On Scotland

I love Scotland. The countryside is so beautiful, colours are so rich (despite the dreich weather). I'm on a short break here at my mother in laws and had the pleasure on going up to Skye and Raasay for a couple of days. Yesterday, we visited a place I have long wanted to visit; Shilasdair yarns at Waternish on Skye.



The yarns are quite simply heavenly.


The best part for me was not so much as soaking in all the colour but was meeting Eva and seeing her dyeing room. She's such a lovely lady, and the kids really warmed to her too.




The lady working for Eva (didn't get a name but had on a fantastic Kaffe Fassettesque handknitted cardigan and beautiful silk skirt which matcher perfectly) was so fantastic with Robbie. He had a fantastic time helping stack the shelves and I had to get him a hank of aran red yarn to make him a hat as a reminder of his visit.

It goes without saying that I think a lot of the Scots. On our honeymoon, Doug bought me a book from Borders in Toronto called something like 'How the Scots invented the modern world'. You can see signs all around about what an ingenious people they are. Plus they make the best engineers too! I've been told that some of Doug's colleagues from Jaguar read my blog which I find absolutely hilarious, seeing as I'm sure they're not interested in the slightest in knitting. Doug will not divulge names, but you know who you are!!

I don't pay much attention to comments on my blog, I just see it as some kind of diary actually, but am grateful to said computer geeks at Jaguar for highlighting someone's comments to a previous post. I'm amazed that a fashion designer from Rio de Janiero has left a comment on here too (I had to translate the comment in Babelfish which was interesting!). Now get back to your CAD drawings! (I'm sure you must be CAD engineers but as I said, he won't tell me!)

Off to Edinburgh this afternoon, partly to see some of the Festival but mainly to go to K1Yarns. There was something in one of Yarn Harlot's books (I don't have time to read her blog but do read her books as I'm an avid reader) about knowing you're addicted to knitting when you plan holidays etc. around yarn shops and the such like!

I was very heartened to read that I can possibly throw in a couple of extra quick projects for the Ravlympics (I forgot to bring the Debbie Bliss aran project with me so need to make up by doing some quick projects!) and as it's Thursday morning I reckon I can throw in a couple of projects before Sunday's deadline.

It really is a very long time since I've been on here. I really do admire people who have the discipline to blog every day. Anyway, not very much to write about as I've been knitting so much recently. So much so I have even neglected things like housework (like I've never neglected that before!). I thought it would be nice to have somewhere to put the recent fruits of my labours, so here they are:
I knitted three hats in three days - one being a warm up (Urchin by Ysolda) and the other two for the Ravlympics. The last minute beret was actually almost entirely knit during the opening ceremony while the other one was knit on days 2 and 3...

I am not feeling particularly inspired to write anything profound; Zoe has been sick today and I've spent most of my day so far looking after her. All I can say is that I'll be glad when the WIP wrestling is finished, not that I'm looking forward too much to a far too adventerous cable knit. I should have realised that cable knitting takes so much longer than normal knitting (well, it is obvious isn't it?!) and that even Debbie Bliss might find it a bit difficult to finish her ribbon tied aran in eight days. No doubt I feel more inspired soon and write something almost interesting.

Dishcloth frenzy and fab calculator

First of all, I've been having a quick surf in the free patterns at Knitting Daily and found a fantastic calculator thingy which I've got to share with anyone thinking of designing their own sweaters...

http://www.interweave.com/Waist-Shaping-Calculator/Curvy-Waist-Shaping.asp

It's completely fab. Maths is far from my strong point and is the main reason why I've not attempted to design before. But with fab calculators like this available, I need have no fear. I can start putting all these ideas floating around in my head on to paper at long last...

I've not very much to post. I've spent the last couple of days franticall knitting dishcloths and am happy with the results, especially the last one. Here's what they look like.

1. A knitted textured discloth in P&C Peacock and Mardi di Gras


2. A plain ol' Grandmother's favourite in P&C Gumdrop
3. Another knitted texture with a larger moss stitchborder (don't really like how colours pooled on this one)

4. A really quick plain one for Zoe, with her name and flower drawn by Robs on a piece of paper and me copying them on to the dishcloth.

5. And finally a ballband dishcloth in White and Lemon-lime. I love this pattern - guess what people are going to be getting for Christmas and birthdays from now on?!!!
With regards to Crafty Cottage, I'm not sure what's going on. I'm in the process of closing the online shop for now and am probably going to set up an eBay shop. There's a lot going on in the family and I need to devote my time to them and not worry about sending out parcels. Plus the grumpy Post Office man here in the village won't let me send parcels with PayPal labels on as he doesn't get any commission from them which means I need to go into Coventry, and although that's not too far away I'm fed up of having to queue at busier Post Offices with two children who take delight in winding up their mother and being as naughty/loud/whiny/all three as possible!

A pretty perfect day

I can honestly say that today has been the first day in a very long time that I have truly happy and content. It started by getting more done on the Clapotis and the kids playing very nicely together. Then the boys spent the morning cleaning the cars. Doug being the perfectionist that he is has done a valet-level clean inside and out...

So why was it perfect today? Major plus is the early summer weather we're having. The car said it was 26 degrees today, weatherman 24. It was a tad humid today which wasn't that nice and made me wish we were as close to the Meditterean as my parents are (can you believe they've been there almost five weeks and not been for a swim in the sea yet despite it being in the 30s!!!). But, alas, we are blessed with a truly wonderful garden. In the afternoon this is what happened.

Me, on the shady side of the garden...
and the boys planting potatoes on the other side...
The only thing missing was a glass of Pimms!!! Such a shame it is ending with Finham sewers stinking out the whole of Baginton - it is truly disgusting.

Overcoming technology

I am not the exactly the most computer literate person there is in the world. I can use Word, Powerpoint, Excel to do basic things, Outlook and of course the internet. But I feel I have scored a major victory; I have started using Firefox - a thousand times better than Explorer- and got rid of the BT internet security pack in favour of Norton. The result? Much faster computer and no problems downloading & uploading stuff. I am so much happier that I don't have to wait half an hour to download things (Ok, half an hour is an exaggeration but it seems like that sometimes) and I have no problems whatsoever on the Ravelry pattern browser. The latter being the most important for someone who goes on Ravelry three or four times a day.

Things I've wanted to write about over the past few months now...

Shop closing
The retail shop of Crafty Cottage closed in March. Warwick is such a funny place. It seems there are shops opening and closing there all the time. I predict pretty much all of the delis/sandwich bars will have suffered a huge loss in trade thanks to the new M&S, but in all truth there is only one group of people who I blame for bad trade in Warwick - traffic wardens - or rather their employer, the Council. There were two that drove me particularly insane and waited by meters for tickets to run out so they could give me a ticket. I ended up getting eight....

The business didn't take off as I had hoped. Terrible location didn't help. Anyway, there was only one day a week when it was worth opening - Saturdays- and the rest of the week was generally very quiet. While I got loads of knitting done, made some great friends and people were popping in for cups of tea all the time, I was simply not making enough to pay the huge running costs. On top of that, I had got to the end of the reduced rent period and as the bank had taken away my overdraft and refused me a loan, I had to close. Part of me misses the shop, but acutally the majority of me is relieved. I never realised how much hard work is involved in running a shop and if you're doing it by yourself it is a constant struggle, and sometimes you don't get very much sleep....

My highlight of the shop was on 1st March, when we had a Ravelry day. In fact it was when 70 or so Ravellers made my dreams come true. The shop was absolutely heaving and along with the very generous buffet everyone had a great time. It was so nice to put names to faces.

Wonderwool
So I got a last minute stand at Wonderwool and snapped it up. Right next to all the sheep and alpacas. Here's a photo...
Due to the short notice and inability to get a van for under £250, we decided to take as much as we could in our two cars and camp there...
As you can probably tell, the kids though it was a fantastic adventure - we did not. It is the last time I am going camping. Ever.

We met some lovely people at the show and Robbie made friends with Thomas the Alpaca
and with Posh Dee

And by the end of the day, it had all got a bit too much for Zoe, who feel asleep in Daisy's arm (note Daisy's hippy new age festival outfit!)

On meeting Louisa Harding

Left to right: Cheryl, Daisy, Sarah, me, Mandy is just about visible behind me, Louisa, Tanisha & Angie...

As you can see from this photo, a group of us met Louisa Harding in February. We had a great time, including Daisy getting lots of buttons from the Button Company. After visiting a couple of stands we descended upon the Designer Yarns stand where we met the fab Louisa Harding. It was fab to meet such a down to earth person - who is also a working mum- and someone who is incredibly talented. She told us where she gets her inspiration from; Dauphine was inspired by the film 'Marie Antoinette' by Sophie Ford Coppola and 'Summer Classics' by the Great Gatsby. Look at both books and you'll see the connections.

After meeting her, we all got inspired to knit some of her creations - from kids clothes (me) to accessories. It was so nice to see the real person behind the brand. The only regret from the day is that I didn't meet Debbie Bliss, but I did leave my Baby Knits for Beginners with Louisa and Debbie signed it for me.

3rd time lucky!

So I've tried to post twice on to the blog from the shop, so I thought I'd try a quick go at home to see if this a better option.

Not much to report, except that it's Ravelry day next week and I'm very excited but also very nervous as there's so much to do before then. Lots of lovely people are being very supportive - lots of the Crafty Cottagettes are coming for the day to help out, and Louisa Harding is sending us some goodies for a raffle as she's unable to come along. We've got some fantastic new yarns winging their way to us - such as Rosarios4 milk fibre yarn from Portugal and the new Chou'7 sock yarn from Bergere de France - as well as everyone's favourite Noro Silk Garden and Kureyon- and some lovely Silky Merino from Manos del Uruguay... Just hope the Peaches n Creme, Handmaiden, Fleece Artist & Malabrigo arrive on time!!!

Also very exciting is that we've got some local small companies' yarn at the shop now- Charkha Yarns and Shades of Cashmere, and there may well be more by the end of the week.

I've got to get back to tension square knitting now - I'm determined that there will be a square of prett much every yarn before the end of the week!

Look forward to meeting you all

A very tired Jo
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