Olympic project

I've decided with help from Kucki that I am going to knit Rogue for the knitting Olympics. I am relatively competent with cables and jumpers but haven't ever really knit a jumper with cables and a hood, and I really really fancy it. I've admired others for ages. I will really enjoy following a pattern while I've got so much going on, and to have something I would totally wear afterward. Obviously I have to dye my own yarn though to get the colours right! But I'll do that at the weekend.

Secondly I will be adding yarns to the shop everyday from today for the yarn sale, including silks, sockyarns, Dk and Aran weight. Shipping is a standard £2.50 everywhere in the world, unless you spend over £50 and then your shipping is free. Yep Free EVERYWHERE! Told you it was an olympic sale.

Olympic sale!

I think there is a correlation between anth being away and the amount I am blogging this week, I feel like I just need to get everything out of my system, its great though, I feel much more connected.

OK, so here's the idea of the day. I'm moving house, therefore I need too make that experience as stress free as possible. So if I really am going to pop all my things neatly into my shelves in my new craft room that means I need to shift allot of my stock which doesn't conform to normal colour batches and weights. I have plenty of that, I can tell you, the fun with making hand dyed stuff is that things never go quite as you plan them. But that means that its great for you lot because I am going to have a massive Fyberspates yarn sale in the shop, it will include, silk, sock yarns, Dk and other stuff I have.

It will be next week, probably about Tuesday, I'll need to spend some time taking pictures and stuff. But its gonna be BIG.

How exciting!!! (told you I was feeling perkier, that book seems to have done the trick!)

Now, I've joined the Olympics I'm in team Wales, what the hell do I knit? I've always wanted to knit a cabled cardigan/hoody thing, any one know some good patterns?

Just when you thought you'd had enough

Do you ever get days when you think you've had enough? You're going to scrap it all and work in Sainsbury's? No offense to anyone who works in Sainsbury's, I used to work there and it was one of the best jobs I ever had, I loved it, but it certainly didn't stretch my life very much.

So yesterday was one of those, I thought all my get up and go had gone, no more dyeing, no more knitting, no more fyberspates, no more buying a house on my own, no more knitting jumpers without patterns and no more designing my own weird tank tops and driving my self nuts with lace. I was a little concerned because I though my head would pop off with stress.

Then this morning I received a book in the post call 'Hand spun revolution' I sat with my mug of tea and cold sausages from last nights dinner and started to read, with each page turn my heart beat faster and faster and my blood pressure raised with each exciting picture and description, I wanted to get my spinning wheel out now and make one, try out all the techniques. NOW I tell you, NOW!!!!

So there was some get up and go left in my tank obviously. Then I did some fyberspates work, went to my other work, and actually did some for once, and dreamed of my house when we move in, and my immaculate craft room with wall to ceiling storage compartments built by my father in-law, stuffed with carefully labeled silks, yarns and fibers, ready to post out to my customers.

Ahhhhhhhhhh. How could I even contemplate the idea of giving up my dream for feeling like I was losing the plot.

Just think of the compartments, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Stitchlinks

tThanks so much for your lovely comments! I'm really glad I took the plunge and Anth is mega excited! That has to be a good thing!

OK so today I want to introduce you to something called Stitchlinks its an initiative to bring together cross stitchers, knitters and crocheters in a friendship network. It's geared towards the therapeutic aspects of knitting and stitching, and the benefits you get from joining are massive, not to mention the massive discounts on your favourite magazine subscriptions.

I'm plugging this because I think it will be really beneficial for people who are not currently able to get out and meet other knitters and stitchers, something that I value so much, but take for granted. Imagine how much less special my life would be if I didn't go to stitchn'bitch and see all my lovely knitting buddies?  It will also give support to people who want to set up their own groups and meet knitters and stitchers in their own area, and well really it's just fab.

Stitchlinks has also given me the most support for the research, I couldn't have started it without them, people don't realise how much time and effort goes into running research projects especially considering I'm doing it in my own time, if I were to get a grant for something like this it would cost about £40,000, and I'm doing it free because the research needs to be done, doctors need to know that they don't always have to send people away empty handed with no hope, knitting and stitching has allot to offer. Betsan the founder of Stitchlinks gives me constant moral support and encouragement for the research and has worked very hard to bring other researchers together to be involved, so I will plug Stitchlinks forever!

Now onto Cyberfyber.

I know I've not mentioned much about it recently, but it's been a little on the hectic side here, however it won't be long, I've had some great articles and projects and I can't wait to share them with you. I'll try and have the main page finished my the end of the week so you can see whats coming.

feeling a little sad.

Anth left at 4am this morning for a week long conference in LA. The first time he has ever been to the US. Then approximately 10am this morning, I found our dream house, massive kitchen dining room, space for a workshop and my own craft room. We've been looking for a little while now, and today I found it. I made an offer (despite the fact that anth hasn't seen it yet), he's very trusting! And it was accepted. But I wish he was here to celebrate with me, my heart aches without him, I don't even feel like knitting, well thats a lie actually, I could be persuaded.

I hope he likes it..........or i'm in serious trouble.

Hmmm. Any thoughts?

Excitment reigns again.

Please take out your vogue knitting, or borrow the persons next to you and open the page at 48. There's only an article about Marie, and her fantastic podcast. Welldone Marie, it's super!

Look look look!

Look! The knitting research is featured on the BBC wales website!

It is in Welsh though, but there are a couple of pictures!

I don't feel like writing about knitting today....

Probably because I haven't got any time to do any damned knitting.

I need another Noro jumper, so I'm going to save up for some more silk garden. For some reason it is so comforting to knit, especially with a pattern.

My statistics for my normal non knitting research are driving me up the wall, I am completely dyslexic, so often I can't tell if words are spelled wrong or not, and I have pages and pages of programming syntax to go through and create to run the stats on my projects. Sometime it can take me up to 2 hours to find a one word mistake because I can't see when things are spelled wrong, or if there is a comma missing, I often end up rocking backwards and forwards unless I bring my knitting with me to calm down. I am determined that my knitting stats will be much simpler.

Not only that, Carmen has gone, I am really missing her now, no knitting break mid afternoon with cups of tea and chocolate as we used to do, or anyone to get excited about my hand spun. :-(

However, the best-est thing in the world did happen yesterday, we are going to buy a house!!! I've lived in rented accommodation for about 8 years now, despite the fact that we have a fabulous massive old house, I now want a house where I can have a proper workshop for the business. We are looking just out side of Cardiff, in the pretty welsh villages, and start viewing properties tomorrow, so I am mega excited, so I'll probably be keeping you up to date with the progress of whats going on.

Participants are trickling in for the research, and we also have something special planned for a big show in Olympia in march, but that's a secret for now.

Anyway off to look run some more stats. :-/

Added later: Monday morning there is a peice on the BBC Wales website about the research etc, the front page is here, of course it is in Welsh, I'll try and post a translation if I can, but I think my picture will be in there with Ulrich!!!!! How exciting! Anyway monday when I find it I'll post the link.

hehehehehe!

Ahhh! added later! I can't beleive it, if you like Firefly look at this chatter and pattern about Jaynes hat! There has been so much discussion about that hat in our house.!!

I might even have to make one for anth.....

Something a little exciting...

Anyone seen the February version of Simply knitting, bottom of page 6? Recognise that short hair and foxglove top anyone?

Apparently the mothers of some of the professors have been phoning them because they are pleased that Cardiff psychology department are doing the knitting research!!

We have a board in the psychology foyer with all the press pieces involving the departments research, I think that little article should be there too! It just means I need to have the guts to go and suggest it!

felting and knitting

I made some crockpot yarn for the shop, but Anth saw it and loved it, so seeing as this is a rare occurance, it is going to be a scarf and possibly gloves for him, and I think I'll give the rest to mum. Here it is:

The colours in the picture are much darker, and oddly there is no pink in it at all, strange what camera's do.

I spent yesterday working on a felted bag project for the shop, they are so much fun, and really very easy. I made two:

 

The pink fabric could have done with a little more felting, but I'd got it right by the pink and blue one.

Partys and yarn

I can't believe the holidays are over. I had an amazing New year, met some really nice people, and it was completely packed with drama. So much so, it was like a Christmas day episode of East Enders! But that's all you're getting!

I did however stay up until 6am new years day. It's strange, because when I was younger I used to struggle with parties and staying up late,  but now I just love it.    It's like the older you get the less you want to miss, even if it is just a good chat with good friends, obviously it helps if you are well oiled with sloe Gin and coke, Yuk!

You can imagine how I felt when I had to get up at 10am to let the Buddhists in for New years day Gongyo (its a tradition to chant on New years day to make a good start to the year, and I really needed it!), and it was an hour of chanting! Still it's the best hang over cure.                                                                                                Although I do have to say thanks to Anth for tidying everything up and doing all the washing up before I got my hung-over butt out of bed. So really, I didn't have to actually physically let anyone in, or worry about anything, (not that I could if I'd wanted to) so he just propped me up against the wall, and I just grimaced as people walked passed and gave me a cheerful kiss. (sorry about the punctuation in that description, I can't seem to get it right)

New years resolution........Enjoy myself as much as I did last year.

I will post a picture of me in my cardigan, it's sort of stuck to me now.....oh and my freind Viki came home from china and brought me some fantastic burnt orange silk fabric, so I'm going to make some trousers like ones I saw in Vogue ages ago.

I have this week of to work on CyberFyber and get some patterns up together for something rather special, and also to stock the shop. I updated today with some silk, merino and Cotswold tops, and will update later with some limited edition yarn.

It's really hard having to make things to sell, I make it and then want to keep it all, especially the silk. Well mainly this one actually!