Pattern support and books

I was going to write a blog post about tension, but I still haven't got it quite right in head what I want to say, so I thought I would write about what is in my head.
Which are the 2 books I am working on at the moment.

You may of noticed NDS has started selling knitting patterns, we have introduced 3 stunning new shawl patterns in the last couple of weeks.

There is Jubilant by Jacqui Harding

Marrakesh by Judy Furlong

And Valeriana Estonica by Kristina Vilimaite

All 3 patterns are free if you buy the yarn to make them with, just e-mail us after you have placed your order.

We/I have decided that if we sell knitting patterns that it takes the pressure off me as a designer and means that I can do what I want rather than what I feel I need to do.

1 - I like making garments for me to wear, but I hate writing garment patterns, I hate having to do the sizing and trying to explain the shaping. I am very lucky to have Valerie  my brilliant tec editor who walks me through step by step and makes my garment patterns a reality. But I get stressed just thinking about doing them.
So I'm going to stop writing garment patterns.
I will say I might do more at sometime in the future, because I have learnt that saying never means that as soon as the word leaves my mouth I will start working on one next week.

2 - I will concentrate on the things that I am obsessed with, at the moment its my triangle motif and the book I plan for the summer.
I have to finish my second motif book first, I don't really want to do it, but I've promised I will and its so close to being finished if I work really hard I can get it published by June.

My triangles book has been cleverly re-named by Valerie, she's seen the very first draft and all my dyslexic notes and suggested I call it Madder Triangles and not Orange Triangles.
At the moment "Madder Triangles" is the centre of my universe, its the only thing I think about and apart from Tinkerbell is my main topic of conversation.
This book demands all my time and I can't waait to turn it into a reality
Its going to have 5 different design's, 2 projects of each and lots and lots of information on re-sizing and different yarn types.
I've finished 3 projects - Lecchi, Isabella and Serefina.
And am working on another 3 - Spiro, Icarus and Plankton
I'll be working on Myrtle next and thinking about the last 3 projects as I crochet.

I've been trying to decide whether I should show you the finished designs as I make them or to keep them secret.
I think I should show you as then you can decide if you want to buy the book or not
You've already seen Lecchi and Isabella as they have both been  published in magazines.
Serefina is the crochet project club shawl, Iacurus is the lace version with extra colours.
And you've seen the Spiro wip that we took to Germany.
You've also seen Florence which is a different colour version of Myrtle and a baby blanket given to baby Florence.

That leaves Plankton, its a rubbish photo, but the only one I have

Ok - Back to the dyeroom to dye more yarn for Madder Triangles and maybe you too if I have any to spare :-)

Dear blog (excuses)

Hello Blog

Long time no see :-)
I haven't abandoned you, its just that I've been unbelievably busy and my brain has been so full of wool that I haven't had any space to construct sentences that didn't start with "Daisy -where's the Precious silk we need another 500 gms of Westerwood for order no 10".

We brought 14 or 15 wholesale orders back from Germany and have had another dozen since we came home.
I always think we can do it all together, but realised after a week we needed a priority system as we needed to dye clubs and stock for Wonderwool. It was a race against time, we managed orders 1 to 10, all 200+ clubs and Wonderwool stock with no time to spare.
Dais and I dyed nearly 200 kgs in 2 weeks both of us looked like zombies, she wrote a whole blog post about our coloured hands - Multicoloured hands

I know you've seen photo's like this before, but I thought I'd show you anyway, you can just see her little pink dyeing wellies hiding at the back in all the wool.
There was a moment when I thought the wool might have eaten her and her wellies were all that was left.

When I cam home at night I was working full time on the crochet triangle club shawl.
I had started it at the end of January as I wanted to be ahead of myself, so I designed a motif and started crocheting, the shawl took 3 different colour skeins of Dazzling 4 ply (there is a lace version too)
After several weeks of crochet I hated it and decided it wasn't working, so that was 130 gms of chewed up, frogged dog ends. I designed a second motif and had to to start with new skeins as I needed to make sure my calculations were right.
I hated that one too, so that was another 300 gms wasted.
I hated the layout and kept changing it, I came to realise I was struggling because I was restricted to 3 colours and I've been using as many colours as I want in my recent work.
So at this point during the first week in March I begged Homer to send the club members a refund as I couldn't do it.
He said "NO" - I had to do it I owed it to my customers, but he promised I didn't have to do another club as I was so stressed, but I had to do this one.
He also said it was ok to do my triangle motif as I am very comfortable with it and maybe it would take some of the stress out of  designing.
So I did!
Its a slight variation and my layout worked.
But the next problem was the calculations which took me days and days and days, not only did I have to calculate the colour layout to make sure I used all 3 colours in equal amounts but I also had to do the same calculations for the lace version which had a different colour layout, due to the fact I could crochet a lot more triangles with a lace yarn.
I finished the shawl in the third week of April, which was good as we were still winding the club yarn.
The shawl looked ok and I was resonably happy, I didn't block it before Wonderwool as the dye room was full of wool and dyeing and I didn't want to accidently splash it with the wrong colour.
But I blocked it this week and I'm so pleased with the result, its worked far better than I imagined, I hope my club members enjoy it.
I'm now working on the lace version, but as a treat for suffering so much stress I am using as many colours as I want.
Both the shawls will be in the new triangle book later on in the year.
I will NEVER do another club that I have to design especially for, but I am planning a blanket club later on in the year, I'm going to make the blanket first and then fit the club around it.

So dear blog I'm sorry to have rambled excuses for so long, I promise to try and to not be such a useless blogger again.

Love Amanda

We went to Germany

Last week we went to Germany for the H & H trade show in Cologne.
Its a massive show, Europe's version of TNNA.
This blog post is the photographic story of our trip.

We left on Wednesday morning for a 13 hour drive from Exmoor to Cologne.
We crossed the Channel via the Channel Tunnel, we've used the tunnel before but never as freight.
It was a bit of an education because we were in with all the big container lorries.
This is us in the queue waiting to board.

The check-in was all automatic and done by touch screen, the trouble was the screens were lorry height, Phil had to stand on the seat in the van to reach the English button, the lorry driver's behind us weren't impressed with how slow we were.
This is the train, we expected side's, but there weren't any. Once we'd parked we were told to get out of the van, board a mini bus that took us to the driver's carriage. We were both a bit worried that the van would fall off mid tunnel

But all was fine, we got off the train drove past Brussels in evening rush hour and snow on the German border.

Thursday was set up day.

Our lovely friend's and neighbour's shared half the stand.

I was still sewing in ends of the spiral blanket hopeing it would look ok on the wall.

And it did. Lecchi and the nameless spiral will both be in my triangles book later in the year, so it was lovely to see them together.

We were really pleased with the finished stand and so were our customer's.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday were show day's. We were so busy we I didn't have time to take any photo's except this one. It's taken from the car park on the roof of the exhibition centre.
We met lots and lots of lovely customer's, I'm happy to say our wool will be stocked in lots more shops around the world.

And then Monday we came home again, another 13 hour drive, we did have a brief stop in a hypermarket at Calais. I say brief, but it wasn't! We were there for at least 2 hours, I struggled to get Phil out of this aisle.

And then back to work on Tuesday, there really is no peace for the wicked.....

My new baby - Tinkerbell

If you've been reading my blog for a while you will know that our "Ted bad poodle" died early in the new year.
I miss him very much, he was my walking partner, but the time has come to try and fill the Ted shaped space.
I'm really excited to announce I have found my new baby.
She's the one with the fat white tummy.

Her name is Tinkerbell.

She is a Whippet/Bedlington Lurcher.
If you search google images HERE you can see what she will probably look like, she's a rough coat so hopefully will look like a small wolf hound.

I've stolen this image from a dog breed site which you can find HERE

Tinkerbell is 6 weeks old so I can't have her until the end of April. I'm so excited and broody, luckily we have 2 shows inbetween now and then so time will fly by.
We will come home from Wonderwool on the sunday evening and on monday morning we will drive to the bottom of Cornwall to pick up Tinkerbell..
Coincidently at the same time last year we were driving to our new life on Exmoor.

Prepare yourselves for lots and lots more puppy photo's in the very near future.
And I will carry on dreaming of my new life with my Tinkerbell, loving and cuddling her and also training her to be a good girl so she can come to work aand meet all our lovely visitors.