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August 31, 2007
Yawn..
Oh man, I'm tired today. Wayne and I arranged for one of the children's most favourite people to look after them last night (thanks for all the lovely comments and emails on our anniversary!) while the 2 of us (and Trinity of course) went out for a while. We ended up in Cambridge which is SUCH a beautiful city, walking around the streets and then went punting for a couple of hours. Unfortunately I left the camera at home but I took some reasonable camera phone pictures of Trinity in her little life jacket (remarkably hard to breastfeed a baby in a life jacket don't you know!) and some of Wayne punting, if I can work out how to get them from camera to laptop I'll show you. It was a lovely evening, just what I needed to close out the day yesterday.
I've added a number of the sew hip Japanese craft books to the HipKnits website here. I'm going to be adding the fabric there as well next week. I am so much in love with the shopping cart software that makes my life nice and easy that it seems silly not to use it for both shop sites, the books are all on special offer at £10 each - go and get one while you can!
Posted by Kerrie at 08:14 AM | Comments (1)
August 30, 2007
4 years
Together for 10 years in December, married for 4 years today and its still not long enough. Lets hope we continue to grow and change and always love each other as much as we do today.
Posted by Kerrie at 06:18 AM | Comments (11)
August 29, 2007
shop
The shop is now updated and good to go, I didnt manage to get all of the silk stock up - there is just so much but here is a list of the lace silk we have - aran to follow tomorrow. until this is all on the site at the weekend just use the custom order button to tell me which colour you want.
Mid Blue – 900g
Pale Blue – 200g
Pastels – 300g
Pillar Box – 400g
Baby – 800g
Lipstick – 600g
Bright Pink – 300g
Forest Green – 200g
Bluebell – 200g
Biscuit – 200g
Teddy – 400g
Moody – 100g
Fallen Angel – 200g
Seaglass – 900g
Vibrant – 200g
Surf – 200g
Bright Green 100g
I can't get into my notify list at the moment so you guys are the first to know!
Posted by Kerrie at 07:44 PM | Comments (0)
HipKnits charity yarn auctions
Go here or here for a chance to bid on some HipKnits yarns in aid of Charlotte's trip to Peru for the rainbow trust. There will be 2 more auctions on ebay soon for lace cashmere and sock cashmere.
Posted by Kerrie at 06:07 AM | Comments (0)
New yarns
Wow, I have never spent so long on a shop update than I did yesterday. I still have lots more to do today so watch for the newsletter update at around 8pm tonight and then come and shop. On sale this week are the final skeins of cashmere and silk = 50% off most of them and up to 80% off a couple of tangled skeins. Someone more patient than me is in for a real bargain with those ones.
We also have lots of cashmere, lots of sock yarns and tonnes and tonnes of silk. Here are a few snippets. Apologies for the photos, I managed to drop and break my "good" camera the other day and these are taken with my tiny old camera. Sob sob.
Kisses - DK silk and cashmere. £5 per 50g skein
Delilah - DK silk and cashmere. £5 per 50g skein
Fashion - Wool and Nylon sock. £10 per 100g skein
Template - Cleopatra kid mohair and silk. £14 per 100g skein
Bright Blue - aran cashmere. £9 per 50g skein
Truffle - handspun merino sock yarn. £5 per 100g skein
Posted by Kerrie at 06:00 AM | Comments (0)
August 28, 2007
Roundup
I love bank holiday weekends, its a shame that we don't have any more now until Christmas though isn't it? We had a lovely lazy weekend with lots of picnics, time with friends, trips to the park and EARLY morning visits to the shop to dye yarn while the rest of the house were asleep. Freak, yes I know. But its just so nice to get home at around half eight after a few hours work to find the rest of the house still in PJs, drinking tea and eating toast. To be able to hang up the morning's work out in the garden and have it dried and ready to photograph by mid afternoon makes the early morning sneak out of the house worth it.
This is now the last week of the school holidays and I'm hoping for a lazy yet productive one. We still have school shoes and uniform to buy, books to read and a few things on our summer holidays list to cross off. Farms to visit, friends to play with and penguins to make (don't ask about that last one, I'll show you if they work out).
The summer has been lovely, despite the wintery weather. Trinity has blossomed with having her big sister around her more, Brooke is so in love with her and they would spend all day just laughing and playing if Cam would let them get away with it. He is just as in love with her as Brooke but slightly more nervous about Trinity when she tries to "slobbo" (his word) his toys. Everything goes in the mouth you know, even Roary the racing car. Babies have no respect for other people's toys do they? Between Brooke and Cameron they sit one either side of her as she sits up surrounded by cushions and pass her toys, tickle her feet and generally make her give her silent laughs for hours. I love to watch them. Gorgeous children.
This week is also our 4th wedding anniversary (traditional gifts are flowers and fruit, not too appropriate for Wayne I dont think) and our check up appointment at the hospital to see if the first bout of Trinity's treatment is working or not. A week of highs and lows, I can see it now. We're hoping for the best news but mentally preparing for the worst (I'm researching surgeons online - did you know you could do that? Look up the surgeon at the hospital you'll be visiting and see what experience they have and find out what other parents thought about them? You are allowed to request to be transferred to any other hospital as well these days, you don't have to go where you are sent initially. However, if it comes to it for us we'll be at Great Ormond St so probably no place better than that) There is such a thing as too much information but I'm not there yet, I'm still at the frantic gathering stage.
Sigh, yes. A week of highs and lows.
On a high note, did you see that Annette finished her Della shawl last week? It looks AMAZING, she is so clever.
There will also be links to some fun charity auctions here later on today when I can persuade ebay to let me post them. Probably this evening.
Then a HUGE shop update tomorrow evening, I have around 300 skeins of yarn to photograph today - thank goodness for a little bit of sunshine.
Thanks for all the nice comments on the handspun raglan, I'm almost hoping for cooler weather so that she can wear it but not quite. It looks just as lovely hanging up in her room as it will being worn.
Posted by Kerrie at 06:38 AM | Comments (3)
August 27, 2007
Hand Spun, hand knitted Trinity Raglan
A few weeks ago I bought 2 plaits of different coloured Fleece Artist wool / silk fibre from One Planet Yarn and Fibre and spun them into beautiful aran weight singles, approx 100 yards to each 50g. I used the brightest one of the 2 skeins of yarn (can't find the colour fibre on the site any more, it must have sold out which is a shame because it is beautiful) to knit the sleeves and then used the remainder of it to knit the garter stitch border at the bottom of the body. Then I used the paler skein (which was spun from this fibre) to knit the rest of the body of the sweater. I just need to finish the neckline and then its good to go.
Posted by Kerrie at 09:24 AM | Comments (9)
August 22, 2007
Techy head
I had my techy geeky head on yesterday as I played around with the shopping cart software and managed to make it do a couple of things that I've wanted to do for a while now.
Firstly all wholesale orders can now be placed online, much easier than the current emailing me with what you want to order system. Basically you go through the shopping cart wholesale section and choose what you want to order. One of the HipKnits team (pretty much me or dad) will then email you with a total cost including shipping and an approximate order date. Pretty cool huh? I've thought for a long while about whether or not to do this but at the end of the day it makes it easier for everyone.
I also managed to work out how to add in options for custom dyes online. This means that you can now choose to order and pay for a custom dye yarn and you can free type in the colour that you want, either from our standard colour list or anything that you like. I have only added this option for aran silk at the moment but by the end of the day it will be there for each type of yarn we sell. One person who shall remain nameless who tested it for me yesterday asked for chocolate brown with turquoise spots. Very specific and probably very good fun to dye as well. So go ahead, challenge us for a custom dye order. They will take on average 1 - 2 weeks to receive and cost the same as ordering a ready dyed skein so what are you waiting for?
Oh and before the big site update this evening which will be between 8 and 9pm sometime, I managed to get a load of handspun yarns on the site last night. These are GORGEOUS yarns, handspun by the super talented and all round lovely Jo. Go and take a look at them, quickly before I buy all of them!
Posted by Kerrie at 05:47 AM | Comments (1)
August 21, 2007
When life gives you lemons....
Dye your hair a funky colour. I can recommend this as a way to beat off the blues, its hard to feel navy when your hair is red and gold.
Wayne dyed my hair for me recently, red base colour and big chunky gold stripes. I love it! This is what it used to look like, browny brown brown. Makes me feel like a whole new person which after last the last week or so around here is very very necessary. Who would I be if I could be a whole new person? Probably Dee. I'd still get to play with yarn and knit but I could do it in a nice quiet house full of books rather than a crazy insane house full of toys! Id only like it for a week or so I think, I'd be sure to get bored after that time.
Dyeing hair isn't the only thing we've been up to this week. The shop update tomorrow will have lots and lots of silk as well as cashmere lace, more Cleopatra and lots and lots more. I'm also going to try comments again now that I've installed a couple of extra anti spam plugins. Lets see shall we?
Posted by Kerrie at 08:25 AM | Comments (10)
August 19, 2007
Louet Messina - special offer
I have just 4 skeins left of the gorgeous Louet Messina yarn that I bought before the Cleopatra kid mohair and silk blend. Each skein is around 225g and is 70% kid mohair and 30% silk. It is a sport weight yarn which took the dye beautifully and shines like the moonlight.
They were originally on the site at £20 for a 225g skein. Then they went down to the special price of £10 per skein and now there is only 1 of each colour left in stock. See them here on the sale page.
Posted by Kerrie at 07:53 PM | Comments (0)
August 16, 2007
cashmere sale
All cashmere yarn half price. Go and shop.
Posted by Kerrie at 08:38 PM | Comments (0)
August 15, 2007
Typical
So, last night I was due to go out with a friend of mine (Lynn) who I haven't seen for MONTHS. We had left it until now in the hope that Trinity might be independant enough to live without me for a couple of hours while we had a girly gossipy meal on our own but no, that was not to be.
As an interesting aside, its been great finding the Yahoo Group full of mums and dads that are going through (have been through) the same thing that we're going through with Trinity. I had thought that it was just a co-incidence that she has totally refused any kind of solid food / milk from a bottle in the last 3 weeks when before that she had been showing some inerest but apparantly its a fairly typical reaction from a baby in her situation. There is so little help / support / information out there that over the next few weeks I am planning a page full of everything I've learned so far so that hopefully it will give people another place to read up. So far I can count the sites on one hand that have helped me in my quest for information. Its the one and only time that the internet has really let me down.
Anyway, last night was to be the first night that I'd been out with a friend since Trinity was born I think so I guess it was inevitable that it would all go wrong. From not being able to find my make up bag (Emma - did it get left at your house by the side of your sofa where my bag was) to Wayne being stuck in traffic on the M11 and late home from work to splashing dirty dishwater all over me and having to get changed - the whole evening was jinxed. Lucky that when we actually got out Trinity was an angel and we had a lovely curry and a good gossip.
So all the bad luck was yesterday and today is going to be a lucky day, isn't that how it is supposed to work? My list for today looks something like this :
Take Cameron to nursery and Brooke to summer camp
Take Trinity to hospital for check up
Home for coffee and gossip with Anna
Round to the shop to dye lots of yarn and pack parcels
Pick up Cameron from nursery and Brooke from summer camp
Home to cook dinner and play with toys until bedtime
The Bill on TV at 8
Bed at 9
What do you think, is it going to work out that way?
Posted by Kerrie at 06:29 AM | Comments (0)
August 14, 2007
New Chunky sock yarn
You know the gorgeous Cleopatra yarn that I'm selling at the moment, the one that I bought from Carolyn that is 80% championship winning pure baby kid mohair and 20% silk? Well, I also bought some of her sport / dk yarn from her which is 80% championship winning pure baby kid mohair and 20% merino.
Each skein is 100g and approx 200m. The yarn takes the dye beautifully and feels just gorgeous. At sport / DK weight this yarn would make BEAUTIFUL socks nice and quickly (depending on the size of your feet you could probably get a pair out of just 1 skein) or you could use it for scarves, hats, shawls, sweaters or cardigans.
These are the colours that we have left in stock, a lot of it has sold already and I'm sure that these ones won't be far behind. I'm hoping to update the site on Thursday this week instead of Wednesday and may even have some more for you then. Any special requests for colours?
Choc Cherry
Eat Your Greens
Mint Choc
Posted by Kerrie at 02:27 PM | Comments (0)
August 13, 2007
Aran silk
I'm loving some of the new colours of aran silk that dad has been dyeing recently. These 3 are on the site now, I can't decide which is my favourite :
Colt
Rhubarb
Come Out
I really like the idea of a wrap made in rhubarb or Colt and the bright colours in Come Out are so tempting. I'm planning on keeping a couple of each for me to play with, just for research you understand.
In keeping with the wholesale theme that I started yesterday, have you noticed the new and very exciting (to me at least) link on the left hand side? Yes, that's right - some of our lace silk yarn and patterns for the starstruck shawl are on their way over to Janette's rare yarns. Everyone knows and loves Janette and I hope that the yarns sell well for her.
Posted by Kerrie at 02:36 PM | Comments (0)
August 12, 2007
Wholesale
I'm concentrating more and more on wholesale orders at the moment, after some annoying courier hiccups I've finally found a reliable team and you'll notice from the stockists list on the left that we're supplying more and more shops these days, with orders currently being dyed for even more at the moment.
There is currently around a 6 week turnaround time from placing a wholesale order to the store receiving their yarn. This differs slightly depending on what yarn you want to order - silk on its own is around 3 weeks but anything cashmere is queued up for around 6 weeks. This means that now is a great time to place orders for autumn stock, we're aiming to get any order placed with us in August delivered before the end of September AND we're offering free shipping for any order placed in August. What better time to place your first wholesale order?
So, if you happen to own a yarn shop and you're interested in receiving our wholesale terms and conditions and price list drop me an email and I'll send over the information straight away.
At the same time, if you're an existing HipKnits customer (or just someone who lurks but hasn't bought our yarns yet) you have the chance to win a skein of cashmere yarn. Simply email us with the details of your LYS who you think would like to find out more about stocking our yarns together with your name and if they place an order (any value within the T&C) you'll win yourself a 100g skein of cashmere yarn, sock or lace, hand dyed in any colour you like. How's about that?
Posted by Kerrie at 07:08 PM | Comments (0)
August 11, 2007
Now we are 3
Cameron, 30th June 2007.
Both this photo and yesterdays one were taken by Jon and Vince at True photography.
After yesterdays grown up day of princesses and pizza we've moved into Bob and Roary territory this morning with what seems like the entire contents of Toys R Us on our lounge floor. Love it!
Posted by Kerrie at 09:09 AM | Comments (0)
August 10, 2007
Wow, 7 years old already
Brooke, 30th June 2007.
Where does the time go? I'm fairly sure that I say the same thing every year but really, I cannot believe that she is 7. My beautiful big girl is all growing up.
Last night saw the now traditional cake baking night that starts off with best intentions and ends up 2 hours later with a sticky icing covered trip to Tescos to buy a Bratz cake. Why do I do it? Wayne and I had a slightly hysterical couple of hours as he watched me try to ice a fairy princess magic tower cake that I had attempted to bake later in the evening. Its in the fridge now and looks more like a giant purple mess than anything else but as Brooke said this morning as long as it is chocolate and has lots of icing it will be just fine. However, its not going to come out in public for her party - just to be shared between us at dinner later.
So, today has been about presents and cards and pancakes in bed for breakfast and tomorrow we get to do it all over again for Cameron.
Posted by Kerrie at 08:36 AM | Comments (0)
August 08, 2007
Shop Update
Posted by Kerrie at 08:28 PM | Comments (0)
New patterns
This stole knitted in our HipKnits lace silk arrived from Chrissy this morning, isn't it just gorgeous? Pattern available in todays shop update, but in case you're interested now it takes just 2 x 100g skein of lace silk and measures 18 inches by 55 inches.
Posted by Kerrie at 12:39 PM | Comments (0)
Whipup
I did an interview with Whipup recently, check it out and maybe win some goodies?
BIG shop update later on today. Probably around 8pm ish. With the usual newsletter discount code.
Posted by Kerrie at 08:59 AM | Comments (0)
August 07, 2007
Bits and Bobs
I love this gorgeous bracelet.
Kisskus. Lovely blog.
I'm teaching a class at Get Knitted at the end of September.
Two Straight Lines. Lovely Blog, cute baby around the same age as Trinity.
Twirly Skirt, Twirly Skirt. I want to make me a twirly skirt.
Posted by Kerrie at 08:29 PM | Comments (0)
Five reasons to be cheerful
As started by Peri
I'm working a few days behind here (no change there then) so these are the weekend's reasons :
- glorious sunshine and spending all day in the garden on Sunday surrounded by family and friends for an impromptu BBQ
- a hillarious 650 miles in the car with the kids over the end of last week going to visit Emma and Co. Oliver, Allan and Emma were fab hosts and we had a great time. The kids were amazingly well behaved for the 10 or so hours we were in the car over the 2 days, love them.
- Spontaneous hugs and kisses from Cameron. He can be such a sweet little boy - I love the affection he dishes out without any question or hesitation.
- 2 birthdays coming up this week, lots of planning and preparation for the Bob and Barbie extravaganzas
- Holidays. Nuff said.
Posted by Kerrie at 08:09 PM | Comments (0)
August 05, 2007
Sad times
I found out some terrible news this weekend. Alice, the good khama bunny died suddenly and unexpectedly last weekend. She was around my age and had a young family a similar age to Brooke and Cameron, it breaks my heart to think what they must be going through. I was lucky enough to know Alice in real life as well as online and I can tell you that she was so passionate about her fibre crafts it was always a pleasure to speak to her.
(this is a photo of a photo, that's why it came out a little skew)
Before I found out about Alice I was already planning to blog about the end of an era today. Don't you wish that all nice orange horses could live forever? My horse, Korky, was put to sleep at the end of last week. Its funny how I feel like we've had him for ever (was it 91 that we got him dad?) and although I haven't ridden him since before Brooke was born and only see him once every few months I still consider him "my" horse. I've been remembering all the times that I ended up in hospital after being thrown off / kicked etc during the years that we used to compete - the 2 of us never quite got it right despite loving each other dearly and trying so hard. I wish he could have lived for ever but we all knew that the right time had come and although I offered to be there when the vet visited end of last week I have to admit that I'm glad that wasn't necessary. Its one thing to know that he's gone and quite another to be there when it happens. Love you Korky, you funny old orange thing. Hope the grass up there in horse heaven is always green. xx
Posted by Kerrie at 08:53 PM | Comments (0)
August 01, 2007
Wednesday
Visiting - the hospital for a quick Trinity check up. Met the most lovely consultant in the world who answered millions of questions and made us feel much better in some ways and worse in others than anyone else has done.
Eating - KFC. Naughty but very very nice.
Wishing - that I had time to update the shop today, it will be tomorrow instead. Lots and lots of fibres to get on there as well as tonnes of sock yarn. Tomorrow, I promise.
Enjoying - Wayne being on holiday from work, does he ever have to go back? I could spend every minute of every day with him and still love it.
Feeling - Glad to have the Della pattern (see pic above) ready to be sent out to HipKnits project club members. Parcels went out today and pattern will be out tomorrow. Yay!
Posted by Kerrie at 08:30 PM | Comments (0)