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March 27, 2006
Stitch and Craft 2006
I really must be getting old, Olympia really took it out of me this weekend! I had a great time, it was lovely to see so many old friends again and meet lots of new HipKnits customers as well! I didn't get chance to take too many pics but the ones below show the HipKnits stand quite nicely.
I can't remember what Ruth and I were laughing at in the photo above but it must have been good. Ruth came along on the Wednesday to help me set up and man was I grateful! Set up and breakdown have to be the 2 hardest pieces of the whole thing and that's saying something seeing as the bit in the middle of set up and break down involves standing on your feet for 4 days and being nice to people! Ruth also came along on the Thursday, Friday and Sunday and was a huge help on the stand. Thanks Ruth.
Anna came along on the Thursday and between her and Ruth they managed to calm my nerves about teaching the flower knitting classes and managed the stand while I was gone. I was so nervous about teaching but the classes went really well each day, phew.
We were directly opposite the Get Knitted stand and had a lot of fun taking the mickey out of David (sorry David) and gossiping about customers and other bits. Dad was there at the weekend and we just managed to meet our deadline of breakdown and out of the car park within an hour. Are you proud of us? Huge thank you to Nic who manned the stand for us on Sunday morning when we were late arriving due to a puncture on the M11. Dad changed the tyre only to find that the spare was flat and we had to wait nearly an hour on the side of the road for the AA man. Stressed out? Us? Never....
I didn't spend a single penny all weekend (apart from travel and lunch etc), isn't that good? I am planning on treating myself to something from the new Kim Hargreaves collection at some point this week but I'm not totally sure which one at the moment. Oh yes, I cannot wait to show you the GORGEOUS crochet shawl that Sue Powell is designing for me out of the laceweight silk. I never thought I'd fall in love with crochet but this has made me want to learn. If I get time that is. More tomorrow, must run out of the door and get the kids now..
Posted by Kerrie at 07:33 PM | Comments (4)
March 20, 2006
Courses
HipKnits are pleased to announce their first set of 1 day courses planned for April and May. More will be arranged depending on the popularity of these first two.
Yarns to dye for.
Sunday 23rd April, from 10am to 3pm
Cost - GBP50 including 100g cashmere yarn, 100g wool yarn, 100g silk yarn, a Kool Aid kit and full instructions to take away with you. Lunch and refreshments are also included in the price.
Come and join Kerrie for a day of creative colour work at the HipKnits shop! We will start the day with an introduction to dyeing yarn. Kerrie will show you how she dyes the different yarns for HipKnits and you will get a chance to dye your own skeins of wool, cashmere and silk using 3 different dyeing techniques.
Then we will break for lunch and sit down and knit, eat and gossip while the yarn completes the dyeing process quietly on its own in the workroom. After lunch we will return to the dyeing, check out how our yarns are doing and finish them off. Kerrie will explain the best way to dry your skeins of yarn and give you an idea about how long they should take to dry. Then Kerrie will show you some of the next steps in caring for and knitting with hand dyed yarns.
This course is suitable for people with little or no dyeing experience.
Maximum 5 places available. To book please email info@hipknits.co.uk. A place will be reserved for you pending payment which needs to be made with either paypal or personal cheque with 7 days of booking your place)
Spin Spin Sugar
Sunday 21st May from 10am to 2pm
Cost - GBP35 including materials to make your own drop spindle, full instructions, all the fibre you need on the day plus a kit to take home which will include 50g hand dyed merino fibre, 50g sari silk thrums as well as lots of other odds and ends. Please feel free to bring your own scraps of fabric, ribbon, fibre or other bits and bobs that can be incorporated into your yarn. Lunch and refreshments are also included in the price.
On this short course you will learn how to spin your own yarn using a drop spindle that we will make first thing in the morning. You will receive all of the materials you need to be able to come up with your own funky yarns, Kerrie will explain how to include ribbons, scraps of fabric and other oddments of fibre in order to create truly individual skeins of yarn. Ideas and patterns will be shared for small amounts of handspun yarn that you may come up with and everyone will go home with a couple of mini skeins of their first spun yarn.
This course is suitable for people with little or no spinning experience.
Maximum 5 places available. To book please email info@hipknits.co.uk. A place will be reserved for you pending payment which needs to be made with either paypal or personal cheque with 7 days of booking your place)
Posted by Kerrie at 08:18 AM | Comments (1)
March 15, 2006
Knitting night
We had a great knitting night last night at the shop, 4 of us sat and knitted and gossiped the night away. Come along if you are close enough, every Tuesday from 6.30 till around 9.
Posted by Kerrie at 07:06 AM | Comments (1)
March 13, 2006
Araucania
Oh, and I forgot to mention that the Araucania pages are up. I'll be adding the last few details later on today.
Posted by Kerrie at 10:38 AM | Comments (0)
Aran weight Cashmere
Yum. That's all I have to say about the new aran weight cashmere that we're stocking. We currently have 2 shades in stock (pale pink and pale blue) and we are going to be handpainting some further colours later on this week when the last 2 wholesale orders are dyed and dried. This yarn is like butter, it is so so soft and beautiful to knit with. If you have a particular colour that you'd like to see some in do let us know and we'll see what we can do!
Posted by Kerrie at 09:07 AM | Comments (0)
March 07, 2006
Shop shop shop shop shop
Thanks for being patient with me while I slept the day away yesterday, now I can share some pics with you. The whole weekend was great, dad and I were there from about 9 on Saturday finishing off the last few bits and we had people knocking on the door just before 10 asking when we were opening. We sent everyone to the cafe around the corner, apparantly at one point nearly all their customers were wearing handknitted garments and waiting for us to open!
Saturday was great with lots of old friends and HipKnits customers coming in. It was lovely to meet people that I'd only spoken to on email before and also to see others who I hadn't seen since Ally Pally last October. I imagined that Sunday would be the quiet day but again, dad and I noticed 2 cars sitting outside the shop from about 10.30, as soon as we opened the door at 11 they were in! It was lovely to have so many people who stayed to sit on the sofa and knit a while after their shopping and also to see how many people took advantage of the basket of balled up yarns on the table that were available to swatch and sat and knitted.
Michaela made me this lovely cake, don't you think she should set up a website and make them for everyone? I do. We didn't cut it until Sunday and let me tell you that it tasted just as good as it looked, that's no small feat considering it looked so amazing!
This is the left hand side of the shop as you walk in.
You can see the beautiful Trudie jacket that Minxxie made for me at the far end, the baskets full of handspun yarn on the wall, the table with gorgeous flowers that Wayne sent me and jug of needles with basket of yarns to swatch, the sofa and hand dyed chunky yarns hanging on the wall.
Now this is the other side of the shop with the metal floor to ceiling racking that I did my very best to make pretty by covering with Laura Ashley wallpaper and Cath Kidston spotty material. This is where the bulk of the yarn is stored, underneath the spotty material are all my undyed skeins and boxes.
Now for a few close-ups. This is the basket of swatchable yarn that sits on the table. This pic was taken before anyone actually picked up the yarns and started knitting so its not quite that neat any more! A little table full of Lyn's beautiful brooches. Basket of Hello Mango handspun yarn and one of Felt Studio handspun. The row of goodie bags in the back room, just waiting to be taken home and finally the first wall again, just because I really like the way you can see the whole sofa in this one.
Phew. Enough pics for you? I have lots more but that should give you a taste of what you missed if you weren't able to make it at the weekend.
I'll be updating the HipKnits store tomorrow with LOADS of goodies. I'm going to update the website once a month from now on instead of every week or so, this will make it much easier for me. I'll still be doing all the custom dye orders and I'll make sure that the once a month update is MASSIVE so it should hopefully last nearly the whole month. If you did miss this weekend you can see us at Olympia at the end of the month, that's coming round faster than I really want to think about at the moment!
Posted by Kerrie at 10:10 AM | Comments (7)