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September 25, 2008
Sew Hip
At last, the preview page for SH is up! http://www.sewhip.co.uk/issue1.html
Now I'm off to bed and then tomorrow I'm off to New York. Back Wednesday next week.
xx
Posted by Kerrie at 09:31 PM | Comments (2)
September 24, 2008
Reading
What have I been reading recently? Apart from 200 pages of magazines that are going around in circles from proofing to design and back to me and Manda to sign off? Ah, the joys of deadline week with 2 magazines..... You'd think I'd be sick of reading after all that but I never go far without a book in my bag. I bought the new Jodi Picoult one, songs from a humpback whale recently and so far its been the only JP book that I just can't get into. I notice on amazon as well that the only review gives it 1 out of 5 as well so maybe its not just me. I want to like it, but I'm finding it confusing and vague.
Wayne suggested that I put it down and read something else instead and since his most excellent advice (channelling Bill and Ted there) I've enjoyed both The Bone Garden by Tess Gerritson and Floating Dtagon by Peter Straub I got Floating Dragon from Borders in Lakeside when it closed down a while ago for £1. I had no idea that it was such an old book at the time, which shouldn't really make a difference but somehow it feels strange to buy a book that was first published in the 80s. Its a real shame that Borders has shut down there, now 2 out of the 3 Borders within an hours drive from me are gone. That limits where I can go to hunt out Yarn Forward and Sew Hip on the shelves in a few weeks time.
I also bought Ruth's new pattern booklet recently, its lovely. I'm going to play around with some of the designs and see if I can make them in a size that will fit the kids this winter, I'm sure that by using chunkier yarn and bigger needles that will work. I hope. The cover pattern is my favourite, it looks just adorable on Ruth's little boy Aran don't you think? If you haven't bought a copy then you should, its only £5 and just think that you're helping to support Ruth, Tom and Aran in their van - that's got to be worth it for a fiver.
If you're short of something to read at the moment then you could do worse than check out the Posted by Kerrie at 08:10 AM | Comments (5)
September 23, 2008
Trinity
There is so much I want to write about Trinity, she is growing up so quickly I'm afraid that if I blink I'll miss something. This photo was taken at the beach at the weekend, she loves playing in the sand, throwing stones and digging holes. She is not so keen on the sea which suits me, it makes me nervous enough to see Brooke and Cameron go running into the waves without any kind of fear. Its a fine line between making sure that they are safe and not wanting to make them lose their sense of fun.
Trinity is 18 months old. I can't remember the other 2 being as funny as she is, we were saying to mum and dad the other day that she has started teasing grandad earlier than all the others. Brooke and Cameron call my dad Stinky Pete (from Toy Story) and on Saturday Trinity kept running up to him and poking him in the leg before shouting PETE at him and then running away giggling. She had us all laughing out loud.
She is the bossiest child in the house. She tells Brooke and Cameron "SIt down. Eat" if they get up from the table during dinner (which they now do more than ever because it is just so funny to hear her tell them to sit down and eat. She alternates between calling Cameron by his name and calling him brother and she totally adores him. I think its because the 2 of them have 2 days a week at home with me together that they have an especially close bond. It could also be because they are closer in age than her and Brooke, I don't know.
Last night I was in the kitchen cooking dinner and she walked in to tell me that she had done a poo (which is becoming normal for her, she'll go and hide somewhere private when she needs to go and then come and tell you straight afterwards) but this time she had a nappy and the wipes in her hand and laid down on the floor in front of me with them. She is sooooo growing up.
She is sitting on my knee as I write this, babbling away in her funny mixture of sounds and words. She is finally calling me mummy which is lovely, she went through a long phase of not calling me anything at all. Then for a while my name was RA RA which was so funny and so totally unlike mummy that it used to make me laugh. We went from RA RA to MUM and now we've arrived at mummy. Its a lovely sound and one that I only tire of a little bit when she bellows it at me for hours on end.
Posted by Kerrie at 07:56 AM | Comments (3)
September 17, 2008
Love shawl
I knitted this one day last week. Its not much but every single stitch is knitted with love and prayers and good wishes. I think its going to be a top down shawl, this is what my hands automatically knit when I need to relax or am feeling stressed out. It is knit using a handspun yarn that I thought I had destashed last year but a random skein seems to have stuck in my cupboard. I spent the afternoon in hospital with a someone very close to me who was going for an MRI, the hour that she was in there seemed so long and I spent the whole time hoping for good news and sending good vibes.
I don't think I have any more of this exact yarn but I do have lots of other small amounts of handspun so this shawl could end up being quite colourful before it is finished. I'll keep on knitting it in my spare time until she has the results of the MRI, it will be a beautiful multicoloured handspun MRI shawl that will be filled with positive thoughts.
Did you notice the needles? I blame Lou for them. We've both been so good at all the shows we've been to this year and neither of us have spent much on other people's stock but at I Knit we were next to Loop and Lou bought a set of Knitpicks options needles and I couldn't resist copying her. I totally love them and never want to knit with anything else.
Posted by Kerrie at 08:18 AM | Comments (5)
September 16, 2008
Autumn
Autumn is on its way you know? I can tell you that for 2 reasons, firstly I have been loving wearing my new over the knee socks, long boots and skirts recently - that is going to be my autumn wardrobe this year. I bought one of these slouchy dresses from Cath Kidston which I totally love and I've made myself a skirt from some IKEA fabric and have piles more of it ready to sew. Handmade skirts, kooky long socks and boots. That's me at the moment. Lovely fall clothes.
Then last night we took the kids to the forest for an hour of therapy. The kind of therapy we all needed at the end of a long day when Wayne and I had worked our bottoms off and neither of us had anything to show for it. The kids were restless and we were tired and it was either all stay at home and argue or pack up and head off for forest therapy. The forest won.
While we were there we picked these. Almost 500g of blackberries. Yum. I'm going to get some apples today from the market and make apple and blackberry crumble for pudding tonight. Comfort food, that's a sure sign of autumn creeping closer.
It is one of my favourite seasons though so I'm really not complaining. Summer is OK but I'm an autumn person at heart, I love the colours and the clothes and the way that the trees look. The only thing I dont like is the way that the evenings draw in. If we could have the same hours of sunlight as we do in the summer then I'd be perfectly happy.
Posted by Kerrie at 10:20 AM | Comments (5)
September 14, 2008
Hurray!
Finally at closer to midnight than I would have liked the shop is updated! Wayne fixed my old laptop again and I took advantage of that tonight while we were watching Pirates of the Caribean 3.
So, lots of new yarns here and lots of sale yarns here. There are also lots and lots of other lace cashmere yarns
Posted by Kerrie at 11:21 PM | Comments (0)
What I did with my Sunday
I was trying to finish off the shop update today but I really can't get Squirrelcart to work on my Mac. I have logged a support call so hopefully it will get resolved soon. As far as I can see there shouldn't be a problem with it, all the updates are done via a web browser interface, I can add new products but the images don't show up on the site and the new products don't show up in the new products section. This is not very helpful when I have about 50 new items to add. My laptop battery has given up so a new one has been ordered from ebay and I hope that gets here soon. The site is kind of updated, the rest will have to wait until next week I'm afraid.
So instead I've been playing with hair. Both Brooke and Cameron have been washed and brushed and plaited and Trinity is next in line when she wakes up from her nap. The subject of Cameron's hair is a sensitive one, he loves it and we love it too but lots of people like to tell us how he looks like a girl, should be allowed to have it cut short blah blah blah. Let me just say that everyone is entitled to their own opinion but Cameron loves his hair and so do we and until either one of us changes our minds his hair will stay long.
This is what he looked like after Wayne had finsihed washing and brushing him.
Now you can see why we don't send him to nursery with his hair out!
And this is what he looked like after he had been passed over to me for plaiting. Its a bit like a mini production line!
Posted by Kerrie at 02:01 PM | Comments (8)
September 13, 2008
Big stocktake weekend
I am surrounded by bags of yarn this weekend, sorting out, stocktaking, labelling, photographing, moving around on the website.
I've done a bulk of it this morning, there are now lots of odds and ends on the sale page.
Tomorrow there will be more YAK, Silk, Sock yarns, Cashmere sock, Silk and cashmere sock, Seacell (which just seems to breed, every time I think its sold out we find another dozen skeins of it!), lace yarns all to be added to the site and to the sale page.
This is likely to be the last big update before Ally Pally. The next big update will be mid October with all the leftovers from the show (of which I hope there are few)
Posted by Kerrie at 12:14 PM | Comments (0)
Ally Pally
Plans for Ally Pally are hotting up for HipKnits. Dad has a garage full of stock, think we're up to about 2000 skeins of yarn ready now with lots and lots more to come. I'm working on some patterns that we'll be giving away for free with the yarn and EVERYTHING will be offered at a discounted price on the day.
This is the first of our new patterns, a gorgeous stole knitted for us by Rachel. Its done out of one skein of our camel and silk yarn and is just so pretty, measuring around 74 inches long it is just the right length to wear as a shawl or a scarf. The pattern will be available as a free download before Christmas, along with lots of others.
Posted by Kerrie at 09:52 AM | Comments (1)
September 12, 2008
New York, New York
How exciting, Lou and I are in New York for 3 days at the end of the month, we arrive on the evening of Friday 26th and leave Monday afternoon. Its a flying visit, Monday is a very exciting meeting with some very exciting people but Saturday and Sunday are ours to shop, visit some of our NY contacts and try and get to as many yarn and fabric shops as we can to spread the YF, SH word!
Any recommendations on hotels, places to eat, shops to visit and all things yarn and fabric would be welcomed. I haven't been to NY for about 9 years and Lou has never been so we're definite NY novices.
Also if anyone fancies meeting up with us for a spot of dinner or shopping just email me, that would be lovely!
Posted by Kerrie at 09:13 AM | Comments (4)
September 11, 2008
New Knitty
My favourites from the new Knitty :
Robynn's cardigan is just gorgeous,
versatility is very clever
Op Art - how simple and clever is that?
I am going to try and update the HipKnits shop today, there is a major communication problem between my MAC and the shop software so I'm borrowing a PC to try. Things will be slowed down somewhat by the fact that I have my first proper hangover for years. Mandy and I went out last night supposedly to watch Mamma Mia at the pictures but when we got there we found out that Wednesday night is the only night they don't show it. Not wanting to give up our night out we drove home, parked the car and walked over to our local pub where we sat, drank wine, gossiped and giggled until we were the last people in there. Feeling very sorry for myself this morning, and today just happens to be a day when I have all 3 kiddos home with me for various reasons. Ugh. Send paracetamol.
Posted by Kerrie at 07:43 AM | Comments (2)
September 09, 2008
Cupboards
I built some shelves in the office last week and they look so nice and neat and tidy now that I thought I'd show you. I'm quite proud of myself for building them and for them not falling down, I usually leave that kind of thing to Wayne.
See? The shelves on the left contain all the shade cards that we have from most of the yarn companies in the UK. It also contains the library of all of the issues that we have printed so far, some samples, a nice jug of needles and a lovely sock from issue 5 made from skein queen lovely yarn.
Inside the cupboard we have tonnes and tonnes of yarn that has been sent to us for review or for use in patterns. This needs properly organising, I'm hoping to get some nice cubby hole shelves so that we can have it all nicely on display.
Posted by Kerrie at 06:45 PM | Comments (4)
September 08, 2008
I Knit and photoshoot
So, another busy few days in the life of Kerrie.
Friday was photoshoot day for Yarn Forward / Sew Hip. It wasn't the most successful photoshoot in the history of the world, torrential rain, sick models, garments that didn't arrive but we had a good day nevertheless. We had a mother and baby model team and the baby was soooo well behaved all day, I think he was the only one of us that didn't have a tantrum at some point. Everyone had a little squeeze with him which helped moods improve slightly.
Sarah, Manda and Lou stayed over at mine on Friday night after the photoshoot which was lovely. It involved lots of drinking wine and laughing and gossiping. Perfect..
Saturday was I Knit day and we didn't really know what to expect. We knew there were only going to be 30 stands but we didn't really know how many people were going to be there and how many of them might already have YF subs. It turns out that we should have taken FAR MORE MAGAZINES with us. We sold out of the back issues that we took with us half way through the day and sold the very last copies of issue 4 in the world. That is now sold out for ever. We're getting really low on both issues 5 and 6 as well which is quite exciting, I'm not sure whether we'll have any of either of them to bring to Ally Pally. (good grief, is that really only 4 weeks away!)
Sarah blogged all about the day over on the YF Blog. I'll be blogging about the photoshoots this week as well....
Posted by Kerrie at 08:12 AM | Comments (0)
September 03, 2008
Spoonflower
You may not be surprised to know that my poor old sewing machine has had a good dust off these last few weeks and that I've been sewing more than ever. The bridesmaids dress was the first of many, since then I've almost finished an Amy Butler tunic for me and made a few other bits as well. The most popular has been a smock dress that I made for Brooke, she loves it and has demanded more in other colours. It was so easy to make that I'm happy to oblige. I'll get some pics of her wearing it soon.
I've also signed up for a Spoonflower account. Have you heard of this site? It allows you to print your own designs onto fabrics, I am desperate to try it out - if only I was a better illustrator. My drawings are quite rubbish but I'm planning on persuading Brooke to do me some designs that I can get made up into fabric. I've been spending a bit of time looking at other people's spoonflower fabrics, this is one of my favourites at the moment. I also love the girls fabric that get made up into fabric. I've been spending a bit of time looking at other people's spoonflower fabrics, Heidi from My PaperCrane had made. isn't that just gorgeous?
Posted by Kerrie at 08:36 PM | Comments (1)
September 02, 2008
Holidays - part 2
Last summer in walton on the naze.
This summer in walton on the naze.
Look how much they have grown up! A year on from the first photo, Cameron is getting closer to starting school, Brooke is just a couple of years away from choosing secondary school and Trinity is settled into nursery and loving her days playing with her friends. I'm so proud of all of them, they are growing up to be gorgeous lovely kids.
Posted by Kerrie at 10:56 PM | Comments (2)
September 01, 2008
Project club shawls, round 2
Looky here, we have our first finished shawl from the Project club! Despite being one of the last to receive her yarn Barbara was the first to finish, isn't it lovely? The next kits are being put together this week and next so I wonder who will be the first to finish their Fairisle mitts? Any bets? Not me, that's for sure.
Posted by Kerrie at 08:45 AM | Comments (1)