 March 30, 2006
Decision time
We are getting close to decision time for the cashmere top. See? 
We have 2 sleeves and most of a back. So, now what? Do I make a cardigan or a sweater? I'm still thinking cardigan and I'm also thinking low V neck, one button just below the bust with maybe some kind of ruffle around the neck. Or not. Still unsure about that one. Anyone want to try and sway me to make a sweater or shall I cast on for the cardigan front? I had hoped to get the back finished last night in front of Flight Plan on DVD but for once I wasn't in the mood to knit and watch TV at the same time. We had to turn the film off half way through when it all became a little too teary for me, no doubt we'll finish it off tonight. The plan is that by Monday I'll have the back and one of the fronts finished.
Posted by Kerrie at 06:08 AM
Posted by Kerrie
| Comments (6)
March 29, 2006
Shopping....
Seeing as how I managed not to buy anything at Stitch (I did swap David a dye your own sock yarn kit for a ball of zebra sock yarn but that doesn't count does it?) I'm now looking around online for an excuse to spend a little money. I have fallen in love with the new Jordana Paige knitting satchels that Get Knitted are stocking. Cappuccino is just my colour. Can I wait until my birthday in June or should I splash out now? What do you think? Talking of splashing out, have you seen the new Kim Hargreaves collection Scent of Summer? I am drooling over Ruby only again probably in brown.. Keeping in line with the shopping theme, my skein of lovely new handspun yarn arrived from Adrian while I was at Olympia. Yum. I think it deserves to be so much more than a scarf but I'm just not sure what? Any suggestions? I think I have 80 yards (if my memory is correct) so I'm limited to the smaller projects or maybe a trim? Hmm...
Posted by Kerrie at 01:52 PM
Posted by Kerrie
| Comments (6)
March 28, 2006
Overheard just now in the playroom
The scene. Brooke and Cameron are sitting on the sofa in the playroom looking at some photos. Brooke points to a picture of herself. "who's this?" I wonder how long they will go on like that for until Brooke gives up and walks away? Whenever Cameron sees the camera he gives a big smile like this and says "cheese". This has led to a huge amount of pictures very similar to this one over the last few days. This was taken after his hair was plaited last night. About half an hour before the photo was taken he looked like this. Hee hee hee. His hair is now nearly 3 inches long. How cool is that?
Posted by Kerrie at 04:35 PM
Posted by Kerrie
| Comments (8)
March 27, 2006
The day after the show before
I really must be getting old, Olympia really took it out of me this weekend! I had a great time, it was lovely to see so many old friends again and meet lots of new HipKnits customers as well! I didn't get chance to take too many pics but the ones below show the HipKnits stand quite nicely.
I can't remember what Ruth and I were laughing at in the photo above but it must have been good. Ruth came along on the Wednesday to help me set up and man was I grateful! Set up and breakdown have to be the 2 hardest pieces of the whole thing and that's saying something seeing as the bit in the middle of set up and break down involves standing on your feet for 4 days and being nice to people! Ruth also came along on the Thursday, Friday and Sunday and was a huge help on the stand. Thanks Ruth. Anna came along on the Thursday and between her and Ruth they managed to calm my nerves about teaching the flower knitting classes and managed the stand while I was gone. I was so nervous about teaching but the classes went really well each day, phew. We were directly opposite the Get Knitted stand and had a lot of fun taking the mickey out of David (sorry David) and gossiping about customers and other bits. Dad was there at the weekend and we just managed to meet our deadline of breakdown and out of the car park within an hour. Are you proud of us? Huge thank you to Nic who manned the stand for us on Sunday morning when we were late arriving due to a puncture on the M11. Dad changed the tyre only to find that the spare was flat and we had to wait nearly an hour on the side of the road for the AA man. Stressed out? Us? Never.... I didn't spend a single penny all weekend (apart from travel and lunch etc), isn't that good? I am planning on treating myself to something from the new Kim Hargreaves collection at some point this week but I'm not totally sure which one at the moment. Oh yes, I cannot wait to show you the GORGEOUS crochet shawl that Sue Powell is designing for me out of the laceweight silk. I never thought I'd fall in love with crochet but this has made me want to learn. If I get time that is. More tomorrow, must run out of the door and get the kids now..
Posted by Kerrie at 03:01 PM
Posted by Kerrie
| Comments (4)
March 22, 2006
Olympia
See you all next Monday unless you are coming to Olympia in which case, see you there.
Posted by Kerrie at 04:34 PM
Posted by Kerrie
| Comments (3)
March 20, 2006
Cashmere arms and other bits
I bought a walking foot from ebay on Friday afternoon and it arrived on Saturday morning, how's that for exciting? Mainly on the recommendation of Jacqui and Caroline M who commented early Friday morning. How could I not trust Caroline M, the woman whose first knitting project was a green horse? If she says get a walking foot then that is what I must do. So I did. Now I'm scared! Thanks for all the advice over the last few days, after OLympia I'm going to spend a little time and work out exactly how to attach the foot and go from there. This weekend has been the first weekend for ages that we've had no plans. We got lots of housework done, I spent a few hours winding yarn and dyeing cashmere in the shop, watched some DVDs, played in the garden and I was even lucky enough to get an afternoon nap on Sunday. Beautiful. Wayne and I watched Electra on Saturday night which was average but allowed me to edit some MagKnits patterns at the same time without being too disappointed about missing the film. I gave it 2.5 stars but only because Luca from ER was in it. Otherwise I think it would have been a 1.5 star offering.. The stash cupboard was the victim of a major clearout which has resulted in every single skein of yarn in the house (apart from the blue cashmere that I'm using for the cardigan) being moved to the shop. Sewing machine and all the fabric went too so now the only thing left for me to sort out is my crafty book collection which is massive. Someday.. I've finished the arms though, which prompts me to wonder why I always think of the sleeves of a garment as arms? I rarely say or think Ive finished the sleeves Its always, Im working on the arms. The arms are nearly done. Are the arms long enough? How strange that this has only just occurred to me. Anyway, the whole point of this is that the arm sleeves of the cashmere thing are done. I use the word thing as I have no idea at this stage whether I want it to be a cardigan or a sweater. Im thinking probably cardigan as I wear them more than sweaters and its coming up to spring / summer (we hope) so it may be more practical. I started the back last night in front of ER (love love love Luca and Abi!) and hoping that by the time that is finished I will have decided what to do with the front. Potentially Iam thinking either a deep deep V neck fastened with one button just under the bust or an asymmetrical high neck buttoned top to bottom. It will be around hip length as I think this is most flattering for me and the bottom of the back and front will match the bottom of the arm sleeves but thats all I know for sure. Isnt it fun making things up as you go along? I am writing up the pattern as I knit though so this should be available somewhere at some point. Where and when? Give me a break!
Posted by Kerrie at 07:33 AM
Posted by Kerrie
| Comments (5)
March 17, 2006
More quilts for kids, again!
Has anyone else been watching the UK Project Catwalk? I was so happy to see Kirsty win it last night, I really liked her all the way through. I only caught the 2nd half of the series but its been my favourite Thursday night viewing for the last few weeks. Sunday night is for ER and Desperate Housewives and that's about the extent of my TV watching. A few months ago Wayne and I had something on every night with Threshold, 4400, Spooks but its dwindled down again to just a couple of nights a week. Which is a good thing really as it gives me more time to make stuff! Remember before Christmas I was going to make quilts for the kids as gifts? Well obviously that never happened but I found the fabrics that I had set aside to use the other day and got all excited again about the prospect of making them. Maybe for Easter, how far away is that now? Possibly not long enough but we'll see.. Just to remind you, Cam is getting a Cath Kidston cowboy and football themed quilt, using an old fleece blanket as wadding and a single duvet cover in orange / yellow for the backing. Brooke is getting an Amy Butler inspired floral quilt using another old fleece blanket for wadding and a single duvet cover in a beautiful floral tulip design as backing. I love the idea of using a combination of new fabrics, old sheets and blankets together with fabric from my stash in these quilts. If I were more talented and had more time I would love to be able to make quilts as beautiful and inventive as some of these : Trees by Hillary Lang But that level of quilting is just not going to happen around here for a while! I think I will aim for very simple shapes for the quilt tops, hopefully I should be able to quilt them on my sewing machine although its just an ordinary one without a walking foot, anyone know how difficult this is going to be? I do want to bind them and not make turned inside out bag quilts which is all I have tried to do before and I like the idea of slip stitching the binding into place by hand. Its just the quilting that I’d like to be able to do on the machine. Nothing too complicated, just a nice simple pattern for these first ones. I got the Denyse Schmidt book for Christmas and I am looking forward to sitting down and getting some hints and tips from her before I start. Does anyone who has ever made a quilt before have any thoughts or advice for me?
Posted by Kerrie at 07:33 AM
Posted by Kerrie
| Comments (5)
March 16, 2006
Cheesy faces
How could you not love these 2 cheesy faces? I think I am going to take them out for a treat after school this evening instead of coming home to the usual routine of reading, homework and chaos while I try and cook dinner. Somewhere fun for them both where I can spend a couple of hours thinking of them and only them. We are a little overdue a night like this. These pics were taken at snack time last night. When Cameron eats his breakfast or dinner he still sits in his highchair (much to his disgust) but when we're having a quick snack I let him sit in a proper chair next to his big sister. He loves it! The snack of choice this week has been a tortilla wrap with philadelphia cheese, yoghurt and a glass of juice. Last week it was jam sandwiches. Wonder what she'll come up with next week? I always let Brooke make their snacks for them when they come in from school, she loves to choose what they're going to have and get the table all set for them. Cam's job in the evenings is to set the placemats out on the table before dinner. He is so funny, running over to take one from me and then climbs up on the chairs to put them in their right places on the table. Wonder when they'll be old enough to do the whole dinner preparation instead of just setting the table for me? I chose to knit last night and make up a whole new batch of wholesale packs for stitch next week. I'm still in love with the blue aran cashmere knitting, its going so quickly. I should have pics to show you very soon.
Posted by Kerrie at 06:32 AM
Posted by Kerrie
| Comments (4)
March 15, 2006
Kerrie news in brief
I've been driving into Canary Wharf every day this last couple of weeks for work. It means that I've listened to the radio more than ever before but have hardly knitted at all. I love Johnny Vaughn on capital radio, he is so funny! I've learned that if you don't get to the big £7.50 all day car park before around 7.30 am you may have to park in the very expensive £20 waitrose car park. Hence I'm leaving the house by 6.30 and having toast at my desk before anyone else is in the office. Its fun to get in early, you see things that most people never see like the cleaners fighting and the security guards lounging around with their feet on the desk. Sticking with the work theme, I've been reassigned to a temp project until the end of June. Hence the Canary Wharf rather than Liverpool St working. Without going into details its solved a lot of the problems I was having before. Fingers crossed for me that I find something after the end of June though. I'm not "quite" ready to be made redundant yet. Yet. I want to make a whole basket of Hillary's bunnies for Easter but realistically I'm sure I won't have time. I have wound 70 skeins of cashmere sock yarn since Sunday. I'm hoping to dye most of them over the next few days. I'm all sorted for Stitch next week, just need to work out how to fit everything into my car for the build up. Ruth and Anna have volunteered to come and help me out on Thursday and Friday and dad will be there at the weekend. Our first knitting night at HipKnits went really well last night, 4 of us sat and gossiped and knitted the night away. See you there next week? Adrian saved me some of the beautiful yarn she made for her shop update yesterday because she knew I'd love it. Guess what? I do love it and a nice big fat skein of it is going to be headed over here soon. Yum. Cameron has decided to stop sleeping at night. Which means that Wayne and I were both up from 1am to 4am last night. Seeing as we didn't go to bed until gone 11 that's not good. I at least managed to get back to sleep until 6 bringing my total to 4 hours but Wayne couldn't fall back to sleep so he's gone off to work today on 2 hours sleep. Cam wasn't this bad when he was a baby, what's going on!? In my "spare" time I've been trying to work out which one of the Sockapaloozas is mine. Ha, like that's ever going to work. There are some pretty cool socks being made though, I love them all! I'm amazed at people's honesty. I have had 2 shipments to the US recently where I sent out replacements as the original didn't arrive. In both occasions the original parcel arrived weeks after the replacement and both times the person who bought the yarn paid for the 2nd order. How honest is that? I love knitters.. I bought a new digital camera yesterday. Expect pics tomorrow. West Ham are playing football tonight on TV. Should I go to the shop and dye lots of yarn or sit on the sofa and knit more of my aran weight cashmere cardigan? You decide, I'm too tired!
Posted by Kerrie at 08:10 AM
Posted by Kerrie
| Comments (7)
March 13, 2006
Monday
Wayne and I have had such a busy weekend its a little scary! On Saturday, mum and dad were called in for babysitting duties while Wayne and I drove up to Shrewsbury to pick up an industrial skein winding machine that is just totally amazing. Really, it has to be seen to be believed. I used to be able to wind about 10 skeins an hour with my hand powered little version. Yesterday I managed to do nearly 35 skeins in half that time. It is amazing, and such fun to play with as well. I love new toys. We also bought some new aran weight cashmere some of which is up on HipKnits this morning and the rest of which will be skeined and dyed this week. It is such beautiful yarn, I'm loving the blue cardigan that I'm designing with it.
Yesterday was more driving around into London. We witnessed some truly terrible examples of London behaviour including drivers who were indicating right and turned left at a junction and a car wash place who didn't want to clean Wayne's car because it was too dirty. Really. We tried to explain to them that if all cars were clean then they would be out of business but they didn't seem to get it. "Your car is too dirty" was repeated a few times before we gave up trying to get them to see sense! Anyway, my plans for this week are to buy a new digital camera as the one Wayne managed to fix last week has now given up again. Dye lots and lots of cashmere sock yarn and also some of the cashmere laceweight and aran weight if I get the time. I'm also desperate to dye some yarn that I bought from another UK supplier a couple of weeks ago, I have some mohair, kid merino loopy yarn, BFL and alpaca mix and something else that I can't remember. Anyone that came to the open weekend would have seen it sitting in cones waiting to be wound up. It is beautiful and I'm hoping to have it ready to take to Olympia with me in 2 weeks time.
Posted by Kerrie at 09:14 AM
Posted by Kerrie
| Comments (1)
March 09, 2006
Yesterday..
Yesterday was not a good day. You all know how it started out but what you don't know is that it ended up with me sobbing in the middle of Tescos car park while a very kind lady and her daughter helped me look for my car keys and gave me a much needed hug. (they found the car keys in Cam's coat pocket. Don't ask) I won't go into the whole sordid Tesco story that I believe contributed to the tears but its enough to say that a complaint has been filed. This morning seems to be better though. Cameron slept for a whole extra 2 hours this morning and woke up so funny! He has suddenly learned a whole new set of words without any of us realising and sat this morning pointing to all of the Winnie the pooh characters on his plate and telling us who they all were. He got them all right apart from Tigger who he insists is Eeyore. Then Wayne pointed out that he fixed his digital camera before he left for work. Yay for photos. I instantly took this one of my feet wearing the hand knit socks that Alison bought for me in Frankfurt. Thanks Alison! Aren't they lovely? They also fit me really nicely and are so warm. Just the thing for this cold weather we're having at the moment, so far our spring has been colder than our winter was. Go figure! Then I thought I'd capture my 2 current projects, a cardigan in new aran weight cashmere that I'm testing out for HipKnits. Ha, testing out! What I mean to say is that I have bought lots to sell and now can't bear the thought of having to sell it so I'm knitting with it. You know, that kind of testing out. It is beautiful. I never want to knit with anything else again. Apart from maybe the Lorna's laces in Knit Happens colour that I am making a pair of ankle socks from. Nearly done on the first one.. When I finish work this evening I'll be taking pics of all the GORGEOUS Araucania yarns that are in my hall at the moment. Here are a couple of snaps of the most beautiful 100% alpaca yarns. I love them so much, I predict that these will sell really well. I have ordered their full range of yarns in lots of different colourways. I'm also acting as their distributor in the UK so if any yarn stores out there are interested in stocking these yarns do let me know and I'll send you samples and prices. Gorgeous and currently not available in the UK. See, today really is going to be better than yesterday. Oh, and thanks for all the kind scarf knitting offers. I'm all sorted now..
Posted by Kerrie at 08:13 AM
Posted by Kerrie
| Comments (13)
March 08, 2006
Samples
Does anyone want to knit me one of these Short Row Rib scarves with some of this beautiful Malabrigio Bulky Merino yarn? I need it for Olympia at the end of the month so not too long to knit it but if you're up to it let me know. ta.
Posted by Kerrie at 02:09 PM
Posted by Kerrie
| Comments (11)
Grrrr
Don't you just hate it when everything conspires against you? My digital camera failed yesterday (one of the buttons is stuck) and Wayne and I both spent hours last night trying to pick it out before we gave up. The camera is a few years old and I notice from ebay would sell for about £20 if it was working so I guess it was overdue a replacement. The annoying thing is that I have lots of pics to take for the HipKnits website, stitch markers, Araucania yarns, more Schaefer yarns, more aran weight silk. What makes it even more annoying is that I borrowed Wayne's camera and then discovered that that also was not working. So its no pics until I can buy a new camera. Sigh. That means that I can't show the gorgeous presents that came in the post from Alison this morning. It also means that I can't show you the 40 kilos of gorgeous gorgeous Araucania yarns that I am sitting next to at the moment. Poo. The other thing that has made me grrr this morning has been dealing with a vendor on ebay who has been printing MagKnits patterns and selling them for nearly £3! How dare she. A strongly worded email to her and a report to the ebay copyright police and she has apologised and removed the items. Apparantly she didn't realise that they were copyrighted and hadn't got them from MagKnits but from another internet site. Hmmm, a likely story. The designer of the patterns and I have been so angry with her, it really annoys me when people do things like this. Think I'd better go and have a cup of tea and a slice of HipKnits cake while I calm down, don't you?
Posted by Kerrie at 11:07 AM
Posted by Kerrie
| Comments (6)
March 07, 2006
Shop shop shop shop shop
Thanks for being patient with me while I slept the day away yesterday, now I can share some pics with you. The whole weekend was great, dad and I were there from about 9 on Saturday finishing off the last few bits and we had people knocking on the door just before 10 asking when we were opening. We sent everyone to the cafe around the corner, apparantly at one point nearly all their customers were wearing handknitted garments and waiting for us to open! Saturday was great with lots of old friends and HipKnits customers coming in. It was lovely to meet people that I'd only spoken to on email before and also to see others who I hadn't seen since Ally Pally last October. I imagined that Sunday would be the quiet day but again, dad and I noticed 2 cars sitting outside the shop from about 10.30, as soon as we opened the door at 11 they were in! It was lovely to have so many people who stayed to sit on the sofa and knit a while after their shopping and also to see how many people took advantage of the basket of balled up yarns on the table that were available to swatch and sat and knitted. Michaela made me this lovely cake, don't you think she should set up a website and make them for everyone? I do. We didn't cut it until Sunday and let me tell you that it tasted just as good as it looked, that's no small feat considering it looked so amazing!
This is the left hand side of the shop as you walk in.
You can see the beautiful Trudie jacket that Minxxie made for me at the far end, the baskets full of handspun yarn on the wall, the table with gorgeous flowers that Wayne sent me and jug of needles with basket of yarns to swatch, the sofa and hand dyed chunky yarns hanging on the wall. Now this is the other side of the shop with the metal floor to ceiling racking that I did my very best to make pretty by covering with Laura Ashley wallpaper and Cath Kidston spotty material. This is where the bulk of the yarn is stored, underneath the spotty material are all my undyed skeins and boxes.
Now for a few close-ups. This is the basket of swatchable yarn that sits on the table. This pic was taken before anyone actually picked up the yarns and started knitting so its not quite that neat any more! A little table full of Lyn's beautiful brooches. Basket of Hello Mango handspun yarn and one of Felt Studio handspun. The row of goodie bags in the back room, just waiting to be taken home and finally the first wall again, just because I really like the way you can see the whole sofa in this one. Phew. Enough pics for you? I have lots more but that should give you a taste of what you missed if you weren't able to make it at the weekend. I'll be updating the HipKnits store tomorrow with LOADS of goodies. I'm going to update the website once a month from now on instead of every week or so, this will make it much easier for me. I'll still be doing all the custom dye orders and I'll make sure that the once a month update is MASSIVE so it should hopefully last nearly the whole month. If you did miss this weekend you can see us at Olympia at the end of the month, that's coming round faster than I really want to think about at the moment!
Posted by Kerrie at 07:20 AM
Posted by Kerrie
| Comments (16)
March 06, 2006
Later...
The weekend was fab, I have so many pictures to show you and stories to tell you but you'll have to wait. I'm sick, so so sick and need to sleep for the rest of the day before I'll be anywhere near human again. Thanks to everyone that came to the open weekend and to everyone that couldn't make it but sent me emails. I promise to tell you all about it. I just need to get better first. x
Posted by Kerrie at 07:54 AM
Posted by Kerrie
| Comments (6)
March 03, 2006
Copyright
Lets talk about copyright shall we? The whole Tua Cha / Natalya debate that erupted on Wednesday prompted me to email both designers to see if where we all stood. My opinion which I explained to both of them was that the patterns were similar, as in they were both for long, cabled, fingerless gloves. However, I did not believe that any copyright had been infringed and I felt that they were just 2 similar but individual in their own right patterns rather than one being a blatent copy of the other. This is what Vicki had to say about the whole subject and Jody feels the same. We had a good email conversation and all walked away happy. Don't you love it when thjat happens? More later...
Posted by Kerrie at 06:40 AM
Posted by Kerrie
| Comments (2)
March 01, 2006
New MagKnits
March's MagKnits is up. I really like this issue, we have lots of new designers and some really cool garments I think. The shop? Its *almost* ready. My Schaeffer yarn order has arrived, Aracunia should be here on Friday - talk about to the wire - and all the HipKnits yarns are weighed and labelled, apart from the cashmere that is still drying. I have a few more kits to make up, some price lists to print out and the biggest and most important piece of work is to pick up the sofa and chairs from IKEA tonight. Oh, and hope that someone nice like dad or Wayne will help me put the coffee table and chairs together on Saturday morning. Please? I had a photographer from the local paper stop by to take pics so if anyone out there is lucky enough to get hold of a copy of the Herts and Essex news next week you'll get to see me. His brief was to take pics of Kerrie and all her handpainted yarn. We decided against pulling it all down from the shelves and making a yarn mountain out of it (he must have noticed the horrified look on my face at the suggestion) and instead I got to post casually all around the shop with different skeins of yarn. How cringeworthy is that? Very, just in case you're wondering..
Posted by Kerrie at 03:58 PM
Posted by Kerrie
| Comments (10)
|
