Emergency crochet

I haven't posted since February, its not that I don't have anything to say, its just that I'm too busy to say it.
Spring is a very busy time for us, we have 3 show's in a row all within the space of 8 weeks.
Plus all our clubs, wholesale and updating the website.

We are off to Cologne, Germany on wednesday for show number 2, its a trade show so is slightly different to the other 2.
But it means we need 1 skein of each colour way in all the yarns, thats about 170 skeins all dyed seperately, so as you can imagine Dais and I have been dyeing for England.
Last year we had our lollipop tree for the stand which wowed the customers.
I knew we needed something extra special for the stand, but last week I had no idea what and time was running out
The dyeing and update was finished by last friday, so I had 3 day's to come up with something amazing.

Luckily I had already started playing with a new blanket design, which I was going to keep secret for my new triangle book in the summer.
I started playing about a week ago, but hadn't really done much as I have other things I need to do.

Thursday night I made the decision that as I didn't have any other inspiration that I would have to get my secret blanket to a size that could be shown on the stand and big enough to wow the customers.

So I have been crocheting all weekend, and I mean all weekend.
The photo's are all a bit rubbish as they are taken with my iphone.

Friday morning it looked like this

And Saturday morning it looked like this

Saturday night

And last night at about 9.30

I then had to crochet all the little blue filler circles and eventually after crocheting for 16 hours I went to bed at 1 am, I still haven't sewn in the ends, but if I thread them all through onto the back I think I can fake it.
It measures about 30 inches from side to side and when I come home from Germany I will turn it into a bed sized blanket which was my original intention.
The blanket will be velcro'ed on the the stand wall so hopefully no one will notice.
At the moment its wet and blocking in the dyeroom, I hope its dry by tomorrow night as we need to pack it for its debut in Cologne.

Update's

Did you know I spend at least 2 day's every week preparing for NDS's Thursday night's wool update?
After all the yarn is tied, mordanted, dyed, dried and re-wound it ends up in a box beside my desk.
The tieing, mordanting, dyeing, drying and re-winding processes take at least a week, so we are now about to start dyeing for an update in the middle of March.

Anyway back to the pile.....
Daisy labels it all and then I sort it into different yarn types.
I take 2 skeins of each colour/yarn type and photograph them.
I take the photo's just inside the dyeroom door, so they get as much natural light as possible, if its too sunny there are too many shadow's and it its too cloudy the photo's are dull.
I take at least 3 photo's of each pair of skeins.
I load them onto my computer, sort through the photo's and delete the ones that aren't perfect until I end up with 1 photo of each pair.
Then I spend hours and hours on Photoshop trying to make sure the photo colours are as close to the real life skein.
I have a daylight bulb in the light above my desk, I'm not sure if it makes much difference, but its there anyway.
Some of the photo's need a massive amount of editing, it was too dull this week and I ended up spending  a whole day on the photo's alone.
The photo below is the before and after shots of Lynbridge 38 Angelus 4 ply.

Once the photo's are taken I load them onto FLICKR for the preview and then TWEET the link.
The tweet is automatically posted in NDS's FACEBOOK group.

After a bit of social networking (chat) I make new listings on the site and add all the yarn, depending on the update it takes inbetween 2 to 3 hours. They all go in the NEW THIS WEEK section, as well as their individual catergories.

Then I do some more social networking (chatting), sometimes posting a photo here and there.

On the day of the update I send out the mailing list mail - HERE is this week's and tweet it, which in turn facebook's it.
I remove last week's yarn from its extra sections and delete anything that's sold out, sometimes I forget to do this, so end up doing it while I'm doing the update, which causes huge confusion.
And then I do some more chatting about yarn.
Stupidly I always forget to blog about it and never remember to post it on Ravelry.
I think Ravelry is covered as most of our Ravelry girls are mailing list member's.
There is a sign up link to the mailing list at the top on the left hand side of this blog, so I'm sure some of my blog reader's are member's, so I think most people get to see my pretty yarn at some time during the week.

Then I forget about the update for a few hours and do some design work or dyeing.
I have my alarm set for 6.30 pm so I don't forget to do the update, at 6.59 pm my finger is hovering over the reveal button. Several clicks later and the yarn is revealed.
Sometimes I sit and watch the orders roll in and sometimes I turn off my laptop and eat my dinner - I forgot to tell you Homer normally manages to coincide dinner being ready at 7 pm on a Thursday night?
I don't know if he forgets or just thinks it funny to see me trying to click buttons while trying to avoid spilling food on my laptop keyboard.

My update job is done for another week and I have a few day's off until Monday morning when I start preparing for the next update.

And here's a bit more yarn porn of what's coming up tonight, between mouthful's flan or pasta or curry or something really sloppy. Sloppy is brilliant at slipping between keyboard keys....sigh.......

Back from Unravel

This post is a bit odd and more dyslexic than normal, I wanted to say the stuff in my head, but its not making a huge amount of sense as it comes out on the page.
Hopefully you will understand what I am trying to say :-)

I love Unravel, its the first show of the year after the long dark winter.
Its held at Farnham Maltings, the building is beautiful and it always has a lovely atmosphere
The show was fantastic, very, very busy both day's, normally Sunday afternoon is quiet and we have the chance to walk around and chat to all the other stall holders, but not this year.
The show was exhausting, I think I'm still trying to recover.

We sold lots and lots of wool, met lots and lots of lovely customer's, some new and some we already know.
Its always lovely to put names to faces and be able to catch up with all the news face to face.
Our evenings were spent with our lovely woolly friends.
We only ever get the chance to see them at show's, so time spent together is precious.

I also met a lot of people who told me how happy and well we both looked, guess the stress of last year was more obvious than I thought.
And several lovely ladies came and told me that they had read the blog for years and how glad they were that our life had changed so dramatically.
Its lovely to know that I have so many blog reader's :-)

I don't have any photo's, I did take a couple of very blurry ones on my phone, but have forgotten my iphone connector so can't post them here.

The journey home was quite a poignant one as last years journey home from Unravel included a detour to Lynton to sign contracts for our new studio and home.
A year ago our life was a nightmare and Devon was a dream that I didn't dare to believe possible.
I tried not to let myself get excited, just in case it didn't happen.
This year we were driving back home to our dream life that we now live every day, its not easy, but its heaven :-)

Lorna Doone

My only hobby outside work is reading.

I have to read every night before I go to sleep and first thing in the morning when I wake up, but only when I'm not bullied into get up.

My favourite's are the classic's, especially victorian novels, non-fiction history  (pre 20th century) and of course Tolkien, who wrote the Silmarillion my most favourite book of all :-)

I also like fairy tales and childrens stories

So when we moved to Exmoor I knew all about Lorna Doone, even though I hadn't read it.
What I hadn't realised was that the book was set in my local area.
I loved every page of it, from the dramatic love story to the descriptions of places I had come to know and love.
The tree lined secret river valley's, the windswept high moor's and one of my favourites the majestic Valley of Rocks and its resident witch - Mother Meldrum.
So when someone suggested I made a Lorna Doone coat I decided that Lorna was far more likely to wear a shawl so I designed her one.

I also decided that I needed an extra special yarn for Lorna, so we commissioned the Lorna Doone wool to be spun, its 40% Exmoor Horn, which is the local Exmoor breed./30% Wensleydale/30% Zwartbles
This photo was taken at Alta Lyn, of the Exmoor Horns that live in the field behind our office

And here it is...
All of the photo's below are taken a few minutes away from my front door, next to the East Lyn river at Lynmouth.

The pattern, kit and wool are all in today's NDS update.
You will be able to find them HERE at 7 pm tonight.
I'll also be publishing the pattern HERE on Ravelry