January 31, 2006
Big News
Do you guys want to hear something exciting? I recieved the paperwork in the post this morning which kind of makes it official that from the 1st March HipKnits is no longer going to be based in my garage, I've signed the lease on a lovely little retail shop unit in Sawbridgeworth. How exciting is that?
Full details of address, phone number etc will come later but for now I can tell you that we'll be in Allen House at the Maltings, Sawbridgeworth. All of the other units around us are lovely places to look around, antiques shops, yoga and pilates studios etc. Its a gorgeous listed building next to a river with a very exclusive feel to it. Sawbridgeworth train station is the other side of the road with trains to London taking about 40 minutes into Liverpool st and Harlow and the M11 are about 5 minutes away. Nice and easy to get to..
Bringing you all back down to earth slightly, I'm not quitting the day job to do this. I was originally looking for storage space rather than retail space but when this came up I just couldn't resist it. I'll be juggling more and more stuff for the next few months until I work out a permenant solution. I'll be having an open weekend once a month, knitting group nights once a week and the shop will be open at all other times by appointment only. I do have a couple of people who are ready and willing to work in the shop but not enough to open every day. If you are ever in the area and want to come and have a look around, send us an email first and we'll make sure that someone is there to welcome you.
So, the first open weekend is 4th and 5th March. As well as all of our HipKnits yarns there will be many other new yarns to look through, some of which are not available anywhere else in the UK. There will be champagne, cakes, goodie bags for the first 20 customers, toys and activities for children as well as a very excited Kerrie to meet! I'd love to see you there if you can make it...
As well as HipKnits yarns the shop will also be stocking some other goodies. A range of children's clothes that I've been working on for a while now, some gorgeous vintage fabric, eiderdowns and quilts and other handmade goodies from other artists. Its going to be great, can you tell how excited I am? Do drop me an email if you have any handmade goodies that you'd like to suggest I sell for you, the more the merrier..
Posted by Kerrie at 06:24 AM | Comments (7)
January 25, 2006
Sale page, sale page
I just finished uploading the sale page a few minutes ago. Right now it is full of super chunky wool that I don't think I'll be stocking any more, too many exciting other yarns are coming in over the next few weeks... Next week I'll be adding some skeins of sock weight cashmere that are either too small or too large to go on the usual cashmere page to the sale page, watch out for that one! they are bound to be popular..
Posted by Kerrie at 10:04 AM | Comments (0)
January 22, 2006
Site update
The site has been updated with a whole pile of new aran weight silk colours and a couple of new sock yarns as well.
Check back mid week for more handspun hat kits from Miss Bell and some super bulky wool on the sale page, keep an eye here on the blog and I'll tell you when that has been added.
Next week's big update will include lots of cashmere sock yarn as well as lots of other sock yarn and of course some more shades of aran silk.
Now I need to go finish cooking dinner, don't order too quickly - I'm going to be away from the laptop for about half an hour or so!
Posted by Kerrie at 04:54 PM | Comments (0)
January 20, 2006
Over to you guys..
Thanks for all the button submissions, I'm working my way through them now and I'll let you know when I pick the winner!
Now, I'm looking to start buying some more interesting yarns to sell on HipKnits. The kind of one of a kind, luxurious and beautiful yarns that you can't usually get hold of in the UK. I have samples coming from all over the place at the moment but I thought I'd ask you guys, what brands of yarn do you wish you could get hold of easily in the UK? What should I stock? Any special requests?
Posted by Kerrie at 12:51 PM | Comments (6)
January 17, 2006
New Handspun scarf kits
I've uploaded a few of my handspun scarf kits this morning. With each kit you get between 2 and 5 mini skeins of different coloured handspun yarns that total around 60 - 70 metres in length and a pattern for a drop stitch scarf.
Posted by Kerrie at 08:04 AM | Comments (3)
January 12, 2006
Check us out!
Go and check out the HipKnits yarns page at the Loop website. Pretty cool huh?
Thanks Susan!
Posted by Kerrie at 09:31 PM | Comments (2)
Handspun on its way
Handspun yarn by Miss Bell and Hello Mango are both up.
There are yarns in each section which I'm kind of half hoping don't sell so that I can buy them. I promised I'd wait a month though before snapping them up. Can I be patient for that long, what do you think?
Posted by Kerrie at 10:23 AM | Comments (0)
January 11, 2006
All fixed
The site is all fixed, lots of lovely handspun will be going on this evening, I'll send a note out to everyone when its ready. Just waiting for Wayne to come home with his camera cable and an extra pair of adult hands to help with the kids.. I'll update here too when its done.
Posted by Kerrie at 04:23 PM | Comments (0)
January 10, 2006
Paypal
It seems I have a little problem with the Paypal options, no matter which colour of yarn you select it defaults to the final colour on the list. Until I work out what to do about it the best thing to do is to place your order and write in the comments section which colour you would like to order... I'll let you know when its fixed later..
Posted by Kerrie at 06:51 AM | Comments (2)
January 09, 2006
Shop, shop, shop, shop
Good Morning to you all! The site is just about up and running this morning, the silk, cashmere, patterns, fibres and sari silk pages are all stocked up, later this week the accessories, sale, handspun and wool pages will join them as I find a little more time to code the pages.
Do let me know if you find any broken links or errors, I’ve been over the whole site with a fine toothcomb but you just never know, it may not have been fine enough. Happy Shopping!
PS - I'm trying to work out which part of the stylesheet for MT makes the links at the top of this page go so big and brown. I'll work it out at some point today, until then - sorry that it looks so scruffy!
Posted by Kerrie at 10:44 AM | Comments (3)
January 07, 2006
Button contest
Anyone want to make me a button? I can't seem to get one that I like well enough, I'm up to button 20 but none of them are right. I want it to be about 100 pixels wide by about 30 pixels high and to contain the words HipKnits. That's all. How hard can it be?
So its contest time. Closing date is end of day 16th January, please email your created buttonsto info@hipknits.co.uk. The prize? 100g of HipKnits silk in any one of the colours that I happen to have dyed at that time or in a custom colour if you don't mind waiting a while.
I would need to be able to use the button on this blog and also offer it to other people to link back to us from their blogs. Oh, and my choice of button is final ;) although I may enlist the help of Brooke and Cameron to choose the winner. Them's the only rules. Now, go make me a button!
Posted by Kerrie at 08:18 AM | Comments (3)
January 06, 2006
Sneak peak
I've fixed the problem with the comments, thanks to everyone who emailed me about that!
I've taken nearly all of the photos for the site update, I'll probably get it all finished off and an email sent out to everyone on the list tomorrow morning. This is what I'm updating with :
2 different colours of merino roving,
7 different colours of aran weight silk,
9 different colours of lace weight silk,
3 different colours of lace weight cashmere,
3 different colours of sock weight cashmere,
4 different colours of merino blend sock yarn,
new handspun yarn from Miss Bell,
new handspun yarn from me!,
new handspun yarn from Hello Mango,
I think that should keep you all going for a few days, don't you agree?
Posted by Kerrie at 02:06 PM | Comments (1)
January 05, 2006
New Year, new look
Welcome to the new HipKnits blog! I'm going to try and update here most days with up to date HipKnits news. I'll be looking for your advice on new products and colours so you can expect to find a few polls here and also lots of pictures of the yarns and other fibres that we are dyeing for the shop and wholesale orders.
The shop should be open again at the weekend, I've had a few technical difficulties (namely losing both mine and Wayne's camera cables) but they should be resolved in the next day or so. I can't wait to show you all of the beautiful new yarns we have...
Posted by Kerrie at 08:29 AM | Comments (1)