Wayne took the children out for a few hours yesterday afternoon / evening giving me a few rare hours in the house on my own. So what do you think I did? Well, first on the list was packing all of the HipKnits orders that came in Friday / Saturday. 43 envelopes and 2.5 hours later my HipKnits store cupboard is just about empty and my postman will need super big muscles to carry the post bag when he comes to pick it up this afternoon. I'm not complaining at all, I love all my HipKnits customers but is it too much to ask them to come and collect their silk and cashmere from my house? I'd make you tea and cake if you ever wanted to come pick up your parcels instead of me posting them to you. Honestly...

After that I went into laundry mode. Our poor washing machine did 13 loads at the weekend with all the usual laundry, sheets, towels etc. We don't have anywhere to hang our washing outside and no tumble dryer so it actually dries kmore quickly in the winter when the central heating is on. After an hour or so of putting washing in the machine, taking it out and hanging it up, folding dry clothes and putting them away I was done with those chores.

Then it was time to cook for the freezer. Not only do I now cook for myself, Wayne and the children but also for the freezer? It really does make life easier if I can make something when I have some spare time and throw it in to be taken out and defrosted in the week. The amount of food the children eat though, means that I have to cook more than I ever thought. For instance, on Friday Wayne took a chilli con carne and rice out of the freezer for us to have for dinner. I used one of the sauce mixes that says feeds 4 adults. Should be enough for 2 adults and 2 children right? Wrong. Brooke and Cameron had 3 platefulls each and left almost enough for one more serving. Wayne and I were forced to get an indian takeaway instead. No great loss but really, must the children eat so much? I shouldn't complain. They regularly eat the same amount that we do for breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner - means that we don't worry too much on days that they don't seem too interested in food.

By this time 4 or 5 hours had passed and I knew they would be home soon. Think of the amount of knitting I could have got done in that time if I hadn't been so good and got on with chores. That would have been another couple of christmas presents off the list or the end of the Angelica tunic. Instead of picking up the needles now I decided to wind some yarn from hanks to balls - 100g cashmere sock yarn which will become Kiri and 150g of our new laceweight silk which after 2 hours of sitting on the sofa with it wrapped around my knees while I slowly slowly wound it into a ball I never want to see again.

Excuse the shiny glare of the flash on the silk...

I've never knitted with laceweight before. Anyone have any ideas as to what I could make with it? I want something truly special but not truly complicated. I have over 2000 metres of it so should be able to do pretty much anything with it.

Tomorrow - photos of the rest of the weekend's knitting achievements and a recipe from Brooke..

Edited to add - no swift :( Its on my list!

Thankful

I know we do not celebrate Thanksgiving here in the UK but here are a few things that I am thankful for this morning :

2 happy healthy children who make me laugh out loud every single day.
A husband who loves me, supports me and is my best friend
A close family who are always there for us
A full time job that allows me the flexibility to work from home and do the school run 3 times a week.
The internet and all the friends I’ve made from it. I am especially thankful to Trudie for everything she has done for me over the past few months. I knew that I was buying a business from her but I hadn’t realised that I was getting such a special friend at the same time.
Bright blue skies on cold winters mornings.
Peanut butter and banana sandwiches.

Happy holiday to all those who celebrate and thank crunchie its Friday to the rest of you!

Posted by Kerrie at 08:41 AM

Posted by Kerrie | Comments (1)

November 24, 2005

Pizza party

Brooke had 2 friends round after school last night. She has been asking for ages to have them both around together and I decided that having 3 giggling girlies in the house was no worse than 2 giggling girlies and it also means that she gets 2 visits back in return for one night from me. Cameron was in his element with 3 little girls to play with. He followed them around, trying to play with their toys. Climbed up on the table and finished all 3 cups of squash and 3 piles of biscuit crumbs.

We made pizza for dinner. I bought plain pizza bases and spread them all out on the kitchen table with ketchup, bowls of grated cheese, ham, chicken, pineapple, tuna and other toppings and watched them make a big mess. Cameron didn't make his own pizza, he just snacked on the toppings and the girls agreed that he could have a slice of each pizza for his dinner. Attention spans started to wander during the 12 minutes in the oven that the pizzas needed to cook and during that time the girls made pizza for Wayne and I. I had planned to do this myself while they were eating but it seemed easier to agree to eating pizza with an *interesting* combination of toppings than to try and find something else to distract them!

Not much knitting was done either yesterday evening or on the train this morning. I'm using metal needles for the Angelica tunic because they were the only circs I had in the right size. The constant clicking annoys even me so I was quite happy to stop when the man next to me asked me to on the train today. It is a top down raglan and I'm up to (or down to) the straight piece at the bottom after the bust shaping. I estimate I have another 3 or 4 hours work to do on the body which is do-able by tomorrow. It does mean that a short sleeved sample will be on its way to yarnsmith but I think that's OK. Don't you?

Posted by Kerrie at 08:34 AM

Posted by Kerrie | Comments (3)

November 23, 2005

HipKnits News

I'm updating the HipKnits site today with lots and lots of goodies. I thought I'd share some of them here as well as some newsflash items for those of you who are not on the HipKnits mailing list.

This is the silk that will be going on the site, lots of pretty colours. There is about a kilo of each but it will sell out quickly. I usually update the site, send out the email to the notify list and then go upstairs and make a cup of tea. By the time I've drank the tea and got back downstairs the orders will have flooded in and I'll spend the next half an hour updating the site.

I'm also going to be putting up this gorgeous pattern from Stef. Its an amazing knit, I'm almost half way through one myself. Not sure that I'm going to have it done before the end of tomorrow which was my original plan but we'll see how slow the train is tomorrow!

Also on the site today will be some amazing stitch markers made for us by Anna. These are so gorgeous and would make the perfect Christmas gift for that knitter in your life. Hint Hint.

Wholesale orders? Oh yes. On Friday I'll be delivering another 5 kilos of sari silk to Susan at Loop. The last 5 kilos she took sold out in 1 day so if you want to get some from her you'll have to be quick. She also ordered 2 kilos of cashmere sock yarn in some gorgeous colours and I believe she has a sample of a sock knitted in the cashmere on display as well.

Yarnsmith are going to be stocking our yarns from this weekend, with 2 special trunk shows in Nottingham and London to show off some of our designs (yes, that's why I'm trying to knit Stef's new design up QUICKLY!). If you want to get a place on one of the trunk shows please email Brooke as space is filling up every day. I'm really excited that Yarnsmith are going to be stocking our yarns, they have an exclusive on our super chunky thick and thin yarn and our brand new laceweight silk. From one extreme to another!

If you couldn't make it to Ally Pally but are going to be at the Knitting and Stitching show at Harrogate this week, make sure you pay a visit to Get Knitted and Taj Crafts both of whom are stocking our hand dyed aran weight silk and sari silk.

Its all good fun around here, as you can see!

Posted by Kerrie at 06:55 AM

Posted by Kerrie | Comments (4)

November 22, 2005

What I did on the weekend

By Kerrie Allman, aged 29.

Wayne and I had a parents appt at Brooke's school the other day and I loved reading through her books and looking at her work. Every Monday they do this exercise where she has to draw a pic at the top of a page in this little book and then write at the bottom. Its all about their weekend. It was so sweet to read through what she had written and see what she remembered from the weekends. There were pics of her and Cameron making apple crumble with my mum, pics of them at the seaside and at the zoo. My personal favourite was after Ally Pally when she drew a pic of her and lots of balls of wool and wrote at the bottom "I went to the knitting show and helped my mummy and my grandad sell lots of wool. My brother just played football with the pompoms" Her teacher wrote at the bottom, "how nice, Brooke!" She must be wondering what on earth we were doing!

So in the spirit of Brooke, I'm going to write this entry as if it were Monday (which it kind of is for me as its my first day back at work). The short version of what I did on the weekend is that I was sick and I looked after Cam who was also (and still is) sick. But that's not all of the story!

Friday night, I plaited Cam's hair for the first time. He looked like a girl, even Wayne suggested putting him in a dress and seeing how much like Brooke he was, so I think I need to come up with some different plait styles for him. His hair has suddenly grown so long that I don't know what else to do with it. It looks all nice and neet as soon as we brush it in the morning but before long it has that bidsnest look about it. When we were out on Saturday Brooke was in charge of making sure no blackbirds tried to land on his head, she did a great job!

Saturday was the joy of monthly shopping at Macros. I persuaded Wayne to make a little stop at the handweavers studio in Walthamstow on the way which was amazing. As I said to the woman serving in there, I must come back again when my husband is not sitting in the car outside with the engine running. It is like an aladin's cave of loveliness, amazing fibres, yarns, dyes and other fun stuff. There was a weaving class going on and after peeping through the door for a minute Brooke was invited in and the next thing you know she is sitting down with a lady weaving. She proceeed to tell me all about it on the way home and even offered to teach me if I bought all the "thingys" that she would need. How kind.

Knitting wise, I finished the striped thing that I showed you last week and cast on for the new sweater that Stef Japel designed for HipKnits. I'm hoping to finish it by Thursday, its not as if I have a million other things to do now is it?

Cam is still off nursery although he seems a lot better. Wish me luck today as I attempt to work from home with him for the first time ever.

Posted by Kerrie at 08:19 AM

Posted by Kerrie | Comments (3)

November 19, 2005

Copycat

Seeing as my sister Gemini did this, I decided to as well. Its frighteningly accurate, especially the weaknesses bit!

Your Birthdate: June 18

You are a cohesive force - able to bring many people together for a common cause. You tend to excel in work situations, but you also facilitate a lot of social gatherings too. Beyond being a good leader, you are good at inspiring others. You also keep your powerful emotions in check - you know when to emote and when to repress. Your strength: Emotional maturity beyond your years Your weakness: Wearing yourself down with too many responsibilities Your power color: Crimson red Your power symbol: Snowflake Your power month: September

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Posted by Kerrie at 05:15 PM

Posted by Kerrie | Comments (2)

November 17, 2005

Stripes

I bought some Phildar Legende from Jess when she was destashing a while ago - I love this yarn. It is so soft and knits into such a beautiful fabric. I made Brooke a sweater with it a couple of years ago (Excuse my archives, I have no idea why all those lines appear!) and as much trouble as the sweater was, I fell in love with the yarn.

So, now I have about 6 balls of Legende, all different colours. I decided that I wanted striped things. Here is the first of many, I knitted it at a looser gauge than recommended, 5mm needles instead of 3.5, and it is so so soft and drapey.

Posted by Kerrie at 07:48 AM

Posted by Kerrie | Comments (3)

November 16, 2005

Loopy

I'm feeling a little loopy at the moment. When mum and I were in Ireland we saw a loopy skinny scarf made from Colinette Shimmer 5. I promptly decided to make one and here I am, a week or so later with 3 of them!

From left to right, my own handspun yarn. Adrian's handspun yarn and HipKnits chunky slubby yarn in pink. These are all kid sized ones and you'll see why soon enough. I think I'm going to make some adult sized ones in black for Christmas presents..

Posted by Kerrie at 09:54 AM

Posted by Kerrie | Comments (8)

November 15, 2005

Berroco Optik

I don't often knit with Berroco yarns, but I had the opportunity to knit a little shrug for someone this week out of Berocco Optik. Its an interesting yarn and I really like the fabric. As it is made up of 2 or 3 strands of very fine yarn loosely plied together it does tend to get splitty but apart from that I have no complaints. Look how pretty it is....

The shrug itself is very simple and has little flower cufflinks which at the wrist. Its going in the post today, I'll be sad to see it leave. The only consolation is that out of the skein of Optik I have left I'm going to make Brooke a one skein wonder, she is very excited about that.

Posted by Kerrie at 07:40 AM

Posted by Kerrie | Comments (1)

November 14, 2005

Sew Me!

Isn't it amazing when someone you know and love comes up with a brilliant idea that you know is going to be super super successful?

Trudie and I were talking last week about sewing, patterns, cool fabrics and why it is that we have to order most of the stuff we like from the US. Wouldn't it be great if someone started a shop in the UK selling gorgoue funky fabrics? Wouldn't it be cool if we had somewhere to get modern fresh patterns and inspirations from?

She's doing it. Sew Me. Go check it out and give her lots of encouragement, OK?

Posted by Kerrie at 10:41 AM

Posted by Kerrie | Comments (3)

November 11, 2005

Here's a question for you...

What makes a yarn belong to someone? For instance, the HipKnits silk yarn that I sell. What makes it HipKnits yarn? I buy it undyed and unbranded from a wholesale supplier, I dye it, rewind it into 100g skeins, label it with the HipKnits label and sell it. It seems fairly obvious that it is my yarn.

What if I were to buy undyed yarn from somewhere like Texere, follow the same process and sell it. Is that HipKnits yarn? A lot of the Texere yarn is sold under their brand, but I think that I could buy it, dye it and resell it without too many problems.

What if it is from a large company? Colinette, Rowan, Patons etc. If I bought natural coloured yarn from them and dyed it could I resell it as HipKnits yarn? Or do you think they would object?

Then of course there are the pricing issues. If I buy it retail and dye it I would still have to make a profit so selling it for higher than the retail price may not work anyway. What do you think?

Posted by Kerrie at 11:23 AM

Posted by Kerrie | Comments (11)

November 10, 2005

Dublin pics

Have you ever seen a horse in the high street? This lovely fellow was standing outside of Wallis, while his owner unlodaed all the fruit and veggies from the cart to set up his market stand. How lovely!

Here is a view from one of the bridges in Ireland, look how bright the sky was! We had a lovely clear, crisp winters day to explore the city. We went on one of the tour buses, where the driver entertained (is that the right word) us with songs, jokes and stories and we got to see the sights. We sat on the top deck and although the day was lovely and bright it was cold! My hands were frozen as I sat and knitted a scarf which by the end of the tour mum was wearing to keep warm! She was more sensible and sat on her hands to stop them from freezing.

Here is mum on the tour bus wearing a scarf she knitted herself over the weekend. (look at the pic quickly as it may be one that I'm not allowed to post in which case it will be removed as soon as she sees it, I cant remember which ones had the seal of approval and which didn't!) She bought the yarn from the Knitting show on the Friday and finished it on Sunday morning. How cool is that? The Knitting show was great, a lot smaller than the UK based ones but nice to see some different faces. I only bought 1 skein of yarn, some lovely handspun super bulky pink stuff... I got to see my favourite exhibit ever again, how cool are these toys?

I also knitted a lot, you've seen fragrance already. This is a snap of me in bed, in my PJs, seaming her on Sunday morning. Look how brown my hair is, time to get the dye out again soon!

We had a brilliant weekend, very relaxing. We didn't see all of the city so I think I'll be taking Wayne over soon so that we can spend a few days there...

Posted by Kerrie at 11:07 AM

Posted by Kerrie | Comments (4)

November 09, 2005

Mungie Pie

Trudie is back. Go and tell her hello!

Posted by Kerrie at 01:49 PM

Posted by Kerrie | Comments (0)

Thinking...

I've been catching up on emails and thinking a lot about stuff these past few days. I now have my magknits emails down from over 700 unread to none - woo hoo! Sorry for all the emails that I haven't responded to, I've now replied to everyone who asked me anything - if you're still waiting to hear back from me then please try again. HipKnits emails are at over 100 unread, I weed out the orders and queries but haven't caught up on the others since being away for the weekend but I'll get onto that today.

I'm looking into ways to make my life easier than it is at the moment. A few big ish decisions have been made. Want to know what they are?

- Sew Pretty is not going ahead. I just don't have time and while I still think its a good idea and that someone out there should start a free sewing pattern magazine I just didn't have time. A huge thanks to Lyn and Jen who got patterns over to me, I hope they will put them up on their sites for you. The other 8 people didn't manage to get patterns in on deadline and I didn't manage to chase them up so for my own sanity I'm giving up on this one.

- I'm looking for advertising sales reps for MagKnits. I'd like to get 3 or 4 people to help with the advertising, not just to deal with the queries but also to get out there and sell the advertising space. It will be comission based, you'd get a percentage of any ads that you sell. Also dealing with queries, making sure copy is received on time etc etc. Kerrie AT magknits DOT com if you're interested in helping with this one.

- I want to change the Hipknits blog from a manual HTML page to something in MT or wordpress or something. Does anyone want to volunteer to install it for me? I have no idea what I'm doing but would be grateful to anyone who can help. I'm happy to pay a reasonable rate for it, same email address as above.

There, that's quite enough thinking for one day! I'll leave you with a pic of cam playing ski-ing with my knitting needles this morning, he snatched them up as soon as I turned my back and ran out of the room with them pretending to be ski-ing. At least that's what I think he was doing! Dublin photos tomorrow...

Posted by Kerrie at 09:23 AM

Posted by Kerrie | Comments (2)

November 07, 2005

Fragrance

Ahhh. We're back from our Dublin adventure, more about that later in the week when I've had time to write up the story. It was great though, lots of reading, knitting, sleeping and eating. What more can you ask for from a weekend away?

I finished Fragrance yesterday morning while we were still in Ireland and wore it all day yesterday! It still needs a good blocking but I am in love with the way it fits. The only thing I would change would be to make the sleeves longer, I added a couple of inches to the pattern but as I'd made a mistake with the ruffle (it wasn't supposed to be quite that ruffly!) I was running out of yarn. I ended up with about 3 metres left after seaming everything up. Talk about close.

This was a kit from Kim Hargreaves, knit in brown chunky print. I'll be making it again with a few changes to the pattern - I may even follow the instructions next time! ha...

Posted by Kerrie at 02:24 PM

Posted by Kerrie | Comments (6)

November 03, 2005

Cam Stats

Here are a few random Cam stats for you. Taken from yesterday..

Number of times Brooke and I sang "Baa baa black sheep" to him, clapping our hands all the way through it. 13. (not boring and repetitive at all. Honestly. Its his fave nursery rhyme, don't know why it has to be with the clapping though.)

Number of spoons of yoghurt he fed himself at snack time. 6.

Number of times Brooke and I had to give him a big clap and tell him "well done, clever boy!" after he fed himself a spoon full of yoghurt. 6.

Number of kisses he gave the picture on the side of Wayne's mug while Wayne was trying to make a cup of tea in the morning. 4.

Number of times he called me "dad" and then giggled when I glared at him. 3.

Number of times he called for his cousin Serena on the way home from nursery. 9. (good job he's seeing her at the weekend really!)

Number of times I thought he was going to fall out of his pushchair as Brooke and her friends raced around the school playground with him. 2.

Number of kisses he gave to me. None. Stinky kid. He's all about kissing teddies, pictures, Brooke and mugs at the moment.

Number of kisses I stole off him while he was sleeping. Millions! Ha ha.

Back Monday. Mum and I are away this weekend at the Knitting and Stitching show in Dublin. All in the name of research you understand! hee hee hee

Oh, and look. My backtack pal received her parcel. Phew, I was beginning to worry about it. Looks like she was happy with it, dontcha think?

Posted by Kerrie at 05:18 AM

Posted by Kerrie | Comments (3)

November 02, 2005

Fragrance

Everyone voted for me to start Fragrance first this week, thanks for taking the decision out of my hands! Marie-France said it looked as though it would knit up in no time. Well, not quite no time but very very little time it would seem.

Saturday night in front of 2 episodes of ER series 5 that we just got on DVD = left front. Sunday morning, Monday evening, Tuesday morning on train = back. Pretty good going huh?

Photos of brown knitted stuff aren't very interesting, are they?

I don't like to make things easy for myself though. You know how you should always read through the whole pattern before starting something right? Well, I didn't do that. I thought I'd start with one of the front pieces so that I could use it as a giant swatch and check gauge. This worked OK until I came to the bit in the instructions where it said to begin shaping something xx rows before the armholes on the back. Oh. Then after I mathed my way out of that problem I came up against shape this xx rows after the armholes on the back and xx rows before the shoulder shaping. Crap. I think I figured it out though and where I made a little mistake I just altered the back to match and I'll do the same for the right front. Its only 1 row so it shouldn't spoil the whole cardigan, right?

Posted by Kerrie at 06:35 AM

Posted by Kerrie | Comments (2)

November 01, 2005

Handspun shawl / scarf

Yesterday was a busy day. The new MagKnits is up and I know I need to go back and change the September label on the left to read October, I'll try and do that tonight. I am also sorting out the pdfs, my adobe acrobat isn't working at the moment but I'll get it sorted this week I hope. Yesterday was also the last day for Backpack 2 and I still haven't heard anything from the person making the bag and kit for me. Ho hum. Lets hope they get in touch soon to let me know that they sent something...

Finally, yesterday was the last day of the Secret Pal Kids Edition. Out of 82 kids that took part I know of 3 who didn't receive anything. That's pretty sad for those kids but not bad odds overall, I've heard from lots of kids and parents who had a great time and made some good friends out of it which is the whole point really. If anyone wants to volunteer to be an angel for the kids that didn't receive anything can you send me an email to kerrieATmagknitsDOTcom with the subjust secret kids angel please? I'm getting around 200 emails a day at the moment between HipKnits and MagKnits and its close to being too much to manage!

Back to the knitting. Remember the handspun pink and purple that I spun for Brooke? She wanted a hat and I wanted to make her a scarf. Just to make sure that no-one was happy I made her a mini stocking stitch shawl! It received the ultimate praise when she tried it on Monday morning, insisted on wearing it to school and came home at the end of the day telling me she showed all her friends and her teachers, told them that I made it for her and said that all her friends wanted one as well! Ha....

Its not as big as I'd have liked it to be, should have bought more fibre and spun more yarn shouldn't I? She loves it though which is the most important thing, don't you think? Here is the back view and also a side snapwhich little miss Brooke reminded me to take.

I had enough yarn left over to fringe it with which she really liked. She also really liked the little pieces that I left sticking out of the shawl. These were some pieces from Nic's inspiration kit which finished off the yarn perfectly..

Posted by Kerrie at 05:26 AM

Posted by Kerrie | Comments (6)