Spriteling KAL

Just a quick post to say how I’ll be joining in with the Socktopus Spriteling KAL ahead of this years Knit Nation show in London on the 15/16/17 July 2011. I spent some of my weekend dyeing up some Besotted BFL/Silk Laceweight in the new colourway Joan, made especially for this KAL. The “on trend” colour for this autumn following London’s Fashion Week are touted as being “Rust”, and this new colourway has rich burnished orange tones through to chestnut

So here is a quick snap of a skein (flash on unfortunately so the colour looks a little darker and flatter than in real life, but it shows the shimmer to the yarn marvellously), there’s a few spare which will hopefully be going up on my Etsy shop shortly, as soon as I’ve finished winding them all.

Mmmm, Dark rusty deliciousness

I’m back!

Yup, that’s right, I’m back and I will be blogging much more regularly. This time. Maybe. No really, I will.

Just to catch up on what’s been going on since my last post:

Firstly, I have to mention being made homeless at the end of October. Our new landlady pulled out 2 days before we were due to move in, mainly due to her being as mad as a bag of cats. Looking back it was probably a lucky escape.  So we used our hired van to move all our belongings and furniture back to my parents place one and a half hours away, and proceeded to live out of a suitcase in a friends box room in London for the next 6 weeks until we found somewhere else. It was not the best timing for this little crisis, as I had signed up to some part time courses, was working at 120% capacity at work, and had planned to do my first ever stall and the public launch of Sweet Clement. However, we managed to move into our new flat just before Christmas so it’s all water under the bridge as they say.

6th December 2010 – The Bothered Owls Xmas Yarn Party

Yup, my public launch. Very exciting! With all the stuff going on in the background, I was a bit worried that I wouldn’t be able to produce very much stock for the stall. I contacted a few of my lovely designer friends (Ruth of Rock and Purl, Emma of Made by Loumms, and Anna of Zombie Kitten Knits) and asked them if they had any patterns ready that could be on show and sold on the stall. From this, a beautiful batch of sample garments in Sweet Clement yarn were organised and knit by Ruth, Emma, Kate and Anna. Meanwhile, I needed somewhere to dye up yarn, and my lovely mum not only let me commandeer her whole kitchen for 3 weekends in a row, but actually gave herself blisters winding skeins during the week whilst I was back in London working and studying. How great is she!?!

I was an absolute bag of nerves for the last week or so, trying to get everything dried, wound and labelled for the show, but everything worked swimmingly on the night. Here are some fab snaps taken by Ruth just before the knitting public poured in through the doors.

 

Sweet Clement Stall

Colourways

Samples

I had a grand time meeting and greeting people, most of whom were seeing Sweet Clement yarn for the first time. I had mince pies and red wine and some lovely chats with newly-met knitters, whilst others admired the samples and bought patterns and yarn. It was slightly weird to feel like I was behind the stalls for once, and I kept wanting to wander off with people to look at the other wares! Later on I got a chance to say Hi to Luisa from Lotusblossum Knits who was also having her first public outing, and Debbie from Skein Queen who had been offering us both some reassuring words on Ravelry. I also go to purchase some rather delicious Fyberspates Scrumptious 4ply in Woodland from Jeni and her mum – I almost immediately regretted only buying one skein and so I put in an order for a second later that week.

I’d like to thank everyone for their hard work in helping me make such a lovely stall and for their lending moral support during the evening, it made everything a lot less scary to know that there were friends and fellow stallholders out there rooting for everyone’s general success. I had a great time and final thanks must got to Alex, Sarah and Scott of The Bothered Owl for organising such a fab shindig. I really hope that there’s another one some time in the future!

January 2011 – Etsy shop launch

With the start of the New Year and with my new flat mostly unpacked and sorted, I was finally able to start up my Etsy shop. To be honest I am a bit of a perfectionist and waiting for the “right” lighting conditions to take photos of my colourways just wasn’t going to happen, so I quickly made do with what I had. Admittedly they’re not the best photos, and I’m pretty sure that if you zoom in enough, quite a few of them have a bit of camera shake. But the colours are acurate (thanks to my fancy new camera having a brilliant white balance feature) and I’ll gradually replace them with better ones as I restock the shop. So for now, browse away at the colours in stock at the moment, and I’ll be letting people know when I update the shop on Twitter.

I think that’s the major events of the last few months caught up with, and now onto post actually about the present – hurrah!

Back from Dundee

Well, it was a beautiful weekend up in Scotland, with sunny spells and dramatic black clouds and gorgeous scenery. I spent most of my time on the train just gawping out of the window at the Fife coastline and rolling countryside that I was whizzing through. Needless to say, not one blanket square was completed, although I finished my current book (Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks) and started a new one (won’t mention it’s title but the main character has pretty much the same name as me so I’ve always been curious to read it – not a great read so far).

I’m trying to plan a bit of a dyeing session for the weekend, although I’ve got lots to do before that can happen and only a few evenings free to do it in – winding trial-size skeins, recording the 50 odd colours from my previous dyeing session, balling up the colours I’ve already dyed, planning what combinations to try next…

I’m a little bit compulsive about the way I dye and the records I keep, and I have a giant recipe book in-the-making, with my latest set of dyes giving totally new sets of colours. I love doing loads of 5g trials, which means I spend a lot of time winding 5g-size skeins, dyeing them, snipping a length for my recipe book and then winding up the remaining 4.5g or so into a teensy little yarn ball. I have 2 glass jars full of them (dk weight, which are becoming my blanket squares slowly but surely), and now I am using my fingering weight yarn for the titchy balls. I’m at a bit of a loss what to do with these 120 new ones, although I have seen another British indie-dyer selling them like gumballs at a show, which is a grand idea!

I think my recipe book looks amazing, and I love creating the book almost as much as I love making hand-dyed skeins of yarn. All the measuring out dye with syringes and making pots and pots of brightly coloured (magical!) potions is the most fun a girl can have. Must be the scientist in me…

I’m here!

Well, I’ve got myself a Twitter account, I might as well set myself up a little blog too to let you know how I’m getting along with everything. I’m preparing to do a preview of my hand-dyed yarns on Bank Holiday Monday, so once the photos are sorted out I’ll get some up here so people can have a little peek. (And when I say I’m preparing, I actually mean I-have-no-idea-when-I’ll-find-the-time-to-prepare…)

Got a wedding to go to in Dundee this weekend, meaning I’ll be spending 12 hours on a train over Sat/Sun – taking my little blanket squares with me – hopefully I’ll knit hundreds! Not sure it’s a good idea to take anything more strenuous than that as I’m likely to be exhausted on the way there (train leaves at 6.15am!) and exhausted on the way back (self-inflicted I’m sure, with the help of a little bit of G ‘n’ T).

Not sure what to do with my old blog now, I think it’s a bit of a write-off and I may just send it to the big server in the sky. That’d make me feel better about not having written anything for ages and ages too!