You can read more about it on the Sew Hip blog or Manda's blog.

I wonder whether something like this would work for Yarn Forward as well. Not for the next issue because we've sold our ten pages already but maybe for one of the later issues. Hmmm.. Who'd have thought that advertising could be, well, almost interesting?

The shop, it is updated (sung to the tune of wonderpets if you can, you know "the phone, the phone is ringing." Everything is sung to the tune of the wonderpets around here at the momemt) and full of lovely stuff...

We have a few bits on the sale page and some silk that is half price in never to be repeated colours. Lots of lovely lace yarns, as well as some spinning fibre and lots of Ophelia. Goodies galore. Hurray. There is also plenty more that I didnt manage to get on the site today so I hope it will be there by the weekend.

We were in John Lewis in Bluewater last week and she found the book and proceeded to move it to the front of the pile and tell everyone around us that it was her on the book. She spent the rest of the day talking about how she was famous and that she should have signed the book in case someone wanted to buy it. So funny.

Shop update coming today. By the time I would have got around to it last night I'd been up for almost 20 hours and really couldn't face it. This morning though, I feel like I can do anything again. Woot.

See these 3 kids? Wayne and I have had the best couple of weeks holiday with them, they have been amazing. We are all really sad to say goodbye this morning and make our ways off to work, nursery etc. We've lived in each others pockets for the last 17 days and it has been amazing. Trinity is growing up each day, she is talking loads and is just the funniest baby in the world. Cameron turned 4 and Brooke turned 8 when we were away in the caravan a couple of weeks ago and sometimes I just look at the 3 of them and wonder where my babies went!

There is so much to say, I don't know where to start. We had a great couple of weeks holiday, we were away for the first week and then at home hanging out for the second. The first week was almost perfect, but for the fact that I managed to trip over on the first day there and broke up my ankle. Not really how I had expected to spend my holidays but I've got used to the crutches now and I'm back on the mend again. It meant that I got a lot more reading and knitting done than I had anticipated while Wayne took the kids swimming, out on bikes, to the park etc.

Today is my first day back in the office (although I have had the occasional look at email and surfed a bit over the last week) and I have a huge pile of work to catch up on. There will be a HIpKnits shop update later on today although I suspect it will be an after the kids have gone to bed job rather than anything else. Lots to tell you about holidays, Yarn Forward, Sew Hip, HipKnits and other bits but there is plenty of time for that over the next week or so. For now I need to get my head down and catch up on all the events of the last 2 weeks. Trust me, it has been crazy around here in my absence.

There will be another HipKnits shop update around the bank holiday when I'm back from holiday but apart from that I'll be MIA until the kids are back in school and some kind of normal (ha) routine is re-established.

I hope you all have a lovely lovely remainder of August, catch you in the autumn! xx

There is a nice HipKnits update on the site now, with some good discounts for the holiday month.

- discount code for brand new customers giving 10% off all orders from August 5th to 31st - type U71n0N into the coupon code field

- discount code for existing customers giving 20% off all orders from August 5th to 31st - type PRGv3f into the coupon code field

- Free Miriam Felton shawl paper pattern with all purchases of the correct amount of laceweight cashmere and Ophelia sock yarn whilst stocks last. (1 x 100g skein of lace cashmere gets you a free copy of either Mountain peaks, Hidcote Garden or Icarus. 2 x 100g skeins of Opheila get you a free copy of Seraphim) This offer can be mixed with the above percentage discount giving you an extra brilliant bargain.

- Free pattern with any custom dyed aran silk. You can choose any of the patterns that we have for sale. Custom dyes will be posted within 2 weeks of order.

- Free Della shawl kit when you spend over £50 in one transaction. This includes pattern and a skein of cashmere lace dyed in colours of your choice.

- Gift certificate to the value of £15 if you spend over £100 in August after all other discounts have been applied.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that the winner of the July feedback gift voucher was Joanne. Thanks to everyone who left feedback last month, we'll be doing the same thing every month from now on so please feel free to leave us honest feedback about your orders.

I dont usually work on the weekend and I am avoiding my emails this evening as I know that will suck me right into proper work and I won't escape for a long time but I decided to turn on the laptop and do a few bits this evening. I need to finalise the plans for HipKnits discounts this month, we have lots of freebies and giveaways to manage and I thought that tonight would be a good time to organise them. Wayne is out and the plan was that the kids would go to bed but for some reason its an hour past bedtime and NONE of them are showing any signs of tiredness. Isn't that always the way?

When Lou and I set up KAL Media back in January we talked long and hard about what we wanted the company to achieve. Obviously our primary objective was to publish Yarn Forward and as you've seen already we have had a big year with regards to that magazine already.

We also talked about what else we wanted to publish and one of the first things that we both agreed on was that the UK was crying out for a yarn forward type magazine for sewing. We knew that this was something that we wanted to do but that we had to do it properly and in a way that wouldn't mean us getting even less sleep and having to spend even more time at work and not hanging out with our families.

So, whilst negotiating the Tescos / Smiths deal for YF we talked to our agents about launching a sewing magazine at the same time. Everything went according to plan and here we are, 2.5 months away from or first issue of Sew Hip hitting the news-stands on October 16th along with Yarn Forward.

We hired a fantastic editor who I'm thrilled to say is doing a brilliant job on the magazine. I travelled up to visit her and her lovely family last week and its scary how similarly our minds work. The designs that we've had coming in look brilliant and we have some really big name sewing people involved with the first one. This also means that Lou and I can concentrate on being the publisher of the magazine and not get involved with the day to day fun and games that editing involves.

Or little KAL Media family is growing all the time. We have now hired a designer, a production editor, a Sew Hip editor, an admin assistant and an advertising manager. All we need now is to sort out the editor / dep editor vacancy for Yarn Forward and we'll be all set. Its very very exciting (and just a little bit scary) for me to be able to start to hand over big chunks of my work to other people. We've been really lucky with the people that we have managed to hire so far, long may that continue.

You can pre-order the first issue of the magazine here or subscribe here. A nice big list of all of our contributors is on the pre order page together with lots of other information on the magazine.

Now, if you'll excuse me I've earned a day at mum and dads playing in the garden and hugging my children. Catch you on Monday. xx

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.

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.....

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...

- 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.

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!

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.

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.