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October 28, 2008
More sewing
I seem to have been sewing lots and lots recently, as well as knitting tonnes. Most things seem to be for the magazines but this one I think I can share with you. its a review pattern that I did for Sew Hip 2 so just to be fair I think i should not tall you what pattern it is or anything about the review. Only that I'm super super proud of it and how the gorgeous Trinity looks in it. She wore it to nursery the other day and I was slightly surprised that it had lasted the day without falling apart. I'm going to make her lots and lots more of them to wear all winter I think!
I love her cheesy face in this picture, if you can ignore the hula hoops then I think its pretty much a perfect picture of the funny little girl. I got to visit a very tiny little newborn this week (well, he is actually quite large for a newborn but you get the idea) and oh my goodness it made Trinity look like she should be old enough to drive. I'm feeling very broody about little babies at the moment, I think I need to borrow one for a while to remind myself how little they sleep and how much they cry.
Posted by Kerrie at 05:31 AM | Comments (6)
October 27, 2008
New Editor announced
Posted by Kerrie at 02:57 PM | Comments (0)
Quilty fun
It was my gran's birthday at the weekend and I made her a quilt. Inspired by Manda's charm pack quilt in the current Sew Hip, I used a totally different colourway and its a bit lumpy and bumpy in places, but I think she liked it. I used the new Amy Butler fabric that I bought when I was in New York together with some charm squares that have been hanging around in my stash for a while. I seemed to have hundreds of the charm squares, I made a mini quilt with them, then this one and I still have a whole pile of them left. What to do with them?
The kids have been quite attached to the quilt as I've been making it and I'm wondering whether to make more for them. I think that there's a limit as to how many quilts you can have in one house though and I'm sure that Wayne would say we're close to nearing that limit. Maybe I'll make them for other people for Christmas this year and then wait to make more for us. Or maybe not, its a little addictive.
Posted by Kerrie at 07:57 AM | Comments (6)
October 26, 2008
Oh what a week
I thought I was getting to grips with everything last week but something turned around and bit me in the bum. I'm not going to go into all the details here (you'd never come back if I did!!) but the finale at the end of the week involved 2 disasters - firstly my lovely car breaking down on the M25 on the way back from an 18 hour day working in Bradford with Lou and the team. I had to be rescued home on the back of a truck at a cost of far too much money, but what could I do? My Green Flag cover is part of my car insurance and I'd never looked at the details closely enough to see that I only had a small radius of recovery, so I had to pay per mile to get home. What choice did I have though?
The second disaster was discovering on Friday that someone had kindly cloned my debit card and spent almost £10,000 of my money that I don't have in Amsterdam over 2 days. So until the fraud report and investigation have gone through I have no money and a whole pile of legitimate payments (mortgage etc) that have been returned as unpaid. Don't get me started on this one though...
Tomorrow I'm going to post a happy post, with lovely pictures and a press release announcing our new YF editor. See, ignore the bad and concentrate on the good. I feel like that's all I can do at the moment!
Posted by Kerrie at 09:21 PM | Comments (3)
October 22, 2008
A wee while
Its been a wee while hasn't it?
Ally Pally was great, we met so many lovely people that I can't begin to tell you all about it. Over 2 weeks now since we started its already becoming a dim and distant memory. It is always a great show, this year was a lot quieter sales wise than previous years have been, but i guess that's the economic climate at the moment isn't it? It is still the best show of the season, although we have Dublin next week and Harrogate at the end of November to look forward to as well so they will be good I'm sure. We're looking forward to meeting more and more of our customers at those 2 shows, Lou is doing one of them and I'm doing the other.
As well as the excitement of seeing YF on the shelves in Tescos et al I picked up a copy of Essex life last week which has an interview that I gave them on running a small business out of managed offices. They managed not to make me sound too silly and 2/3 of a page on KAL Media in a nice glossy county magazine can only be a good thing.
On the subject of magazines, does anyone know what happened to Adorn?
I'm still not properly around until next week sometime, I'm hardly home at the moment and when I am home I'm hanging out with Wayne and the kids so the blog has been badly neglected. Next week is the week when huge amounts of work are lifted from my shoulders as our new Yf editor starts on Monday and surely it has to get easier from then on, right? I'll share some pics of all the bits and bobs I've been working on recently soon as well, my camera is getting good and full of yummy things.
Oh and I need to set dad up with a HipKnits update, that will be Monday I think. HipKnits is now totally his really, he did all the work for Ally Pally and I'm happy to be photo taker / site updater from now on. Its odd handing things over sometimes, but always for the best.
Posted by Kerrie at 05:04 PM | Comments (7)
October 07, 2008
So. Much. Stuff.
So, we're right in the middle of Yarn Forward issue 8 production and Sew HIp issue 2 is right around the corner. We're in full on 2 magazines a month mode now so there will be no more rest for us, even before the current issues were back from the printer we'd almost forgotten about them as we were so busy with the next ones. Well, not really - there was MUCH excitement when the boxes arrived in the offices on Monday, more in my office as I didn't get many mags and I'm on the ground floor. Not so much I understand for the Wilts office who are up one flight of stairs and who had thousands of copies delivered for the subscriber copies. They look amazing though, I can't wait for you all to see them. Yarn Forward subs went out today and Sew HIp are going tomorrow I believe - its so exciting!
Then there is Ally Pally. I have had 2 stands to prepare for, although to be fair dad has done 99% of the work for the HipKnits stand. We're off early tomorrow morning for the build up and then there every day until Sunday. That means that I'll be away from email all that time so please be patient with me.
Everything is pretty much under control I think. (she says hopefully!) October seems to have become a busy month again for HipKnits with lots of custom orders and wholesale requests coming in. I'm not sure what I'm doing about wholesale at the moment, we're not taking on any new customers right now. Project club parcels are trickling out nicely, I heard from a dozen or so people today that their goodies arrived so the rest should be on their way any minute now.
Sewing is taking up much of my time at the moment. I've just finished off 4 samples I was making for SH2. I like them but I'm not as confident with my sewing skills as I am with knitting so I'll be handing them over to the rest of the team next week with the understanding that Manda is not allowed to see them in real life, I'd be embarrassed for her to see my work. Everything she makes is so perfect..
The new team is really finding its feet, Dave our amazing art editor has done a brilliant job at designing the 2 magazines from scratch this time. Manda is doing brilliantly as editor of Sew Hip and Sarah is a fab production editor. Lou and I are learning to delegate and take some baby steps back from the day to day stuff - that gives us more time for all the other plans we have. Mwah ha ha ha.
So, I'll be back early next week with lots of exciting Ally Pally news to share with you all. Then shortly after it will be time to prep for Dublin. Its neverending, I tell you. x
Posted by Kerrie at 05:02 PM | Comments (7)
October 05, 2008
Neckwarmer pattern
I've had lots of requests for the neckwarmer pattern, it couldn't be simpler. I'm not going to make another one for me just yet, Brooke and Cameron have both requested one (as well as AJ but I'm going to make her learn how to knit instead of making one for her - ha ha) so I think I'll make theirs first.
Materials - 5mm needles (I used straight and seamed but circs would work well too)
1 ball of Mission Falls 1824 wool in purple and 1 in green (you will get 2 neckwarmers out of 2 balls) You can use any other aran weight wool as well - 50g seems to be enough for a good sized neckwarmer.
Using first colour cast on 84 stitches and knit 6 rows in 2 x 2 rib.
Change to second colour and knit 6 rows in 2 x 2 rib.
Continue in stripes until you have worked 3 stripes in the first colour and 2 in second.
Cast off in 2 x 2 rib, seam (if knitted flat) and give to your 18 month old daughter!!
Posted by Kerrie at 01:51 PM | Comments (2)
October 03, 2008
Neckwarmer
I made this neckwarmer out of half a skein of 2 colours of Mission Falls 1824 wool that I bought from the wool gathering shop in NYC. I loved the colours and wanted to make something warm and snuggly for winter. I tried it on and persuaded Cameron to take my photo and I liked the way it came out. Warm, striped - perfect now that I have my neck all exposed to the weather.
However, we soon came upon a problem. The smallest person in the house decided that she liked it and that she wanted to wear it and it became apparent that it looked a whole lot cuter on her than it did on me. See? She loved it and kept it on for ages, pulling it around in different styles and saying cheese for the camera quite happily.
What do you think, should I let her have it? I love the shape it makes on her neck when she wears it.. I'm also much less worried about her wearing this than a scarf in the winter, less chance of her pulling it tightly around her neck I think. It does look lovely on her so I think I've lost my new neckwarmer already.
Posted by Kerrie at 10:58 AM | Comments (16)
October 02, 2008
New York - part 2
The shopping. The shopping was amazing. The very first store we came across was Anthropology. This has been my number 1 website to drool over for months now and there it was, in the flesh. It was sooooo tempting, gorgeous knitwear, amazing knee length socks, lovely dresses but the product that tipped me over the edge was a queen sized duvet / throw. I saw it on the first day and went back to buy it on the second. I carried it on the plane as hand luggage and gave up most of my other planned purchases (new boots, winter coat etc) to make it fit my budget. I love it.
I did buy lots of funky long socks and tights which I wore for most of the weekend, a few jersey dresses and some presents for the kids. Then there were a wee few yarny purchases, some Mission falls wool for me (which has already become a neckwarmer) and a sparkly skein for yarn forward. I can't wait to show you what I have in mind for the sparkly artyarns yarn.
My other favourite shop that we discovered on 5th was Free People. I loved everything about it from the large balls of wool in their shop that we weren't allowed to photograph to their gorgeous funky clothes and their amazing cotton bags that they give away with purchases. We totally need one of these shops in the UK, really. It is gorgeous. I've been looking at their website ever since we came home, remembering how lovely the shop was....
Of course we visited the main shops in NYC, Bloomingdales and Macys. Gap was my favourite shop I think, I love it in the UK and the dollar prices on sale made it worth my while buying a gorgeous jersey dress in every colour they had.
Frugal sale shopping meant that I still kept within my (very small) budget despite buying 8 yards of fabric in Purl Soho..... The Seahorses print by Heather Ross is going to be dresses for Brooke and Trinity, the beautiful birds fabric will be something for me and the lovely Amy Bulter blue tones are going to grow into a quilt. Yummmmm. At around £5 a yard for each of them they are such a bargain and gorgeous at the same time.
Posted by Kerrie at 10:16 AM | Comments (3)
October 01, 2008
New York - part 1
New York was amazing.
I've been back for just over 24 hours and I still feel fuddled. I have no idea what day of the week it is or what time of day. I'm exhausted in the best possible way. Have spent all day today catching up with the many millions of things I should have done last week but didn't get around to and plan to spend tomorrow doing the same.
I blogged about NY on the Yarn Forward blog just now. I'll take lots of pics of my own stash of goodies and post them here tomorrow. I even had a funky new hair cut - just in time for Ally Pally!
Posted by Kerrie at 05:27 PM | Comments (1)