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May 31, 2008

Procrastination

So Katya must have known that I was in dire need of some procrastination, this meme is the perfect thing to do when I really should be doing a million other things.

1. What I was doing 10 years ago:

Living in Ilford. Been seeing Wayne for about 6 months. In the process of buying my own flat. Working for Enron as Helpdesk Manager and putting in 15 hour days as we moved 2000 people from one building to another. Generally being young, free and single, working really hard at something that I loved and having a hell of a lot of fun. Sigh.

2. What 5 things are on on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):

Finish proofing some pages for the magazine
Make a picnic to take to Greenwich park at lunchtime
Go to BBQ this evening
Laundry
Buy birthday presents for various children

3. Snacks I enjoy:

I'm not really a chocolate eater (shock horror, I know) but I do love biscuits. I'd snack on digestives all day if they were in the house, which is why they are not!

4. Things I would do if I was a billionaire:

Buy a house in the middle of no-where and one by the sea. Make sure family and close friends never had to work again, travel with the children a lot more and donate more to charities - making sure it actually got to where it was needed the most.

5. Places I have lived:

St Ives (Cambs), Cheshunt (Herts), Canonbury (Islington), Ilford (Essex), Dagenham (Essex)

So, Michaela, Marianne, WMK and anyone else who fancies having a go - consider yourself tagged!

Posted by Kerrie at 08:21 AM | Comments (1)

May 30, 2008

A recipe for disaster.

Take one almost 4 year old who seems to have totally lost his manners and has spent most of the last week or so on the naughty step.

Add one 14 month old girl who is obsessed with her dad (not overly interested in her mum at all) and has stopped sleeping properly at night.

Combine a busy deadline week with half term and sprinkle a twisted ankle and the inability to choose a photo for the front cover on top.

Place all ingredients in the same house together, mix and leave for a week to see what develops.

Posted by Kerrie at 02:32 PM | Comments (6)

May 29, 2008

Paypal

There are a lot of rumblings online at the moment about Paypal, has anyone here had problems with them? I think that on the whole they are OK but I have been looking around for an alternative for a while for both HipKnits and Yarn Forward and having read some of the forums, blogs and other news stories this morning I think I'll make that a priority for next week.

If anyone is interested then start here with the Statcounter blog and follow some of the links in the comments. They don't make very nice reading though, you have been warned.

Posted by Kerrie at 08:07 AM | Comments (1)

Modern (or not) Technology

This is one of the best buys I've ever made for HipKnits (the industrial multi cone to skein winder was THE ULTIMATE best buy) a mangle that I picked up from ebay for around £30 I think.

Its perfect for getting as much water out of the yarn as possible after it has been rinsed and before it is hung up to dry. The silk especially benefits from this as it is so dense that it used to take over a week of hanging up in the garden to dry, now with it going through the mangle it can be dry in just 2 or 3 days. Perfect.

I'm not sure I could face having to put a whole family's laundry through it though, it certainly makes you realise how hard housewives used to work!

Posted by Kerrie at 07:48 AM | Comments (0)

May 28, 2008

lovely photos of lovely kids

Seeing as it is almost midnight I thought I'd post this now. Lou and I are still up and sending proofs of the front cover of the summer issue back and forth between ourselves. This is so hard! Out of the 100 pages that Lou is designing the cover is the biggest decision, we have tried it with just about every pattern that we have in the magazine and still cant agree on it!

While we are going through the gorgeous photos that Marianne took and deciding which to use for the patterns, I thought I'd show you these 3 pics that she snapped of the kids chilling out at grandma's house during the photo shoot.

Brooke. Not sure why she was frowning, unless its because she was cold. She is wearing her grandma's coat so there must have been a reason for that which I can't remember.

Cameron. Laid back on the sofa watching the world go by. Lovely boy.

Trinity. Peeking around the side of Lou's skirt with lots of knitted samples in the background.

Lovely photos of my lovely kids. Now back to the Mac. x

Posted by Kerrie at 12:01 AM | Comments (3)

May 27, 2008

Shop Update

The shop update is going to be completed at 2.30pm today (about 2 hours from now), sometime before my nervous breakdown but after lunch. I'll share pics here later of some of the goodies but for now I need to carry on uploading pictures and writing descriptions. Its a big update today with around 70 different types and colours of yarn.

EDITED TO ADD PICS

Beautiful shade of aran silk that was a custom dye for someone. We had 3 skeins left over. I am more tempted by these than I have been any other colour of aran silk for a long while.

New Wool and Silk sock yarn. Love this colour, there are only a few different colours on the site but they are all gorgeous (and dyed by dad!)

Another custom silk colour. This one would make a beautiful Clapotis, don't you think?

One of 9 packs of Cleopatra silk and mohair yarn. These are the last ever skeins of Cleopatra I think, there may be half a dozen more somewhere but we're pretty much all out of it now.

Posted by Kerrie at 12:37 PM | Comments (2)

May 23, 2008

Adminy bits

I'm about to log off for the weekend and won't be back online until Tuesday afternoon (all things going according to plan that is!) We've got a busy weekend planned, lots of spring cleaning and sorting out and organising the house - its very overdue.

If you are still thinking about whether or not to subscribe to the magazine we've reduced the price of a UK subscription by 10% for this bank holiday weekend only, go here to be tempted if you like.

The HipKnits shop will be updated on Tuesday evening with lots of yummy goodies.

Apart from the shop update I'm not going to be around as much next week for 2 reasons, firstly its half term (hurray!) and secondly and with some particularly bad planning on our part its press week which means that Lou and I will be up and online at around 5am and not finishing work until about midnight most days. That gives us time to hang out with the kiddos in between. So it will be a week of photo blogging from me...

Have a lovely long weekend, hope the weather is kind to all of us. Its not looking too bad here at the moment but you just never know do you?

Posted by Kerrie at 05:44 PM | Comments (0)

Summer stuff...

We took a wee trip to the forest the other night (when the photo for the new header at the top was taken) and for the first time we left the pushchair at home and let Trinity wander about as she pleased. The meadows were full of buttercups and Trin was happy just walking around with a buttercup in one hand and either mine or Wayne's finger in the other. Isn't she sweet?

Not sweet enough to co-operate and let me try this skirt on her that I made yesterday though :( Its out of some lovely Heather Ross fabric with VW vans all over it. Not very feminine I suppose but super cute. I used a red velvet ribbon for the waistband and left it long enough to tie in the back to fasten the skirt. I used a matching red cotton to hem the bottom of the skirt so that it matches the waistband. Kind of! This is the first time I've made a skirt from my own pattern that doesn't have an elasticated waist and I'm strangely proud of it.

I wanted a skirt that was long and full but I think this is a little too long. It probably needs to come up an inch or two but as she refuses to stand up straight while wearing it I don't really know! Think that I need to try it on her while she is asleep and straighten out her legs to see how it looks.

I also made her this other skirt which is a better length but I really don't like the pleats or the way that I made the waistband a little too wide. I used the Heather Ross fabric as before for the waistband and some Amy Butler for the main piece of the skirt but it just doesn't quite feel right to me. More practice needed with pleats I think!

I cut out some trousers and a dress for her too but haven't gotten around to sewing those up yet. Maybe over the bank holiday weekend...
I'm off out with the kids today to meet up with another knitting blogger who lives not too far from me and her kids. Yay!

Posted by Kerrie at 07:22 AM | Comments (6)

May 22, 2008

Superyak

You guys are lovely. Thanks so much for not making that big sharing of very personal thing yesterday either scary or awkward. All the comments and emails meant so much to me. I think it will stay there, at least for the time being. Its strange to be so open about someting which is so personal and that I would usually keep to myself but I'm going to try and post lots of pictures over the next few days so that it gradually drops off the page!

I ordered a few kilos of yak yarn recently, just to see what it was like. I wasn't convinced how soft it would be but it is just beautiful. It feels very much like cashmere, and is pretty much the same gauge as our cashmere sock yarn. With 460 yards per 100g you could have lovely yak socks that feel just as luxurious as cashmere but at a more reasonable price. Michaela and Lou were both introduced to the yak yarn last week and agreed that it was a lovely soft yarn.

We only dyed 2 skeins of it to start with, these were both experiment skeins to see how many yards we would need to wind to get around 100g. The green and yellow skein was 500 yards so its a little over 100g and the blue, green brown skein was only 300 yards.

If anyone wants to try out some yak yarn I'm happy to send the smaller skein over to someone. The yak has found a home, thanks Sue, but if anyone else fancies tryong out some new yarn in exchange for a photo and review just send me an email. I have another couple of skeins that could do with a home. You'll need to be able to knit it up in the next couple of weeks though as in return for the skein of yarn I'd like a picture of something that you've made with it (even if its just a partial picture, like the first half of a scarf or something) and a few words on what you thought about the yarn. I've just purchased a new customer review module for the shop which should be installed and ready to go in the next couple of weeks. I thought I would co-incide it with the yak yarn going on the site and it would be nice to have a review written of the yarn.

If any other customers are happy to write short (50 words or less) reviews about any of our other yarns please email them to me at kerrie AT hipknits.co.uk. I'll put each review that I receive into a prize draw to win a skein of the yarn that you reviewed, I'll announce the winner on the day that the review module goes live on the site.

Posted by Kerrie at 08:50 AM | Comments (1)

May 20, 2008

New Yarn

This is the first of a few new yarns we have to offer at HipKnits, it is a silk and cotton blend - approx 300 yards per 100g skein which makes it around a double knit weight. The yarn is gorgeous, dense and yet soft at the same time. This would make beautiful summery tops, shawls or anything else that you are inspired to make. I'm planning on starting a wrap out of this test skein later on this week.

I'm hoping we'll have some on the website early in June.

Tomorrow, a preview of our new Yak yarn...

Posted by Kerrie at 08:06 AM | Comments (2)

May 19, 2008

Shop Updated

The shop has been updated, see all the pretty yarns here.

As a special happy week offer there is a 20% discount until noon tomorrow if you enter the code BLOG in the coupon code field at checkout. This week has started off better than I ever hoped it would, thanks to everyone that had needles and fingers crossed for me this morning - I got the news I hadn't dared to hope for and things are looking up. I realised over the weekend that last weeks bad mood was almost etirely nerves about this morning's appointment and also a good dose of PMT. This week, this week will be fab now.

Tomorrow, some pictures of our new silk and cotton yarn that will be on the site next Monday. It is beautiful. xx

Over on the YF blog, Sarah has posted a sneak preview pic of some of the garments from Saturday's photo shoot.

Posted by Kerrie at 02:59 PM | Comments (4)

May 15, 2008

This week is not my friend

I don't know, it all just seems to be getting more and more out of control. I spent most of yesterday morning dealing with the aftermath of some stupid people and banging my head against the wall. At 12.30 I sat down and ate leftover curry from the night before then gave up and went to bed for a couple of hours which is something that I haven't felt the need to do for ages.

I am taking your advice though. After WMK told me to dye more yarn I decided that today would be a get your hands mucky day skeining yarn from cones, dyeing yarn and generally playing with yarn. I'm hoping it will be a big sanity check. And spinning fishwife, just as SOON as YF pays me any kind of salary at all the first thing I'm treating myself to is a cleaner / housewife type person. I'm considering stopping paying into my pension at the moment in the hope that I can better use that money to get someone to clean for me. What do you reckon? I must be one of the few people that has paid into a pension every month since they were 18, perhaps its time to take a break for a year until YF can pay me a salary and use some of that money to help me be less stressed. Hmmm...

Oh and yesterday I learned the phrase drama llama. I love it and will aim to use it in conversation every day. I managed it yesterday by telling Lou by text that she was a drama llama when she complained that a shelf full of magazines had fallen off the office wall and onto her. Drama Llama. Go ahead, see if you can use it in conversation today.

I'm going to be busy prepping for the photoshoot on Saturday all day tomorrow so I won't blog again until Monday at which point I hope to be able to share lots of lovely photos with you. Now won't that be nice? Have a lovely weekend whatever you are doing and if any Cambridgeshire people want to come along and help out at the photoshoot on Saturday drop me and email. Michaela, its at a place you know well only a few miles from your house if you want to pop over. x

Posted by Kerrie at 06:25 AM | Comments (5)

May 14, 2008

Things and Stuff

Thanks for the comments and emails yesterday, Ruth - I didnt get a box of anything lovely but if I had I would be rushing down the M11 with it to share with you right now. I hope you get the tooth / car stuff sorted out..

Its all feeling very mundane around here, I seem to be drowning under the little things. Data entry, laundry, checking and rechecking, laundry, stock takes, laundry, labelling oh and did I mention the laundry? None of it is a major problem, it just all seems to have hit at once this week. Usually my working week is full of exciting and interesting mixed in with the mundane and repetetive. Not this week though... This week we are all about the blah.

Next week promises to be more exciting. We have the yarn forward photo shoot on Saturday and 3 new yarns to launch next week. I'm also off to help shear some sheep at some point over the next couple of weeks (not sure that I'll be doing much helping though) which is really exciting. So I just need to get through three more days of blah before it all starts to get more exciting. I can do that, don't you think?

Posted by Kerrie at 08:14 AM | Comments (6)

May 13, 2008

Shop updated

Here

If anyone is in West Essex today and has a box full of cheer and good humour drop it off to me please would you? I'm sadly lacking in both at the moment.

Posted by Kerrie at 01:25 PM | Comments (4)

May 12, 2008

Big Weekend

We had a big day yesterday, Trinity was christened at our local church and then we had 52 people back to our house for a BBQ, party, general fun time. We were so lucky with the weather, most of us were sheltering under the gazebo trying desperately to find a little shade and the kids loved to be able to take off their posh church clothes and splash around in the paddling pool.

Trinity was lovely, she wore the same dress as Brooke and everyone commented all day on how similar they looked. She didn't sleep much all day (which became a bit of a problem at about 6pm) and was so good in church. She did have a good cry when the vicar took her from me and glared at him when he handed her back but apart from that she was so happy all day.

Its lovely to have so many friends and family over to celebrate the day. Lou and her family came over on Saturday and stayed over night (just so that I could have that extra pair of hands to help with the dessert making Sunday morning but don't tell her that!), this was the first time our kids and husbands had met and they got on just as well as we knew that they would. We all rather took over the church as there were only about a dozen people there who hadn't come for the christening!

Trinity was lucky enough to have 2 beautiful cakes. The first made by the ever wonderful Michaela (who had her own party yesterday)

and the second made by our lovely cake making cousin Kim.

If anyone wants cake including with their yarn orders this week that might well be possible as we have SO MUCH left over.

The only problem with having a house full of people on a Sunday is that you don't get time to clear up properly before the week begins. everywhere I look in the house there is stuff. Clean plates to be put away, dirty things to be washed, piles of stuff in the garden etc. This is when working from home is not a good thing, I either spend a few hours sorting it all out this morning or I look at it all day. Ho hum. I have a sick boy with tonsilitis at home with me as well so add that to me being shattered and having drunk rather a lot of wine yesterday afternoon - I think today will be one of my least productive.

There will be a shop update later on today though. I'll let you all know what time later on this morning when I can see how the day is going. I'll add pictures here as well when I find the camera...

Posted by Kerrie at 07:17 AM | Comments (4)

May 08, 2008

Yarn Forward news

Another quick one this morning, my to do list is ridiculous for today and I'm taking this time to blog while the smallest one in the house is still asleep while the rest of us are tiptoeing around trying to get dressed without waking her. Lucky its not my day for the school run (I share with another mum) so if Trinity and Cameron and I are late getting where we are supposed to go that's no big problem..

Have you checked out the yarn forward magazine blog recently? Sarah is busy working on our blog for us and will be giving you lots of insights into what is going on behind the scenes over here. Go and say hi to her and if you have a Ravelry account you can join in the discussion on the Yarn Forward Magazine group over there as well.

Our advertising sales manager for the magazine started with us yesterday, you'll be meeting her on the blog very shortly. The magazine is beginning to feel like a great business with lots of people all taking responsibility for different areas rather than just me trying to do everything. We have one more person starting with us in June and then a small gap before we look for another couple to join us later in the year.

The summer issue is in progress, we have the photo shoot in a couple of weeks time and the garments are pouring through the doors at the moment. Its all looking great and keeping Lou and I very busy at the moment. We are hoping to have it out in time to bring to Woolfest so if you subscribe and are coming to the show you'll be able to pick up your magazine there.

Posted by Kerrie at 08:20 AM | Comments (0)

May 07, 2008

Very quickly

We're changing contact email addresses for HipKnits, for now please send everything to kerrie AT hipknits.co.uk and I will let you all know the new email to contact our posting manager very shortly so that you can email her with any order queries. I've put an auto reply on the other email addresses and I'll keep an eye on the inboxes for the next couple of weeks but (fingers crossed, touch wood and any other superstitions that you might have) this should fix our email issues. Lets hope hey?

Posted by Kerrie at 07:13 PM | Comments (0)

May 06, 2008

Shop update

We have SO much yarn to put in the shop today, it is going to keep me busy nearly all day photographing, editing the photos and uploading it all to the shop. I'm hoping that the quality of photos will be much improved as I'm embarrassed to admit that months after buying my new camera I have FINALLY worked out how to put it onto macro setting which takes the best photos of yarn. How silly that it should have taken me so long to find that little button...

Here is a preview of some of the silk that we have on the site :

A new pastel colour that was a bit of an experiment. It didn't work out as planned but it is so soft and pretty

A custom dye that was just soooo pretty we couldn't resist dyeing more of it.

Knox. One of my all time favourites which is strange because usually I don't do orange.

Bracken. This is an always popular colour of silk

The shop update is done and on the site. Click here to see all the new products this time. The newsletter list is not co-operating so I'll try again in the morning to send out the notification. As well as lots of lovely summery silk we have some great sale bargains as well. Like these packs of cashmere sock yarn and lace yarn. 200g for just £13.

Pretty pink laceweight

Cashmere socks anyone?

There is also this months choose your own sock yarn club yarn. Cashmere. Yum.

And some ophelia merino sock yarn. Sorbet socks for me please...

Posted by Kerrie at 07:19 AM | Comments (0)

May 02, 2008

Bank holiday

Wayne asked me a few minutes ago how come I hadn't updated the blog today (he reads here more than I realise!) and I didn't really have a good answer for him. Its been a lovely day today, I had the 2 small people at home with me but I've still managed to get a surprising amount of work done.

On Tuesday I'm handing over all of the HipKnits stock to our new manager (yay) and there will be a humungous shop update at 9pm Tuesday night so that I can do the bulk of the work after the kids are asleep. The May choose your own sock club yarn will be on there as well, its cashmere this month. Yummy yummy cashmere.

Also on Tuesday the free patterns page and the errata page will go live on the YF website.

We've just come back from pizza hut for dinner with the kids and I'm planning on turning off the laptop now until Tuesday morning. There will be lots and lots going on next week with new yarns arriving and the last stage of the project club yarn being finished off and the little goody bags made up. I'm really excited about handing over some of the day to day work to someone else, I thought I'd be sad about it but I'm really not.

Have a lovely long bank holiday weekend, lets hope for some good weather for all of us. xx

Posted by Kerrie at 08:01 PM | Comments (0)

May 01, 2008

School Trip

I'm going on a school trip later on today, this is the first time I've allowed myself to be roped in to help on a trip and I'm actually quite looking forward to it. I have my wellies and my rucksack and I think I may be the only one planning to knit on the coach.

The kids have to wear school uniform on the top half and jeans and wellies on the bottom half. I've decided to wear my Ravelry T shirt that says where my stitches at. I know where my stitches are, driving me mad at the moment. Not too sure what knitting to take on the coach..

Lucky the trip isn't until later on today which gives me time to be productive before I go. The summer yarn forward magazine is in full production mode, samples are arriving every day and pages are flying around being designed, copy edited and proof read. This is my favourite stage of the magazine production, I love seeing all the ideas and concepts come together. We're hoping to have it out in time for WoolFest at the end of June although the official on the shelf date is mid July.

Posted by Kerrie at 08:07 AM | Comments (3)