Iknit Weekender

I'm very excited to announce that I'll be teaching at Iknit Weekender this year. this event takes place in London on 10 & 11 September. I'll be teaching two workshops on Friday 10 September. I'll be teaching an intermediate lace class where we'll cover provisional cast on, reading more advanced lace charts and working an applied border. I'll also be teaching a workshop on how to knit two socks at a time. This was very popular at the UK Ravelry Day in  Coventry last year and we'll learn how to knit two socks at a time using magic loop method,  learn how to  cast on, knit in the round, work the heel and toe on magic loop. this is very different when you've got two socks on the needles rather than one. sounds like fun? Each workshop is 3 hours long. You can book here. The line up of workshops and teachers are amazing and I'm really excited about this event. We're planning a long weekend in London. Simon and the girls will go out and about in London on the Friday while I'm teaching then we'll have a day out all 4 of us on the Saturday and Sunday morning before returning home. I would have liked to attend the show on the Saturday too. There will be lots of stalls and there may be one or two workshops I would have liked to attend but a big of sightseeing sounds like fun too.

On the design front there are lots of exciting things happening. I've been commissioned 4 designs for Artesano using Manos Silk Blend, which I may have mentioned once or twice before, is my favorite yarn for sweaters. There are also several new designs being submitted to magazines over the next few weeks. I'm working on autumn/winter ideas now and it seems strange to be working so far ahead. One magazine editor mentioned Christmas the other day and it made me want to scream. LOL. But mags need to plan ahead so that's fine.

The above was written yesterday, Friday, but I ran out of time to finish it. Vanessa has her birthday while we were on holiday so we decided to do her party last night. She wanted a sleepover. We've not had a sleepover here for 3 years as the last bithday sleepovers we had were such a nightmare. Teh girls didn't sleep at all and I spent most of the night walking up and down the stairs to hte lounge to tell them to go to sleep. I warned them thouroughly. Vanessa had 3 friends and they're all lovely girls. I went to bed about 10.30pm and asked them to be quiet as our bedroom is just above the lounge were they were sleeping. At 11.30pm, I went downstairs again to ask them to talk a bit more quietly. I then fell asleep and didn't hear them again. Think they fell asleep just after 2am, which isn't bad for a sleepover. Next week it's time for Emily's birthday sleepover.

All week the weather has been pretty good although it's gotten cooler than it was last weekend. We had a lot to do at home last weekend so didn't get to enjoy the sunshine too much. So we made the most of it today. Simon loaded the kayaks on to the car and we headed up to the moors to an old quarry called 'Golddiggings'.

the quarry is incredibly deep and very, very cold even in middle of summer. Two months ago it was half frozen over, so you can imagine the water is still pretty cold. It's about 20 mins walk from the village of Minions. But taking the kayaks meant we couldn't walk, so we drove across the moors on a dirt track. It was incredibly bumpy and we hit hte underside of the car a few times but we did manage to get there in the end. Who says you need 4 wheel drives in Cornwall?!

The girls spent ages mucking around on the water with the kayaks.

Sam, our dog, kept wading in. Last summer when we went up there, she swam several times. I tink the water was too cold for her today but Simon pur her on the front of the kayak.

He didn't go too far out. But the kayak wobbled slightly and Sam jumped out and swam ashore. I wasn't quick enough to get a pic though. Think she was cold afterwards as she kept rolling in some tall grass to dry herself off and afterwards she wasn't too keen to go too close to hte water.

Someone else was brave enough to go for a swim too:

That's Vanessa. Even with a short wetsuit it was freezing. She still had her life jacket on from the kayakking.

What did I do while all this was going on? I sat in my comfy chair with my knitting.

I knitted a couple of swatches for new designs. I've got several magazine and yarn company submissions to get ready for next week.

I finished my first crochet design for Inside Crochet on Friday. I'm very pleased with the finished result and wish I could share it with you. I think it's due out in issue 9. I've had another design commissioned too. I dyed teh yarn for that yesterday and crocheted up anotehr swatch in the actual project yarn this evening. After spending the last week exclusively crocheting, the only knitting I've done is one tiny swatch early in the week, I thought I'd be keen to get back to knitting this weekend and I've done quite a lot of swatching for new designs but I couldn't resist picking up the hook and start swatching for a new crochet design this evening. I'm really addicted to crochet now. I never thought I'd like it this much.I wasn't particularly keen on it as a child and I'm very glad I took the crochet classes last autumn to re-learn the craft properly. I'm not starting to think about designing crochet garmetns. You get a very different fabric from knitting and it's very itneresting and a new challenge for me.

I've also done a bit of machien knitting this last week. I knitted a new design for myself which I absolutely love. I won't share pics yet as I'm thinking about submitting it to Machine Knitting Monthly. I want my machine knitting mentor to look at it first and give me her opinion. I'm going to a machine knitting club at her house on Monday and there will be several machine knitting experts there so it'll be interesting to see what they think.

This is turning into a very long post. If you're still reading, well done! There will be shop update tomorrow or Monday. I've dyed lots of Exotic Cobweb Lace, Bambino Lace and Fantasy sock yarn in some yummy, summery colours.