Twinkle, Twinkle - When a plan goes wrong

After all the show chaos and meeting all my immediate deadlines I finally have time to design what I feel like.
I do have the Kaleidoscope club blanket to make, which does have a deadline, but as I've already finished January there is no urgent rush.

So I have been playing with some idea's and come up with a new blanket design - "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star"
Its not symmetrical which is a huge challenge for me, my brain works symmetrically so I have to force myself to not try and rearrange the design.
Its also a mix of colour, rather than blending the colours I am using whatever comes out of my wool basket.
Over the past few months I have begun to realise that you like mixed colours rather than blended colours.
My Lily blanket and Lula scarf are still best sellers and sell more than my newer more organised designs.
I love colour mixes as well as blends, so I don't mind designing some new ones.

Twinkle, Twinkle is the result, made with Godiva HT which is soft and snuggly - one of my favourite blanket yarns.
I thought it might be a nice idea to publish the pattern before Christmas so we could produce starter kits to put on the site so you could buy them as gifts.
It started off like this a couple of weeks ago. I tend to make a swatch then block it to make sure the design is working and at this stage I was happy.
The colours and focus aren't quite right in the following photo's, some were taken with my phone and others were taken inside, so they are all a bit off. I normally photograph all my designs outside as the natural dye colours look their best in nature :-)
The colours of the wool at the bottom of the page are the correct ones and colours I am using in the blanket.

Then I did a bit more, even though I still liked it I decided that the dark background was wrong, it stood out and made the central colour blur, so I changed it, which was/is not an easy job!
To start with I couldn't come up with a background I liked, most of them took too much emphasis off the stars, I really liked a mosaic of blues, aquas and greens, but all the blue stars disappeared into the background.
Eventually I came up with all the little circles.
The photo below shows the existing dark background and the circles I was experimenting with.

Like a good crochet motif maker I had sewn in almost all my ends, so for the past 10 days I have been cutting out all the solid dark blue/motifs and replacing them.
Considering I'd almost finished 2 sides of background its taken me ages, a lot longer to cut and frog than it took me originally to crochet and sew in the ends.

This was how it looked yesterday afternoon when I came home from work.
Its progressed a bit further as I worked on it last night, I've almost finished replacing the dark background motifs and am back to the place where I started cutting and frogging.
If you look closely you can see all the ends I haven't sewn in, I want to make sure its right before I commit myself and have to cut and frog all over again!

 The photo below was taken with the flash and has bleached the colours, but it does show what the blanket looks like when it is the right way around, so I've included it.

This weeks NDS yarn update contains an awful lot of Godiva HT, including mini Skeins and colour collections. Twinkle, Twinkle uses all our rainbow colours, so if you want to make it now is the time to start collecting skeins. The update will be live tomorrow (31st of October 2013) at 7 pm and you will be able to find it HERE

Pinterest and what it means to me

After writing my last blog post about how I'm struggling to find enough time to do social networking.
I'm going to admit to having a slightly unhealthy obsession with Pinterest.
It's something I look at when I have a spare 5 minutes, before I go to sleep, when I'm too tired to crochet, at least 3 or 4 times a day.

I have been a member for several years and never taken much interest in it, to be honest I couldn't see the point of saving pictures of cake and clothes I want to wear.
You might not believe this when looking at me, but I'm not a food person, I eat because I have to, not because I enjoy it, it just doesn't excite me.
But I have a foodie for a husband who does all the cooking and has made it his life's work to ensure I don't starve, he's a brilliant cook and always cooks too much. And has been known to sulk when if I leave anything, hence the fact I'm quite round and not a skinny beanpole.

Anyway back to Pinterest..
When I was at art college we were actively encouraged to keep scrapbooks of pictures that inspired us and I have recently discovered Pinterest is a giant scrapbook with pictures and inspiration found from the entire internet.
I do have a couple of boards that are pointless, such as my Lurcher and Sheep board's, I've saved the photo's because I like lurchers and sheep.
But I have lots of boards full of quilt's, crochet, islamic tiles, textiles, colour's, texture and shape.

I'm also beginning to realise that peoples boards reflect their personalities, its fascinating to discover that you can tell exactly whether they like cooking and clothes or where they want to live or who they want to be etc etc
I'm not sure what my boards say about me, except I like sports cars, lurchers, sheep and the whole rainbow, texture and shape.

I'll let you decide for yourselves.....

http://www.pinterest.com/queenieamanda/boards/

The end of our show year & social networking

Here at NDS we have had a very, very busy year.
Our last show was Ally Pally which was last weekend, since our return home we have been trying to relax and catch up on sleep.
So I have been very, very quiet on the social networking front

We haven't really had a break since January, each month was packed full.
Every month we dye on average 100 kgs for clubs, wholesale and retail stock.
Sometimes we have more wholesale, sometimes we have less.
We started planning the shows we had booked in January.
Our first show was Unravel in February.
The we did the big European trade show in Cologne in March.

Wonderwool in April.
I published my second crochet motif book in May.

Then we did Woolfest in June.

In July, August and the beginning of September we dyed for Yarndale and The Knitting and Stitching show, a total of 6 days show, 2 weeks apart.
Plus I published Madder Triangles in September

All this has meant I haven't had much time to chat on-line, which has resulted in our Ravelry group going to sleep and Twitter almost ignoring me, however our Facebook group has grown and grown and grown.
Social networking is really important to a small business like ours, so I constantly feel guilty that I'm not keeping up with friends, customers and the news.
But something has to give, the 3 of us work 7 days a week, just to keep the work under control.

And now we can have a bit of a rest, although we still have clubs, wholesale and retail stock to dye.
Plus I have some very exciting crochet design work in a very distant pipeline.
I also have a complete crochet motif collection book planned asap, maybe in time for Christmas if I can fit it in.
Plus I need to finish the pattern for a design which is being published in a magazine very shortly.
And finish and publish my Florence blanket.

And finish and publish my new Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Blanket.

And finally finish and plan the Kaleidoscope club blanket.

I'm not complaining we've had an amazing year, I loved every minute of it, we've met loads and loads of customers, both old and new, but please forgive me if I seem absent.
Don't worry we're still here.................

Shows and lack of wool

As we've finally finished dyeing our 200+ kgs for Yarndale and Ally Pally we still have another 20 kgs to do but, after 200kgs, 20 seems like child's play.
And I've finally got a few moments to blog about the shows.

As we have been concentrating on dyeing for the shows we haven't had much yarn to dye for our regular weekly updates, this means our website is looking a little bit bare.
I'll be updating the site tonight and yet again I only have a couple of kgs to add.

Including this which is 2 skeins of very dark indigo Godiva HT, there are only 2 skeins as I dyed it especially for the secret blanket design I am working on.
As its very dark indigo I expected to get very blue hands while crocheting, but so far I've used 2 skeins and it is no where near as bad as I thought.

And this Angelus logwood, there were 5 skeins in the same lot, but 2 of them are far more variagated, so I have listed them seperately. These are the 2 variagated and have dark streaks in them which isn't showing up in the photo - grrrr

The update will be HERE tonight at 7 pm UK time.

Now for the show news.
Next weekend we will be at YARNDALE in Skipton, Yorkshire, its a brand new show so will be really interesting going to a new place and meeting new people and hopefully a lot of our existing customers.
We are taking nearly all our yarns to Yarndale, + the new book, + kits + mini skeins etc etc

Then we have a 10 day break (dyeing the extra 20 kgs) until The Knitting & Stitching Show, Alexandra Palace
Ally Pally (as it is known in the wool world) is the biggest UK show, 4 days and what feels like a million people to chat to.
We haven't done it for 6 years and so are quite anxious about how it will go, especially as I have decided to do something totally different for our stand.
I am going as a designer, rather than going as a yarn supplier, so our whole stand is built around my new book MADDER TRIANGLES, with a few of our knitting patterns, because knitters need to be pampered too.
As the stand is based around the book we are only taking 5 yarns - this is the bit I am anxious about.
I know we will have lots of people asking for yarns we left at home, that's why I am warning you now :-)

The yarns are..
DAZZLE 4 ply/Sock
DAZZLE HT 4 ply/Sock
DAZZLING 2 ply Lace
DAZZLING 4 ply
And GODIVA HT 4ply?sock

You might notice a British woolly theme, but they are all used in the book, we've been dyeing some amazing new colours and hopefully they will go down really well, I'm particularly pleased of Berry Castle, which I'm afraid I don't have any photo's of, if it sells well I'll be dyeing more, if it don't there will be some on the website late in October.
Plus we are taking mini skeins, rainbow Collections, kits, books, hooks etc etc etc

And finally here is the only sneaky peak you are going to get of the KALEIDOSCOPE BLANKET CLUB, that is unless you join the club and watch your own blanket grow :-)

It's the centre 6 motif's, only another 660 to go!

Kaleidoscope Crochet Club

I thought I would write a blog post about my new crochet club for next year (2014)
I mentioned it in yesterday's NDS mailing list mail, but I know not everyone is on the mailing list.

I've been thinking about running a blanket club for over a year, but due to publishing books and dyeing wool I haven't had much brain space to work on a design.
But since publishing Madder Triangles a couple of weeks ago I've been thinking and playing with a design for a blanket club for next year.

Its a secret design, you won't see it until its finished, which will be December 2014, so you have a long time to wait. Members will see it layer by layer, as new layers will be built each month.

I can show you a couple of early sketches that ended up in the discard pile long ago.

The design has come a very long way since then, these 2 designs look quite sane, the finished design is totally mental :-) Here is a tiny sliver of the actual design, as you can see there are spots and a lot of colours.

Here's a little bit of info to tempt you with, which you can find on the site 

"What is a Kaleidoscope? Described by the Ancient Greeks as the 'observation of beautiful forms' the kaleidoscope is a cylinder of mirrors, with colourful loose objects in it, that reflect in the mirrors creating an astounding spectrum of colour in a symmetrical form.  

So what is the Kaleidoscope Blanket Club about? This is a club which will run for the whole of 2014, starting in the January and finishing in the December. 
At the end of the year you will have a spectacular and unique blanket, with a design based on a pattern created by a kaleidoscope, measuring approximately 60" (150cm) square consisting of 666 motifs. 
The design will grow from the centre out in the same manner that a kaleidoscope pattern does, utilising one simple triangle motif."

And you can find the rest of the information page HERE 

And HERE are all the sign up options.

I'm hopeing to get members to post in my Ravelry group DESIRABLE CROCHET MOTIFS, so they can share experiences and wip's.

Madder Triangles is Finally Published!

This a long photo heavy post and if you want to find out where to buy the book you will need to make it all the way to the bottom of this post :-)

Drum roll please.......

Madder Triangles was published on Monday night, so far the reception has been amazing.
The plan was to publish the PDf and use the funds to pay for the printed version and we are already half way to our target number of 300 copies. if it keeps going like this we will be able to print lots more.

Madder Triangles is unlike any other crochet book, rather than containing lots of crochet stitches and complicated patterns it focuses on colour and surface design.
I have designed a really simple triangle crochet motif, because I wanted beginners to be able to use the book.

If you can make a grenny square you should be able to make my triangle without too much trouble.
4 of the designs use this motif and there are 4 variations of the motif that make the other 4 designs.
The variations are simply taking a few stitches away for the main triangle.

The book is written in 2 sections, the first half contains all the info needed to use the book and the motif patterns.
The second section contains the designs, each design has its own information as to what you will need, yarn, hook etc etc And colour photo's and "crochet by numbers" charts and key's.

So onto the designs, these are some of my favourite photo's

KALEIDASCOPE

Lecchi Blanket 

Plankton Scarf  

RIPPLE 

The Rising Sun 

Isabella Scarf 

SPIRAL

Spyro Blanket 

Firefly Wrap 

WINGS

Icarus Shawl 

Serefina Shawl 

You can buy it on the NDS website.

Either as a PDF

or Pre-order for the print copy

I will be adding all 8 of the single patterns in time for tomorrow nights update.

Or you can buy it as a PDF on Ravelry

Some of the patterns are available as singles, I will be adding the rest today.

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.