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July 31, 2008
Shop update
The shop was updated at long last yesterday, I'm in love with some of the colours of fibre that dad dyed last week. This one in particular is calling my name, I think I'm going to see if we can dye some yarn in these shades - doesnt' it look lovely?
Today is a bringing it all together day. It doesn't matter how long we plan for something it all seems to need finishing off at the last minute, does anyone else find that? Tomorrow is a big day (again!) and I'm so excited about it. I can't wait to finally be able to say that I have no secrets from the internet and that everything that is taking up my time is common knowledge.
Until tomorrow though I'll carry on with the odds and ends that need bringing together today. As well as answering the bat phone as well, the subscriptions have been POURING in this week and are showing no sign of slowing up at the moment. I'm not complaining though, honestly.
Posted by Kerrie at 10:13 AM | Comments (2)
July 30, 2008
Yesterday
Should have been a nightmare. It started with the broken laptop and disentegrated into pieces. Getting home last night to find Wayne with solder and tools all over the kitchen table was not the way I hoped the evening would go but when I realised that he had taken apart the laptop power cable and pieced it back together and fixed the problem I was SO relieved. Thank goodness for husbands with degrees in electrical engineering type things, love him.
I also managed to break my camera yesterday. Locked myself out of the office. Shredded an important document before I had looked at it and discovered that the Dreamweaver CD I have is not compatible with my new MAC. It wasn't a great day.
Today will be better. I'm going to meet a friend and her little one for coffee this morning (bunking off for a couple of hours, shock horror) and then will use my old camera to update the shop this afternoon / evening.
Edit - shop updated any minute now and a nice newsletter discount is about to be emailed out. I didn't make it for coffee. I need a new car. And an assistant to answer the phone. And a cleaner. And a cook. Sigh.....
Posted by Kerrie at 06:02 AM | Comments (1)
July 29, 2008
New and Old
My lovely lovely laptop that I have had forever stopped working this morning. It has been struggling to manage both HipKnits and Yarn Forward work for a while and the funny thing is that today it was to be semi retired and turned into the HipKnits only laptop. I think it knew that this had arrived at the office, think that's why it stopped working?
Its not a major problem. Does mean that I have to get the new macbook up and running sooner than planned and its annoying that all the work I did on websites over the weekend is lost until I can get the laptop fixed but it will be OK. Nothing that a few hours extra work replicating all the templates can't fix tonight. Le sigh.
I'm going to try and update the shop later, have my camera batteries on charge waiting to be ready to take the photos. If the phone would just stop ringing then I'd be OK...
Posted by Kerrie at 09:18 AM | Comments (2)
July 28, 2008
Monday morning
- School holidays = summer camp = packed lunch needed = sun cream, hat and water bottle
- YF Ad in the guardian = MILLIONS of voicemails = phone ringing constantly = paypal caving under the pressure
- Busy weekend = tired = headache = no time to tidy house up before Lou comes round later
Its more chaotic than usual around here. I'm learning to get over my dislike of speaking on the phone pretty quickly this morning, I can see the voicemails piling up as I'm taking details from people over the phone. Expect a quiet week from me on the blog front. There will be some photos, a HK update and some (more) exciting news but on the whole it will be a short week for blog content.
Posted by Kerrie at 10:03 AM | Comments (4)
July 26, 2008
The Guardian
Have you seen the guardian newspaper today? They have published a whole booklet of knitting patterns with lots of interesting information about knitting in their Saturday paper. They anticipate selling between 300,000 and 600,000 copies of the paper today - that’s a whole lot of people learning more about knitting which can only be good, right?
You can read the article on line here but if you actually buy the newspaper you’ll get to see the lovely full page advert for Yarn Forward on the back page of the supplement. How exciting!
Posted by Kerrie at 09:19 AM | Comments (3)
July 24, 2008
The dress
I'm really proud of this bridesmaids dress. We did some serious customising of the bodice to ensure a perfect fit and the inside is not the neatest (in fact its quite scruffy) but seeing as the deadline that I thought I was working to has come forward from mid August to today I am really pleased with the way it all came out. Its pretty short but above the knee was the request and above the knee it is. I'm assured by the bridesmaid to be that she doesn't hate it and that it is very lovely and that's good enough for me. The photo was taken half way through hand sewing the hem in place. Pretty pink colour isn't it?
The bodice is made up of 5 pieces with 4 different layers so that's a total of 20 pieces plus boning which I've never worked with before and the shiny satiny material was also a first for me. It was a challenge to sew the pieces together around the bust and I had to rip that part out about 10 times but I got there in the end. I can see lots more sewing in my futre, I have well and truly got the bug.
Posted by Kerrie at 06:17 PM | Comments (1)
Wee shop update
I had some help this morning when I was taking photos for the shop. See?
Trin was sitting on my knee and squeeling with delight whenever I took a photo. She is really into the camera at the moment and will do the best grin and say cheese whenever she sees one.
Its the first day of the summer holidays today, yay! Brooke has a list of plans for the next 6 weeks which we'll try and fit in with my plans and Cameron's plans as well. Wayne gets to have a say in the 2 weeks that he is off too..
My HipKnits plans for August include some very very special offers for anyone who has bought yarn from us before. So if you've been lurking and wondering whether to buy from us or not you have until the end of July to place your first order so that you'll be entitled to the customer discounts in August. Did that even make sense? It is early....
I updated the shop this morning so go and have a look, see if anything takes your interest.
Posted by Kerrie at 08:08 AM | Comments (2)
July 22, 2008
Tuesdays
So, its 9.30pm and here I am, on the sofa blogging. Usually I update here in the morning but today has been tooo hectic for that. Now I'm settled down with a glass of wine and a slice of cheesecake and about 3 hours work to do I thought I'd make the effort to put a quick update on here.
You'll never guess how I spent most of my day today. I spent 5 hours making a bridesmaids dress for a friend of mine who is a bridesmaid for her sisted in a few weeks time. It was a fairly simple pattern but I'm so pleased with the way it looks. We made a muslin version last week which was unlined and fitted OK so today was all about the real thing. Satin dress, boned bodice, fully lined skirt and 3 layers of fabric in the bodice. I only have the hem to turn up and the zipper to put in properly and she is coming back on Thursday to pick it up. I'll get a pic of it then and show you, I'm really pleased with it.
That prompted me to cut out the pices for the Amy Butler Anna tunic that I've been meaning to make for ages. Maybe over the weekend I'll get to that.
I'm away all day tomorrow at a funeral, then Thursday is going to be a wee HipKnits shop update and hopefully I'll finish off some of my deadline knitting. Tonight I have to finish lots of work on the YF website as well as some other html bits that I've been putting off for ages.
I went through the HipKnits shop database this evening to pull names and addresses for a big mailing that I'm doing next week. We have almost 1000 registered customers on the site. That is amazing, I would have guessed about half of that. If you've ordered from us in the last 18 months you can expect a postcard with some special offers to arrive on your doorstep in the next few weeks.
Sorry this has been so bitty, its one of those weeks. I'm away again on Friday at a nice exciting meeting so hopefully next week will be more settled but somehow, I doubt it. x
Posted by Kerrie at 09:24 PM | Comments (0)
July 21, 2008
Juliet
I was tempted by some Debbie Bliss yarn that was on sale in John Lewis last week, 6 balls of chocolate brown super chunky cashmerino for less than £2 a ball. Bargain. It is going to be knitted into Juliet from the Zephyr girls just as soon as I get a spare minute. I don't have quite enough to make the size that I wanted (should have bought more!) but a cropped version will be just fine.
I browsed some finished versions and I've decided that I'm going to use stocking stitch for the top section instead of garter stitch and start the lace below the bust line. Its vaguely similar to the Feb sweater I made recently, A line and lacy and I think the garter stitch top would make it too close for comfort. Has anyone else made this, what did you think of the pattern? I need to go browse Ravelry to see some finished ones I think.
Posted by Kerrie at 08:08 AM | Comments (0)
July 20, 2008
Similar yarns
A lot of our new yarns are a very similar yardage to our cashmere sock yarn. See?
Cashmere sock yarn - approx 500 yards per 100g skein
Yak - approx 470 yards per 100g skein
Silk and wool - approx 460 yards per 100g skein
Silk and baby camel - approx 450 yards per 100g skein
Here are a whole pile of Ravelry links to projects made using 1 skein of cashmere sock yarn, any of the other yarns would also work well in these patterns.
For those of you not on Ravelry you could try these shawls :
Swallowtail shawl
Diamond Fantasy shawl
Kiri
Forest Canapy
Or how about a Shetland shorty? You'd need 2 skeins for some of the bigger sizes.
Lots and lots of sock patterns here on knitty.
I'm trying to decide what to knit as samples for Ally Pally this year, I'm thinking lots of socks and shawls. What would you like to see our yarns made up into at the shows? Each skein is going to have a free pattern on the ball band for something, just haven't totally decided what yet. Decisions, decisions....
Posted by Kerrie at 10:11 AM | Comments (0)
July 18, 2008
To Do today
Done
- Update HipKnits shop and share some pictures of the lovely new fibre and yarns here. All the new yummy stuff is here.
This is my favourite one, silk and baby camel. Can you say soft?
Loving the colours in this spinning fibre as well.
Shiny, shiny, silk and bamboo
- Bake desserts for village party tomorrow. Think that there are about 100 people going. That's a whole lot of desserts to make.
I've made a lemon pie so far. biscuit base and then cream, carnation milk and lemon filling. Nice and quick. Made while kids were eating toast at 10.00.
Next on the list is a choc cheesecake which is nice and easy as well. Then I think I'll make a banoffee pie and a big pile of muffins for the kids.
(edited to add The lemon pie didn't set properly and I ended up wimping out and just made about 200 muffins instead.)
- Tonnes of housework. Boring but necessary. (did little but not as much as I should have done)
- Knit a bit on each of the 7 things that are on the needles. (this is unlikely to be done) ((I finished 1 thing and worked on 2 others)
- Bank (didnt do)
- Tescos (check)
- Yf admin and paperwork (check)
- Go to printers (didnt do)
Posted by Kerrie at 08:30 AM | Comments (1)
July 17, 2008
New Hair
Trin's hair is growing really long, she's been wearing it in little bobbles like this for a while now. To begin with she pulled out the hair bands but now she likes them, she'll go and pick them up and bring them over to Wayne or I patting her head and saying hair hair for us to put them in her.
Yesterday morning I happened to have everyone ready for nursery, school, work a little earlier than usual so I sat her down on my lap for half an hour and plaited her hair for the first time. It was a little scruffy but it stayed in all day and she didn't seem too bothered by it so that's a good sign. She sat nicely while I did it which is a great start, Cameron used to fight me every inch of the way when he was a baby. This means that soon Sunday is going to be a 3 way plaiting day, I'm going to need to put the whole afternoon and evening to one side to get them all washed, dried and plaited aren't I?!
I'm out all day today at a meeting up in Yorkshire but I have everything ready for an itsy bitsy shop update which I hope to get done tomorrow morning. The first of the silk / baby camel will be on the site and I really really want to keep it all for myself. Do you think anyone would notice?
Posted by Kerrie at 08:24 AM | Comments (1)
July 16, 2008
Some project progress
This is Sarah's shawl, she has started well even though reports being distracted by kids, TV and wine! (that sounds familiar!)
Alison had a bit of a problem with her cat and her skein of lace cashmere, eek! Hopefully her replacement skein will get her back on track soon.
Rachel is also knitting away, although she has had to rip out a couple of times.
Posted by Kerrie at 01:43 PM | Comments (1)
July 15, 2008
Tuesday
I knitted a bit of a shawl over the weekend using some of our lovely HK silk. The silly thing is that I only had a teeny ball to play with and now I've decided that I love the shawl and would like to continue with it I need to wait until mum comes to visit tomorrow to be able to carry on with the knitting. Its done in shade baby and is the 2nd project club pattern that is SUPPOSED to be knitted in lace cashmere. Whoops. (note on the project club progress, all but one parcels arrived. Only 2 people that I'm aware of have cast on, the rest are either finishing up current projects or waiting on injuries to heal. Pics from the group will be blogged here on Friday)
August is going to be the month of silk at HipKnits. Lots and lots of lovely patterns, special offers on our silk yarn (and probably some of the new silk blend yarns as well) new colours and new ideas. What better time to knit with silk than in summer? This is why I'm playing with the silk now..
We're also going to have some downloadable pdfs of pattern collections for you, with maybe 4 or 5 patterns in each one. Its going to be a lot fun putting the month of silk together, I'm rediscovering my love of all things silk like. And with that its time to go and wind some more silk into balls.
Posted by Kerrie at 10:49 AM | Comments (3)
July 14, 2008
Whoops
We have this amazing skein winder that will wind yarn from cones to hanks at the touch of a button. All we have to do is to line up anything from 1 - 10 cones on the machine, feed the yarn through, set the number of yards we want in each skein and press go. (this is fun when we get a new yarn in and have no idea how many yards = how many grams, this is why we often have smaller skeins for sale in the shop sale section where we are making different sized skeins until we know how many yards we need)
The machine stops winding when it has reached the programmed number of yards and hey presto, a whole pile of skeins ready to dye.
Well, usually this is what happens. Sometimes the machine has a total meltdown and just keeps winding. This is OK if you're standing over it watching but as this is the most boring job in the world we usually put the machine on to wind while we are dyeing or doing something else. The other day we were winding our brand new camel / silk yarn into hanks when disaster struck and instead of 3 skeins weighing 100g each we ended up with 3 GIANT skeins, one weighing 400g and the others weighing 600g each. Eek.
Here they are in their lovely undyed and natural state. Being all huge and everything,
What to do with them? I don't fancy winding them down into smaller skeins particularly but they are of little use and value to me like this. So how about a special blog offer? The first 3 people to email me can have these GIANT skeins custom dyed just for them and they will sell for half retail price. (normal retail price for a 100g skein is going to be £18) There is enough in them to make multiple scarves / shawls or even a whole cardigan / sweater. The yardage is approx 450 yards per 100g so you're getting lots and lots of yarn here.
Email me at kerrieAThipknits.co.uk and tell me which of the following you want :
Skein A - approx 400g and 1800 yards HALF PRICE - £36
Skein B - approx 600g and 2700 yards HALF PRICE - £54
Skein C - approx 600g and 2700 yards HALF PRICE - £54
All gone, thanks guys!
Posted by Kerrie at 01:12 PM | Comments (0)
Monday
Its 6am on Monday morning and I am soooo looking forward to this week. There will be no sickness, no teacher training days, no small people at home with me. There will be mucho productivity, boxes will be unpacked and todo lists will be completed. There will be a fun trip out by train and a big night out with ex work colleagues. There will be knitting. There will be sewing. Wine will be drunk. Cake will be eaten. This week is going to rock. I will make it so.
HipKnits wise last week was another quiet one, we only sent out about 18 parcels and one of those didn't arrive. Grrrrrr. Lots of nice feedback on the ones that did arrive and we're sorting out a replacement for Barbara so all will be well in the end. Its still frustrating though when parcels don't get where they are supposed to get...
Posted by Kerrie at 05:52 AM | Comments (0)
July 13, 2008
Hello?
What a few days its been! Trinity managed to do this week what Cameron failed to do the week before and pass her bug around the rest of the house. Wayne, Brooke and I have spent the last 2/3 days with serious stomach upsets, its been horrible. Looking after healthy children when you are ill is not fun at all, especially when both adults in the house are ill. Touch wood we all seem to be getting a little better now but its a slow process. Ugh.
I managed to update the shop this evening, for some reason though a lot of the nice new goodies are not showing up in the new products page. Some of them are, a lot of them are not. Who knows why? So you'll have to go
Here for the last ever skeins of seacell yarn that we have. Not sure if I'm going to get any more in.
Here for about 100 skeins of Ophelia sock yarn, most of them have at least 2 skeins per colour.
Here for some lovely bargains.
Posted by Kerrie at 06:15 PM | Comments (0)
July 09, 2008
Monkey
This little monkey is home sick with me today. Doesn't look very sick though does she? When I picked her up from nursery yesterday afternoon she had just finished throwing up on one of the teachers and she was sick again in the night, poor little poppet. She seems totally fine in between bouts of sickness but nursery rules are 48 hours at home so that she doesn't pass on whatever she has to the other babies.
Its going to be quite nice to have some time just me and her. Most of the time there is a house full of people around us, its been months since my days were spent just me and Trin, hanging out at home together.
Loads and loads of new Hipknits stock is arriving this week, laceweight yarns, plenty of BFL fibre and THE most gorgeous silk and baby camel blend ever. I think its a similar blend to the HandMaiden camelspin (but I've never seen that yarn so I'm only guessing as the composition looks similar). We still have lots and lots of the Emilia super chunky yarn as well which didn't really sell too well so that needs to be dyed up and put on sale soon. I might take it to Ally Pally with me.
I'm getting excited about Ally Pally already. We are going to have so many lovely yarns, and patterns, and kits to take with us. It is my all time favourite show of the year and its only 3 months away now. We already have a box put to one side and whenever we dye any yarn half of it goes in the AP box and the other half goes on the site. I've never been so organised!
Posted by Kerrie at 07:21 AM | Comments (1)
July 08, 2008
Weekend fun and games
What a weekend! I love the fact that we're so flexible as a family and that we can change plans at a drop of a hat and do what we want to, when we want to. Saturday night was supposed to be a big night out for both Wayne and I, he was going out with his mates and me with mine. The babysitter was booked and we were both looking forward to a good night out.
Plans were changed however when a little postcard dropped through our front door. It reminded us how good we are as a couple, how strong we are as a family and how we didn't actually need to spend any time apart from each other - so we cancelled the babysiters, texted friends to pull out of dancing plans and took the 3 kids to the seaside instead. It was exactly what the doctor ordered, we played in the sand, collected shells and stones, ate dinner on the seafront, played in the penny arcades, won stuffed toys and didn't go home until hours after everyone's bedtime when we were all about to fall asleep on the beach. It was perfect.
The rest of the weekend was pretty good as well, very different from how we expected to spend it but lovely and relaxing.
I'm in website mode this week, sorting out lots of bits and trying to get Dreamweaver working properly on the MAC. I'm still much more comfortable with the PC but that has to change :(
Posted by Kerrie at 11:08 AM | Comments (1)
July 07, 2008
Change of plan
I had this whole post planned this morning about the weekend, some stuff that happened on Saturday and a few other bits. I feel as though it should wait now, we had quite an emotional night last night explaining to the children that someone they knew well on Wayne's side of the family had died and I'm not really feeling in the mood any more. Cameron is still to young to fully understand, he listened seriously and then when we asked him if he wanted to ask us any questions he said yes, please will you read me 2 Thomas books bedore bed. Brooke asked a lot of questions and went to bed but minutes later we could hear her sobbing. It had reminded her of when my gran died last year and she was feeling sad about both deaths all over again.
She got up and we spent half an hour or so snuggled up talking about death, heaven, what it is like to die and anything else that she wanted to talk about. I told her that its OK to be sad and to cry and that she doesnt have to try and be brave and that she can ask me anything that she wants, so she did. We had quite a grown up conversation which ended up with us sharing our happiest memories of both people who we had lost, she came up with some things that I had no idea she remembered. It was really special. She then managed to persuade us to let her come downstairs and watch some of Top Gear with us.
Its another busy week for me this week with mainly magazine work going on. HipKnits stats wise last week was a quiet one, I didnt update the shop until Friday night so we only posted out about 13 parcels all week. Lots of nice positive feedback on the orders that did go out so that's brilliant news for us.
I also need to get organised on some of my knitting projects, I'm working on 2 things for the magazine at the moment, want to make 2 lace shawls to keep up with some knitalongs and also really fancy making Juliet from the Zephyr girls. (Rav link) I could do with a second pair of hands! I might have a sort through the stash later on today, see what I can come up with.
Posted by Kerrie at 07:12 AM | Comments (4)
July 03, 2008
Nothing for ya
I'm empty today, I have nothing for you. I've been knitting a little, spinning some, planning some sewing and working hard on the magazine and other bits. Lou and I have been going through the notes we made while drunk in the hotel at Woolfest, some of our ideas after a few gins are inspired and others, well - not so much. We've given ourselves plenty to do over the next few weeks..
So tired though, so tired. I'm not sleeping too well at the moment and Cameron is still sick bless him. Today is a day on the sofa watching Scooby Doo and working on the laptop I think.
Keep an eye out on the YF blog and Ravelry group for details of our summer knitalong. Sarah is organising it for us and I think we're all going to be knitting the gorgeous Liz Lovick wedding shawl. Gulp. Its laceweight.
I really need to sort out the HipKnits shop update, its been a couple of weeks now since we did a proper one. I'll try and get that done tomorrow I think.
Posted by Kerrie at 08:02 AM | Comments (3)
July 02, 2008
A wee bit of spinning
We had some sad family news yesterday and I have a sick Cameron at home with me at the moment so no shop update today and not much of anything else is going on right now. I'm planning on going into the office when Wayne is home later I think.
While Wayne was out last night I finished off the yarn I was making from the pink / chocolate batt I bought from Natalie and started knitting it into a simple top down shawl. I have just about run out now so need to get my hands on some plain pink or chocolate fibre so that I can spin more yarn and finish off the shawl. I have a lovely lace pattern all picked out for the solid section.
Posted by Kerrie at 12:52 PM | Comments (0)
July 01, 2008
Good grief?
Can you believe that it is July already? Over half the year gone, every day is moving us closer to Christmas (sorry to swear!), closer to 2009, closer to YF being available on the shelves in my local Tescos - scary stuff... I must be getting old, I can't keep up with the months any more!
I'm starting something new this month, every Monday morning there will be a HipKnits stats post - telling you how many orders we processed the previous week, how many positive customer feedbacks we had, how many negatives, how many times we had a missing parcel, that kind of thing. I'm hoping this will make us nice and transparant and show you all how well we're doing at the moment and how all the improvements we've made have made a HUGE difference to the HipKnits world.
There will be a shop update later tomorrow together with a July customer feedback entry in the review section, this is the place for customers to post feedback on their orders which were placed in July. ALL feedback will be entered into a prize draw for July where you could win a £5 gift certificate and ALL feedback will be approved whether it is good or bad, as long as it fairly applies to an order placed in July 08. This is not the place to moan about old orders or other issues, OK internet?
In other news I'm spending much of this week unpacking as we've moved into a nice big shiny office at Thremhall Park which means that I get to go into a proper office to work each day instead of working from home. I think this is going to make a HUGE difference to the way I work, including the fact that I'm going to try and cycle the 5 miles in every day so I should start to get a bit fitter at the same time.
I've also been spinning lots. I spun up the lovely pink and chocolate batt I picked up from Natalie at the weekend, isn't it pretty? I finished it after taking this photo so it is now added to the basket full of little skeins of handspun that I'm saving for something special..
Posted by Kerrie at 07:52 AM | Comments (1)