Spyro Crochet Blanket

We are off to Blacklands in a couple of hours to do the second photoshoot.
At the moment the sun is shining, but its high tide, so we have to wait a couple of hours until the tide has gone down a bit and the rocks are exposed.
I'm really hoping it looks like this, with a bit more sea and less rocks.

Spyro is the second blanket from my new book, it was named after a character in a computer game that my children played during their childhood of the same name.
Spyro was a small blue dragon who had to run around a very colourful kingdom collecting gems.
I remember watching Spyro run around in circles a lot. 
I've blogged about it several times and twittered my progress day by day in the very early stages..
This is how it started.

I wanted to take it to the Handerbeit trade show in Germany in March, so I raced time to get it to the stage below.

And here it is finished.

I've just added the pattern to Ravelry HERE

And I've added the kit to the site HERE

Lecchi done

My Madder Triangles book is so close to being finished.
I just have a few more photo's to take and it will be ready to be publish.

The photo below won't be in the book, but I'm thinking about developing the idea and doing something similar for the cover

If you want to see more photo's you can find them in my NDS Facebook group - I've been posting them all week.

Its been a long hard process putting this book together, but for once in my life I have loved writing crochet patterns.
Thats because this is a crochet book with a difference, its about design and colour rather than crochet techniques and as you may have gathered by now my whole life is about colour and I've spent a very long time on Photoshop colouring in triangles :-)

I'm not going to do a press release blog post yet, as its not quite finished and I want you to be able to have the chance to buy it, rather than telling you how fab it is then making you wait.

BUT I have published my Lecchi crochet blanket as a single PDF on Ravelry, the pattern has already been published in Simply Crochet, so I feel I won't be giving too much away.

The new Lecchi pattern is completely re-written in what I hope to be a very user friendly format, its crochet by number's :-)
It also has some lovely new photo's, taken at Blacklands, a beach just outside Lynmouth and a short walk for my house.

You can find the new updated Lecchi pattern on Ravelry - HERE
And we have a Lecchi Kit in the website shop - HERE

Why I have blood shot eyes & Stardust Lace

Life is a bit mental here at NDS.
We are trying to dye 200+ kgs for the Ally Pally Knitting and Stitching show in October, I know October seems a really long way away, but we need to take 20 kgs of mini skeins and about 80 kits, 3 of them made with Dazzling Lace which all needs to be rewound into small skeins.
We also have about 60 kgs of wholesale to dye and send, plus clubs, everything we do is always plus clubs :-)

Dais has broken her finger, so she is having to work at half speed, which is bad for me as her boss as I have to do everything she can't manage in the dye room.
But as her mum I don't want her to do anything in case she makes her finger worse.

All this means we are struggling to dye retail for shop updates, so I am putting several yarns in our Super Summer Sale to keep our on-line customers happy.
This week's yarn is Stardust 2 ply Lace - Merino/Silk/Stellina Sparkle
You can find it all here in our Orphan and Odd Boy section.

I've also taken the below set of photo's to document our chaos :-) 

This is what the studio looked like at 9 am this morning.

The un-dyed yarn waiting to be tied and mordanted, each of these big boxes holds 25 kgs of yarn, we started off with 10 of them.

Yarn mordanted, waiting to be dyed.

The cochineal baths

Indigo waiting to be washed

Madder and cochineal waiting to be washed

Indigo waiting to be hung outside to dry

There is a photo missing here, it should be of Phil re-winding all the skeins.

Indigo/Fustic waiting to be labelled

The start of the kits, the 2 piles in the bag and box on the floor are Dazzling lace and all need to be ball wound then re-wound into smaller skeins.

And finally some of the wholesale, most of it already labelled and packaged, these are the orders that are close to being fulfilled, there is another stack of orders in progress.

Oh and somewhere in between all this and the end of the month I need to publish my book, still haven't taken the outside photo's - keep your fingers crossed the sun keep shining over the weekend.

A sort of love letter to Mr NDS

I've just read a comment from someone on NDS's Facebook group saying "you are so awesome".
I'm not really, but I know someone who is - Mr NDS.

I don't talk about him very often, but I should do.
He is the reason NDS has grown into a successful business.

Once upon a time he had a proper job and career.
When I first met him he was a clerk in a shipping company with no particular direction, within 17 months of meeting me he had a wife, baby and mortgage.
He had also discovered his ambition and after 25+ years he had worked his way up the corporate  ladder to become a director of a logistics company.
His career always came first, it fed, clothed and housed me and our 3 children, but according to the company I was just his nameless, faceless little wife. It was ok, because it gave me the time to follow my artistic career and play with wool.
Then about 3 or 4 years ago (I can't remember how long, so much has happened since then) his world fell apart.
The recession killed his company and his ambition, he was angry and heartbroken.
He decided to leave the corporate life and join me in my little wool dyeing business.

It was very hard work, we lost our house, all the trappings of sucess and lived through some nightmare situations.
But we re-discovered happiness and he rediscovered aimbition.
He took over the business side of NDS and pushed it to the limits and is still pushing.
This left me time to develop the creative side of NDS and return to my career as an artist, although now it was re-named designer.

When we moved to Exmoor he cut all his ties to his other life, he didn't do it on purpose, it just happened.
But he discovered peace and a new lease of life with new mates doing boy's things -  fishing, kayaking, walking, allotmenting, pool, football etc etc
And we are happier and more content than we have been for decades.

One of his life challenges is to look after me, I didn't ask him to do it and never expected it, but he has taken it on with gusto.
He does everything, because he likes to think I am incapable of looking after myself.
He cooks, cleans, does the washing, walks the dogs, drives me everywhere, wakes me up every morning with a cup of tea etc etc
I know he panics when I am left on my own to do things, but occasionally I have to, just so I don't forget how to do it.
Only last week Dais and I had a stand at the North Devon show, which was an hour's drive away. He was obviously struggling with the fact that he had to let go for a day and offered to drive us in the van.
But we refused politely and really enjoyed our day, I have to say it felt a bit like being Thelma and Louise, me and Dais in the big bouncy van going places on the open road - only if it was just to Umberleigh and back.

You might be excused in thinking that I am being smothered, but I'm not.
I have the time to indulge my passion and my obsessive artistic side. I dye wool, I look after the website, I do social networking and I get to crochet and design every waking hour of my day.
This year's book is nearly finished and I am already designing next year's blankets in my head.

I wouldn't have the time or space to do this with out Mr NDS.

I love you Phil, Thank you for letting me live my dream.
xxxxxxxxxx