The Coquille Shawl in Fushia

Just now I’m on with 2 projects, assuming of course that we don’t count socks. I’ve gone from being a non-sock-knitter to being a sock knitter pretty quickly and if it doesn’t sound too much like advertising I blame it entirely on those pesky little sock circs; they make it far too easy to start a new pair of socks, unlike that hedgehog-wrestling to which I am crazily averse.

The other thing of course is that I really want to show off the gorgeous sock yarn that I sell, especially at yarn shows, so it makes sense to knit it up into fabulous socks and shawls to show it off at it’s best… so, that’s what I’m doing, a bit at a time!

So, aside of the socks which we’ve agreed don’t count as WIPs, I have the Pick, Pick, Pick it Up cardi that I’m knitting for me, from the HUGE-normous ball of Wendy Aran. I’m getting on well with this, just wondering if I should try to shape the back  into those flowing points at the front that are so elegant and ‘in’ these days… and also wondering how. I might do it when I pick up round the front and neck… hmmm.

And the other very enjoyable WIP that I’m knitting is the Knitty Coquille Shawl in a Fushia Zauberball which is looking very good!

And I’m really enjoying it. It’s a great TV shawl, very little counting or concentrating involved. I’ve been working out a little chart for ticking off the rows in each section to make it even easier – if there is any interest in me drawing it up and sending it out into the world let me know!

Coquille was designed especially to show off slow-striping sock yarns and I think it works soooo well, what do you think? I can’t wait to finish this one.

Oh, hang on, there’s a huge box arrived full of Debbie Bliss Rialto Aran…. I’ve gotta go unpack, photograph and update the shop!

🙂

Lego & Families…

This summer saw TheBoy’s first school summer holidays, the one where you get a whole six weeks off school and everyone who isn’t still in full time education grumbles about having five weeks holiday to last them The Whole Year and harks wistfully back to the Good Old Days when the barmy days were spent running wild and inventing games with just a stick.

We didn’t do a big summer holiday this year, for a number of reasons, but I’m happiest at home anyway and have thoroughly enjoyed our Days Out, our visits to relatives and being home most days to send out packages of yarny-goodness to my lovely customers and to chip away at my ongoing project; get the house tidy!

So, what’ve we done?

We went to Legoland to celebrate a certain someone’s birthday…

We had a fabulous day, and yet again smug-mum (yes, that’s me) made a picnic to save having to buy over-priced food from the hundreds of vendors scattered around the huge site.

We spent about 6 hours walking around, we didn’t go on many rides; the queues were quite something to behold and besides TheBoy was  more interested in just looking at everything…

why? well, everything was made of lego, absolutely Everything! Apparently there are 25 million pieces of lego at Legoland, how’s that for a piece of pub quiz trivia?

My favourite is that there are 52 pieces of Lego for every single person on the planet…. I say ‘favourite’… really, it’s terrifying…

Our springboard to Windsor & Legoland was my cousin’s place in Richmond; he and his wife put us up in style at their lovely home and their children played very nicely with TheBoy. We’ve been meaning to visit for ever-so-long and combining it with the Lego extravaganza made perfect sense and an all-round excellent trip, so thank you to Steven and Sarah, Emilie and Sam, xxxx.

Next up was a family visit to my uncle and aunt’s; my other cousin and his family were there too, and mum & B…

It’s not your average family portrait is it?! I don’t see this cousin often as he lives in France with his family – yes, we’ve got plans to visit! – and it was fabulous to watch the children all playing nicely together regardless of language. I do sometimes forget how lucky I am having the extended family I’ve got… we all get on really well although we don’t meet nearly often enough. Well, that’s something I hope to put right; I want to see more of my family, especially as TheBoy grows up. And for half term we have an invite to Toulouse, thanks to Andrew and Nathalie, Justine and Aimee, xxxx.

So, that was about half of our summer holidays, thanks for bearing with all my non-yarny updates, more later!

PS. This is what I’ve been knitting during those long motorway miles…. a longer sleeved version of Pick, Pick, Pick It Up by Meghan Munro. I’m knitting it in one of those huge 400g comedy balls of yarn; Wendy Aran with Wool.

So far, so good!

Back soon, with, I promise, much more yarn next time!!

Dear, dear, deer…

1. Dear – adjective; high-priced, expensive; I bought a new car this weekend 🙂

Well ok, it wasn’t over-priced but as purchases go (milk 69p, i-Tunes download £1.99, bottle of Shiraz £5.99) it’s not the cheapest! I won’t blether on about it here but the top and bottom of it is that I bought a lovely car with fabulous mpg and low vehicle tax. Squeeeee!

2. Dear – adjective; a beloved one; TheBoy

DH and I have reached an age where we don’t really want anything for our birthdays but my MIL still likes to treat us and as our birthdays are only 13 days apart we thought it would be nice to ask for a joint pressie this year… National Trust family membership… and we started our year of discovery with a trip to Dunham Massey in Cheshire.

I felt very mumsy because I made a picnic *smug smile* so the only thing we forked out for all day was an ice cream! We had a great day, TheBoy did the quiz-tour of the big house and we all ran off some energy in the very lovely but under-appreciated* Winter Garden.

We also picked up a map of the archaeological finds to, well, find in the 300 acre grounds but as we’d arrived late in the day we decided to leave this for another visit; Dunham Massey is only half an hour away so we’ll be going back soon to our newly found local-gem-of-a-day-out!

*Under-appreciated because DH & TheBoy had one aim in mind; get out of this garden thing ASAP. I’ll go back with Ma & B sometime and appreciate it properly…

3. Deer – noun, plural; any of several ruminants of the family Cervidae, most of the males of which have solid, deciduous antlers

Goodness me, these creatures were everywhere! The deer at Dunham Massey aren’t tame, you’re advised not to approach them and to remember that they are wild animals. That said they were grazing contentedly alongside the main paths through the park and you could get within 10 feet but they skittered away if you got any closer…

From it’s expression I guess this dear creature had had just about enough of being photographed for one day… 😉

In summary, summer holidays rule! And that’s all for today; I promise more yarn content next time 🙂

*Happy Dance* Part II

3. It’s ace chatting with customers, especially those I’ve been corresponding with by email or on the phone – a huge thanks to all of you who dropped by and introduced yourselves and a special mention for Isabelle who made me smile a lot 🙂

4. The Ravelry Party!

This was the scene of my second crazy-fan-girl moment; I nabbed a minute with Jess to tell her how grateful I was that she had started Ravelry and that it had completely changed my life…. yes I gabbled on a bit *blushes* but Jess was very gracious and didn’t make me feel too crazy! Basically without Ravelry I don’t think I’d have developed the overriding passion for yarn that I have now or started up Brownberry Yarns… you can see why I wanted to say thanks!

Bob was there too, in his own little way, as Mikayla of Fibre Flurry shows us:

5. The venue was spot on. Imperial College, behind the Natural History Museum.

It was clean and tidy and friendly and it had a cool tower on the lawn outside where we had our picnic lunches…

6. Last but by no means least, Julie.

Julie from our knitting group was our Tour Manager. She kept us (Kraftykoala and me) on track, calm and in the right place at the right time. She was the most amazing help on our shared show stand. She kept us going with snacks, picnic lunches, and most importantly cups of tea from her very well organised flask 🙂

I’ll tell you how good she was… we paid her in Wollmeise yarn… and she was worth every penny 🙂

And so a huge THANKS to Julie, to Alice & Cookie, to Gemma for sharing the stall and the travelling, to all our happy customers who stopped by and to you for reading all about our adventure!

xxx

*Happy Dance* Part I

Home and happy!

Very happy. As all my readers will know I’ve been to Knit Nation 🙂

You’ll catch me going on a bit about it because it has been AWESOME! Why?

1. The organisation of the event – by the gorgeous Alice Yu of Socktopus – was flawless, absolutely superb, and the lady herself was cheerful and welcoming and down-to-earth throughout the whole show. I don’t do the crazy-fan-girl thing… except, ahem, I did it twice at Knit Nation, here’s the first time; I grabbed a piccie of Alice with Cookie A (sock designer extraordinaire and co-organiser of the show)…

2. Brownberry Yarns was rubbing shoulders at the show with some of the top yarn stores, indie dyers and designers in the woolly world…

Jeni of Fyberspates – hiding from the camera? or showing off her gorgeous cardi? (um, Jen? you still have my scissors……)

Alex of The Bothered Owl – famous for taking Lego* from small children and turning it into stitch markers 😉

Babylonglegs – indie dyer with attitude!

Nic of Nicsknots – only the luckiest WIPs get to live in one of Nic’s funky bags!

Juno Fibre Arts…

Old Maiden Aunt…

*Did you know that for every person in the world there are 52 pieces of Lego?