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Friday, April 19, 2013

let's catch up

Wow, April has been a busy month here. My oldest daughter turned 18, we decorated the lounge and dining room, I've had a couple of designs published, I've had 8 design deadlines, I've attended a local wool market and done a half day workshop and next week my youngest daughter turns 15 and we're off to Wonderwool Wales. No wonder I haven't even thought about blogging. Actually, I've done plenty of thinking about it, I've just not gotten around to doing it.

I've still got tons to do before Wonderwool next week, like dyeing most of the yarn. I've got a huge box sitting in the garage. I'll be concentrating on getting as much as possible dyed this weekend. Fortunately the weather seems to be improving. Today has been a quiet warm and sunny day. I'm hoping it stays like that so I can dry yarn outside for the first time this year.

I can't share anything about my deadlines yet, apart from the fact that I've got some great designs due to be published soon. But I can show you the result of our lounge/dining room re-decoration project. When we moved in 16.5 years ago the carpets in our house were awful. Old, worn out and disgusting. We had it in our head that getting them replaced would be really expensive but we never actually got a quote plus I really wanted laminate flooring. They've been popular in Norway for a long, long time but when we bought this house they hadn't quite taken off yet in this country. Last time we decorated our lounge about 6ish years ago we didn't do anything about the carpet but by now it was so awful that whatever we did would be an improvement. Concrete floors would be a huge improvement.

So Simon decided he's have a go. Our sofas needed replacing too. They were leather ones and had severa rips in them. So we were looking at getting new sofa, new flooring and the walls and ceiling needed painting. We started with the sofa and were really lucky to find a second hand sofa in a local shop, which looks new.  it's big, it's squishy, it supports my back and head and I love it and it looks like our dog does too. She's not moved from that spot since we bought it. To protect the sofa from the dog, I got a cheap fleece blanket (a local shop sell fleece fabric by the meter) and she's only allowed to sleep on the blanket.
 Previously our walls were blue and we had a brown leather sofa. This time we turned it around and we went for blue sofa and brown walls. I was a bit worried the walls would be dark but the room is quite big and has big windows at either end and is quite light. I'm really happy with the result.
 These photos were taken before all our furniture was brought back in and before we had put pictures and paintings back on the walls. it's all done now except the curtains. Simon has promised me he'll get the curtain rails back up this weekend. I really liked my old curtains and fortunately they still suit our new colour scheme so I've just had them dry cleaned.
 But best of all, I love our new laminate flooring. Simon was nervous about doing it but he did a great job. it took him 8 days in total to do the floors and pain everything and then we spent an evening moving everything back in.
 Before I used to keep a huge amount of knitting stuff in the lounge and it did make it a bit messy. So at the moment i'm confining my knitting stuff to this small basket which lives next to my knitting chair. It contains my ChiaoGoo needles, my small notions case, my current projects, my 4mm Signature short straight needles and some yarn I'm currently using for swatching for new designs.
 Last night Spin A Yarn put on a fashion show with Louisa Harding. The event was held at the Devon Guild of Craftsmen in Bovey Tracey. We started with a lovely meal with the best pavlova I've had in a long, long time. Lots of lovely people were there. i love these events as I get to speak to so many people who've previously attended my workshops. It's great to have people come up to me and tell me they enjoyed their workshop with me. Many have attended mulitple workshops which is even better.

The fashion show started with some Noro designs, which I forgot to take photos of. Then Louisa harding started showing her new designs. Louisa talked about her designs as the models walked down the middle of the room.
 Louisa is well known for her fitted, feminie designs and her gorgeous yarns. (I used her Orielle yarn for my latest Let's Knit design - blogged about here and Ravelry link.) Below is Verity modelling one of Louisa's sweaters.
 Because we were all sitting along the 'runway' we were able to take a close look at the designs as the models walked past and even stop the models to get a feel of the garments.
 Louisa did a great job talking about her designs, telling us about the construction method, alternative ways to wear it and other insights in to her designs.
 The models did a great job and we all had a fab evening. After the fashion show we were able to take an even closer look at the garmetns and even try them on. I didn't bother as there is now way they'd fit me.
All in all it was a great evening and it was lovely meeting Louisa. I've got a busy week ahead as I get ready for Wales next weekend but I'll be back soon to post about my new design in Knitting and to share a book review with you. Have a lovely weekend x

Oh, and don't forget. Book your place now on the online Finishing Techniques for Hand-Knitters due to start on 1 May. One lovely lady last night told me how much she enjoyed my online Continental Knitting with Norwegian Purl and that it was the first online class she'd taken (I'll probably run it again in late May/early June).

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