So I kind of lied.

Remember I said that was it for the shows until February? I was telling the truth at that particular moment, but now, not quite sure how it happened, but I agreed to do Harrogate, gulp! Its probably the most time I have ever had to prepare for a show, at least though I am getting used to what sells, so I have alot of work to do. But I am determined to have a really good shop update this week if it kills me!!! I have been redoing some of my photo's because they don't demonstrate my yarns properly, especially the space dyed ones, although this winter light is not making it easy to get bright photo's.

OK, whats new? I have a new range of Blue faced Leicester solids to add to the fyberspates collection, the colours are quite deep and rich, mainly because I hate pastels in the winter because we need warming up with strong colours, there are nine cherry red, olive, chocolate, caramel, black, cream, spring green, deep purple, and teal showed here:

The kimono aran pattern is designed by Katherine from K1 yarns for the aran, and there will also be some designs in magazines featuring this yarn, its soft, warm and delicious to knit with, and seems to go a really long way, and its gorgeous British blue faced Leicester, and £6 per 100gms, can't be bad can it!!!! It is also perfect for felting!

I also got some of the scrumptious in black, I can't get solids very well, so I had some dyed for me in Black, and its just pure heaven!

Its all knit knit knit in this house, Sole is knitting a full winter set completely from space dyed yarn: feather and fan scarf in the squishy in fiesta, it takes about 2 hanks, and she has just cast on with the fiesta dk to make fingerless glove to match and will then probably make a hat in chunky or aran again in fiesta! Its going to look cool! I'll post a pic tomorrow.

Happy knitting. Off to get hair cut spiky finally!!!!!

Stitch n'bitch London.

OK, this event was equal to the fun of the one in Rotterdam, it was absolutely fantastic! There was a superb vibe there, a real buzz, I can't wait for next year! I met all the usuals, and hopefully soon there will be random pictures of me with badgers and monkeys on the net. By the way, if you happened to be there and take any photo's of the fashion show, please please send me some, there were two models I have to have photo's off, lol.

I was chuffed because Debbie Stoller bought some scrumptious, can't say I wasn't just a little bit proud lol.

So thats it now until Paris in Feb, I've now got time to work on lots of kits, clubs and regular updates in the shop, and wholesale. If you have a shop near you that you would like to see stocking fyberspates yarns please let me know. Every recommendation that results in an order comes with free yarn as a thank you!

I am so excited about getting stuck in now, just need to sort out the house, THERE IS WOOL EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!

Nearly finished my first glove in my DK cashmere, I'll write the pattern up to go with the yarn. I dyed the yarn to go with my new green coat, as soon as its finished I'll do a proper photo, I haven't decided what to embellish them with yet, it'll either be buttons or flowers.

Stitch n'Bitch London event.

OK Guys,

Off to the stitch and bitch london event, I'll be exhibiting tomorrow, so please come and say hello!

I do have my camera ok this time, so I'll take a pic of my ginger hair, LOL, and I didn't have time to get my hair cut today, so its spiky but not as cool as it could be. Apparently I look like an Irish imp now, what ever one of those is!

Have a lovely weekend,

xxxx

Hair again

So I got bored with my new hair, 1. because it's not cool enough, and 2. because the colour has faded, and it looks bland. So I decided to colour it again, with henna this time, because it takes rather well on my hair. I went to Lush and got the cacau maron, because it had red in it, and I wanted something a bit spicy.

I got home, asked carmen if she wanted to dye my hair, gave her the dye, and she burst into laughter.

Me: "what's so funny?"

Carmen: "its cacau maron"

Me: "and......."

Carmen: "Jeni, do you know what it means in Spanish?"

Me: "No!"

Carmen "It means S**t brown"

I, like the previous time should have taken a hint from this, if Carmen finds it hilarious then its probably going to be a disaster.

So we slapped it on, wrapped it in clean film, and forgot about it. I then went to have a shower, and washed my hair. Henna is not a good thing to wash out in the shower if your shower gets blocked and you end up standing in your shower water, let me just say one thing "cacau maron shower water" lol.

So anyway I washed it out, dried it and then looked in the mirror, I'm generally pasty to say the least, but I was staring, not at my mother this time, but an Andy Warhol Picture, white face and orange hair. Yep, seriously orange, the colour is stunning, rich orange bright hair, but my goodness I look odd with such a pasty face. And Carmen's comment, was "well you don't look ugly"!

Anyway I am going to have it cut tomorrow, in a seriously short cut, because I am bored with my classic hair style, that can wait till I'm 40, I need a spikey princi cut asap, not sure whether to tone down the orange though or keep it...........?

Plus I have no stock for Saturday stitch and bitch day, so I am mildly panicking, not to worry though, I am sure I'll rise to the occasion.

Out on the road.

I am off to visit shop a shop in Hereford today with an order, one of my favourite things to do, I would go mad if I stayed at home all the time, I love the dyeing but I have to mix it with some traveling, and communicating with my customers. Not only that I would get into lazy habits being at home all the time. but before that I have yarn to dye, and get drying, and a pattern book to prepare for my customer. Oh and add a couple of things to the website, I am so low on stock its shocking!

Right so here are some pics of the gorgeous spindles I am now stocking from Sublime spindles, I am chuffed to bits with these, I have been looking for spindles to sell for an age, and here are a couple. They are prices at £19.99 inc VAT

This is a beautiful bottom whorl silk weight spindle made of Ash, and comes complete with bowl. Its so cute, I am desperate to have a go with these.

The next is more suited for wool and is made of walnut, GORGEOUS GORGEOUS GORGEOUS.

Right, had better get working. Thanks for the links by the way to the Nauni stuff and especially Emma who pointed me to a blog of Ruth whose work with these yarns is exquisite.

Stitch n'Bitch Rotterdam was cool!

Well, I had such a fantastic time, and now have two new wholesale accounts, the feedback on my yarns was really good, so I was happy. Everyone organising the show, and participating was so wonderful, they were such a lovely bunch of people. And the knitters are serious knitters! Some of the colour work I saw was unbelievable, there was one in particular which blew me away, I even bought some yarn from them so I could have a go, nothing has ever inspired me to do fair-aisle before, but I was itching to start, I just need to find a chart. The wool is rough as hell though, so I will make a cushion I think its a good place to start. The company name is KAUNI the website doesn't demonstrate the yarns very well, and I need to try and find some pictures of the jumpers people have made with the self striping yarns to show you. If any one has links or pics from Holland, please let me know, I'd love to link to them.

Here are the cones:

The main reason I was so excited was because Elly and I worked on some patterns using solid back grounds with self striping yarn, which were fab, and we are still working on more, and it was kind of a similar idea, apart from the back ground and the pattern is both self striping in these.

Anyway, Mr Bluefaced Leicester came with me, because he was meant to have a stand as well, and wanted to see some customers there too, so it was nice to have a wooly partner in crime to help me. We certainly had a few adventures, one in particular made me laugh, we were wandering looking for somewhere to have dinner on Saturday night, and there were a load of armed police running up and down the road, not exactly sure what they were looking for, but we dived into a Thai restaurant, the whole restaurant turned around, and looked horrified, and someone even asked us if they were looking for us!! We just laughed, then they started taking the P**s out of us for being typically English and  being under dressed for the cold weather, thats the first time I have been subjected to a British stereotype, I was completely embarrassed! (my job in psychology was investigating stereotypes and attitudes and racism, so I'm slightly fascinated with peoples perceptions of other nationality's).

I couldn't seem to figure out what the sort of national dish was, although I realized that ham and smoked cheese figures heavily in the cuisine, thanks so much for the food suggestions, unfortunately I didn't get much chance to investigate the traditional aspect further, although we went to the bazarr, which was a fabulous place, thanks for that recommendation.

All in all it was a great trip, but I am glad to be back ready to focus on being full time and having some balance back in my life. I haven;t had a guilt free weekend off for over a year, so after next weekend which is the stitch and bitch event in London, I am having a proper weekend off of work, I am going to eat, knit, go shopping and just chill the hell out.

I am also now going on a health kick because my body is starting to struggle, my skin is crap, so I am going to eat lots of soups, vitamins, water, herb teas, early nights, and start going running, and start yoga, its something I have been meaning to do it for years, so now is the time to start looking after myself. Yippee!!!!!

Oh and I have some new yummy scrummy yarns, I will update the shop slowly this week but first thing I will do, is put the new gorgeous wooden spindles on the website this afternoon.

Right, Happy knitting guys.

xxx

Stitch n'bitch Rotterdam!

So guess where I am  going tomorrow?

Yep, you guessed it, Rotterdam, for their stitch n'bitch day. I get the ferry tomorrow morning with my little van, I am so flippin excited!!!!

I didn't quite finish work yesterday, even though I stayed until 9.00 in the end!! Anyway, I have alot of dyeing to do, and now that takes precedence, and I'll have to pop in later on today to finish off, once my dyeing is done.

Oh I can't wait to go tomorrow, I promise I will take tonnes of photo's!! Does anyone have any suggestions for places to eat in Rotterdam, and what is traditional dutch food, so I can try some!!!!!!

Ps, have some gorgeous hand made wooden spindles, they are scrummmmmmmy. I'll take them to rotterdam, and then they'll be in the shop on monday, I want to keep them alllllllllllllllllllllll.