I am so rubbish at photos...

OK, I did have my Wonderwool stash to photograph to show you, BUT unfortunately my mother nicked half of it!! Can you believe that?

I had some incredible coily hand spun yarn that I got from Daniella from felt studio UK

Mum has nabbed it for necklaces....

I will try and get it back off her because its just stunning, I also got enough camel silk roving to spin a tank top from Daniella and some to make a hat, really, her colours totally blow my mind and her stuff is just wonderful! She is akin to me to Babylonglegs, Love them both I really do......

And actually, Babylonglegs did a cracking wonderwool post with photos...She also got herself a cherry matchless spinning wheel, lucky monkey...she is going to teach me to understand my wheel better soon.....

So there are so many things going on at the moment my head hurts, I am rubbish at change, its exciting, but sometimes I wish I could be content with wanting normal/average/coasting along, but I am always in search of something amazing, at the moment I seem to be finding amazing around every corner, but amazing doesnt nessasarily mean easy....infact, not easy at all, business and personal life seems to be stretching me way out of my comfort zone, actually, I don't want that ever to stop, every year I look backwards and dont recognise what came before, life really is exciting when you choose to follow your heart.

xxxx

Am kept awake with wiredness

As you can tell with the crappy grammar of that title I am tired, Wonderwool was loads of fun, not just for the selling wool part, but meeting my lovely customers and keeping up to date with everyone. Plus realising, that sometimes you got to always make sure you are ahead of the game....which means I kind of realised at the weekend how much effort I now have to focus on the commercial side of the business, which in turn will hopefully fund a new project, its big and exciting, but something I have been thinking about for quite a while (2 years infact), but didn't have the contacts or partner to do it with, now I think I found someone, ofcourse it doesn't effect the hand dyed side, I love that and its my little cherished baby, that ain't going nowhere ;)

So I was up at 6am this morning getting ready to set up an exhibition at Wantage museum, thankfully Brian is helping me.....after this its packing orders and then I am going to sleep, oooh and tomorrow I shall tell you about my absolute finds/purchases, there is a dyer there who just makes me totally excited with her wonderful creativeness and colours.......

;)

xx

Its nearly wonderwool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, I am sooo excited, its wonderwool on the weekend, and I have a lovely big massive stand and loads of gorgoeus yarn and treats!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

xxx

Hand dyed wholesale-the end of an era

Two posts in one day, not bad huh?

Ok I have always sold my yarns wholesale, its always caused me alot of complications but I still tried my hardest to do it because I love having people sell my yarns in all corners of the globe, BUT, the reality is that I struggle to do it as well as maintian normal service in the shop, so much so that I miss out on doing the dyeing I love. Not only that but I end up just doing administration, thats not what I signed up for, I need to streamline so that I can get on with developing fyberspates hand dyed online and the commercial range.

So after trying it a million different ways, i.e. getting help to dye the wholesale providing an off the shelf service and dyeing to order, I have come to the conclusion that financially it doesnt work. That makes me really sad to say, but its the reality.

In its place I will be developing the commercial range which starts with scrumptious, lace, 4ply, dk aran and chunky. This is what I am taking to TNNA, and is what will be available to customers in the UK and europe.

I feel sad, but juggling too many balls will mean a reduced service to my customers which even the thought of makes me extremely anxious.

So, what is left in the wholesale section is it, and then in the Autumn we will launch the new range of gorgeousness that is the scrumptious commercial range.

I feel a relief saying this really, its a challenge I have worked so hard at and had many conversations with other dyers about it, and sometimes you just have to change and let things take you in other directions.

xxx

TNNA.....WE ARE IN!

OK, well guess what?? we officially got into TNNA, we got our confirmation yesterday, very exciting, we are booth numbers 1248 & 1250, I am kind of a mixture of excited and terrified, mainly because I am terrified of flying, and also because omg, we have to construct an amazing stand over in the USA, not an easy task I can tell you.

So, big deep breaths and I need to make a big massive plan.

A MASSIVE PLAN

LOL ;)

XXXX

 

A little spring treat....

I went to Baa Ram Ewe in Leeds last night for a trunk show, and it was fabulous, what a gorgeous shop it is!!!! And verity is a total hoot! I really enjoyed it, even though it took me 6 hours, traffic jams and getting lost, lol.

Anyway I am in Chester this weekend sorting out my accounts, so that means no shop update, ,....BUT, instead, I am giving you a little discount in the shop, 15% of purchases until sunday if you enter 'Spring' into the discount code box at the checkout!!

Happy shopping ;)

xxxx

Scrumptious......and a little knitting

I am waiting to hear if we got a booth at TNNA this summer (tnna is the main US trade show for knitting and needle work). To be fair its quite scary we had to book flights and hotel rooms before we even heard confirmation, but I have a good feeling in my guts.

We are taking the scrumptious range ( not the hand dyed, as I don't have the capacity to dye loads of yarn, and I am fastly coming to realise that unless you can produce hand dyed with cheap labour, the prices don't work for wholesale on any basis which can work long term, probably why most large hand dyed companies get it done in other countries, its a shame  but its true). Anyway the whole distributor thing has been a bit of a learning curve, more on that once I can speak, BUT I have a new distributor for the USA and I am so excited,  we are having a properly British stand, total vintage British, its not easy though as we have to get stuff over there, and you have no proper walls like exhibitions in the UK, so we are going to have to be VERY inventive, but boy its exciting!!

The range will increase to include the lace weight, the 4ply that we all know and love, the dk OBVIOUSLY, the aran weight, and the chunky. I have to figure out the colours, not easy when I am not so sure of what colours the US market go for...but I'll just have to use my instincts, I feel really proud that my little company is getting there finally. I think I am going to have to scale down the amount of engagements I take part in next year, I love to travel around and see shops etc, but I think I might have to stop that as I need to concentrate on the pattern support and other things for this range, and ofcourse it needs to be launched here too, but I am thinking allypally might be great for that.......

Ok, I am just wanging on now, so I will stop, I did do some lush kniting over the weekend and made a calomitery, which is knitted in babylonglegs hand spun (my secret fav yarn of all time) it stripes just beautifully. Its a little big, so I have to kind of tie it, but it looks really cute, I am actually wearing it in the new profile pic, not that you can really see it!! hehe, it took me about 2 hours to make, this would make a cracking quick present.....

Spring!!

It feels almost like spring today, the flowers outside my unit are so pretty, its a gorgeous contrast to the industrial environment I work in.

I am feeling on top of the world today, don't know if you ever get this, but always when change is coming, I feel rubbish because I like holding on too hard, and then change comes and once I accept it its really ok :)

Carmen and Fran came from Spain to visit, and they are both so good for me. They think global, that's the only way to describe it, they don't worry about the small details they have a goal and they work towards it, Carmen was a major supporter in my business and in my life generally, I like to think of her has my female soulemate. So their visit has been perfectly timed, she inspires the hell out of me, we are spending easter together and boy and I excited.

Although I havent been miserable or anything, I felt a little sapping of my spark recently, maybe with the growing of the business it changes things (growing of the business has meant some rather tough times (not financially but some rather unpleasant learning curves, but they have been learnt, and I shall tell you all about them soon when I am allowed to, but I need to keep shtum for a bit longer). But its good, I took action and made decisions and have learnt not to take crap any more, or really to trust people so much.

I have been going to the gymn to destress and as a result I am getting well fit! Plus it mean I can eat cake guilt free, haha!! Also just really thinking about what I want in the future and making plans, I like a good plan, I do ;)

And also introducing a little more life into my work life balance, and its meant I have met and spent time with some rather special people recently, all really lovely stuff. So today I think is the first day of that change and I am in a cracking mood.

Oh the shop is being updated today, AND I am gonna do som photos over the weekend for the fairisle stuff i was talking about.

xxxxxxx