Hi my name is Reid and these are photos of me and me with my brother and sisters and my dad when i was 1 day old,
Love Reid

Welcome Reid Mica Allman ,born 2nd December 2009 ,at 20.45 hrs ,weight 9lbs 10oz,Kerrie and Reid are both well and leaving hospital today.
Will post photo's later.

Over 600 skiens labeled and packed ,only another 200 either drying,ready to be skiened or awaiting labels ,its now i'm wondering why i do this every year.Ah i remember now, i love this show.
The Hipknits site will be mainly closed down until 13th October as i am taking most of the stock with me , any orders after Tuesday 6th will be posted on the 13th.
If your comming to Ally Pally call round and say hi,i know a few of you ,but it would be nice to put faces to the names and addresses i send parcel.

If your comming along don't forget to call at the Kal Media display its going to be very different,all i can say is it's going to involve loads of wallpaper and some young men !!?
Hope to see you there

I know dad won't tell you himself but it was his 60th birthday last week and Wayne, the kids and I went to spend the weekend with mum and dad. We had a good party for him on the Sunday, bouncy castle, BBQ, lots of food and fun. The kids and dad were the ones who spent the most time on the bouncy castle, I only sneaked a few minutes on there when no-one else was watching or bouncing!

The day before the big party, I decided that it was time to involve dad in the winding of gigantic skeins of yarn and the dyeing of self striping sock yarn. Ha ha! As some of you may know, this takes huge amounts of time and effort but is really worthwhile because the effect is gorgeous. We ended up at the end of the weekend with 51 skeins wound and ready to dye, and 10 of them dyed and ready to wind back into normal sized skeins. These are the ones that we dyed :

This was the first time I've interfered in the dyeing of yarn for MONTHS and it was quite good fun. We have 8 of the brighter ones and 2 of the paler ones. All were done with the same dyes but the paler ones were the result of the bottom of the dye baths when a lot of the colours had exhausted already. I personally LOVE the brighter ones and think that socks with nice big chunky stripes in these colours would be great. Like any hand painted yarns, the stripes won't be the exact same number of stitches and there may be some overlap between colours but the shades work so well together I can't see how these could be anything other than gorgeous. What do you think?

I'll be popping back from time to time with the odd blog post whenever I can sneak in without dad noticing, at the moment I'm just counting the days until the kids are back at school and my chaotic life can get back into a nice semblance of order again!

Here are some of our newest yarns, organic merino in lace and aran weights.

The aran weight is really soft and springy, with almost 200 yards per 100g there is enough for a hat out of one skein and a good sized scarf out of two skeins. The colours are bold and vibrant in this yarn.

The laceweight is almost as soft as cashmere, enough for a small shawl out of one skein of approx 725 yards. We picked nice soft muted shades for the laceweight so that whatever shawl pattern you choose won't be overwhelmed by the colour.

What are your favourites? Kerrie likes the blue / purple / red in the aran weight and the caramel / gold colour in the laceweight. We've had some great feedback from customers who have bought these yarns already, there are not many left of each colour.....

Where has the year gone already we are in August, and yet again in the UK we are still awaiting summer to arrive? Still August is a good month as both Brooke and Cameron have there birthdays in the next couple of weeks, although I cannot believe they will be 9 and 5 years old, they are growing up to quick.
On the Hipknits side I am currently dyeing some of the new Organic Merino ready to go on the site ,the laceweight is 736yards to 50g almost the same as our normal cashmere ,and is so soft and some Aran weight that is 196 yards to 100 gram , Cashmere 2ply 354 yards to 50 g and Cashmere 270yds to 100g Also have started to think about Alexandra Palace and what to take also must start some dyeing for it, I have to admit I still find Ally Pally very exciting and get a real buzz the nearer it gets ,not only for all the lovely people that come to the show ,both other stand holders and the shoppers but also for the place its self ,its very grand ,has a long history and the views of London from outside are spectacular, just a pity its not easier to get to.
The girls from Kal Media will be there also and after them wallpapering the stand, and adding a fireplace last year I hate to think what they are planning for this year, but time will tell.
Well time to get dyeing again just remembered I have to finish off a custom order

A first attempt at doing the blog, (hopefully not my last), will try to get you up to date first with what’s happening,
Kerrie is still working hard along with Lou and the rest of the Kal Media team producing Yarnforward , SewHip and Inside Crochet magazines which seem to be going from strength to strength, and I hear there maybe plans for more to follow.
I have taken over the day to day running of Hipknits , dyeing ,posting, doing the updates and now attemping the blog, we have some Organic new yarns just arrived which I will let you know more about soon .

The Family update, time goes so fast and the kids seem to grow even faster,
Brooke concentrating on doing what every young lady has to get right, painting her toenails

Cameron having just bounced himself out of breath on the bouncy castle

Trinity enjoying the sun and what every girl enjoys a bowl of Maltesers (chocolate)

And
“Sandwich “

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Yes no 4 is on the way due 7th December the nickname came from when Kerrie showed the kids the picture, Cameron tried to explain to Trinity that mummy had eaten to much food and it had turned into a baby, they were then ask what they thought it would be Brooke thought it is was a boy, Cameron went for a girl and Trinity thought it looked like a Sandwich.
Somebody told me this was easy,no way ,have spent so much time adding the photos to the the blog am going to have a lay down and de-stress ,perhaps the next one will be easier,OH NO have just committed to another one