, cheese, or anything other high fat stuff since last Thursday. I'm hoping this will mean I'm loosing weight. Unfortunately our scales are not working so I don't know. I'm hoping to loose a considerable amount of weight before my scan.

This week is our church's annual Bible Week. Hundreds of people camp on our church field and there are kids clubs in the mornings, services in teh mornings and evenings. I'm in charge of running a craftstall after the morning and evening services. The stall looks great but I can't take any photos as i don't have a camera at the moment. Simon's is too big to drag around. But we have some GREAT  stuff this year. Simon and the girls are  camping. I don't do camping 10 mins from home. Unfortunately on Sunday Simon felt really unwell, he has a severe cold and chesty cough. He was sitting in the tent wrapped up in a thick dressing gown and shivering. It was raining and cold so we went home. simon spent yesterday in bed but is hoping to go back  today and camp again tonight and for the rest of the week.

I'm working hard on The Easy Lace Collection. It's now with the first proof reader and I'm proofing it too. It'll be going off to my second proof reader later this week. It should be ready next week. My gall stones attack meant I lost 2 days of work last week and we've officially been on holiday since Saturday, so even though I've been sneaking in some work it's difficult to get too much done.

I have released another pattern though, Fairytale.

If you pre-order the e-book you can download the 3 patterns released so far while you are waiting for the e-book. The e-book also includes a big how to section with photos and will teach you how to work decreases, yarn overs, add beads using a crochet hook, use lifelines and stitch markers, how to read charts, how to shape triangular and half hexagon shawls, and how to knit on edgings.

All the patterns are available individually too.