Kaleidoscope Club Packages & Weather

The latest news on the Kaleidoscope club is that I've finished January's pattern installment and we've dyed, dried and wound the first batch of yarn.
Its now sitting patiently in the office waiting to be packed and posted.

All the skeins have been re-wound into smaller skeins and it works out that there will be 1 or 2 skeins per member.

Over Christmas and New Year we had lots and lots of new members sign up and so we've had to dye more.

So poor Phil is winding like a maniac.
One of the issues we have with the new colours is that they are darker than the first batch, it doesn't really matter too much as I have used lots of odds and ends, which means there are  lots of different dye lots in my blanket.
So we are going to try and muddle them all up so everyone has a unique combination of colours and will end up with a unique blanket.
Our current plan is to buy a bit of time and to post all the international packages first, which should mean all the members get their yarn around the same time.
I have my fingers crossed that the post to Australia and South Africa is super quick.

Changing the subject completely.
We have had a lot of storms over the past few weeks, living on the coast has been dramatic, especially for Lynmouth at the bottom of the hill.
These photo's were taken on Monday (6/1/2014)

Looking east to Countisbury with the Rhenish tower in the foreground.

Looking west towards the Valley of Rocks with an idiot in a car in the distance.

The above 2 photo's are of the harbour wall, the still water in the foreground is the road as you can see in the photo below.

A very brief Supernova post

I've just had a pattern published in Inside Crochet Magazine (issue 49)

Its a blanket called Supernova.

"We live on Exmoor which is a international dark sky reserve, so up on the moor on a moonless night, you can feel surrounded by stars and can see for ever into galaxy. 

The orange centre is epi-centre of the explosion that gives birth to stars, the further away from the epi-centre you get, the darker the background."

The photo's are a bit rubbish as they are photo's of the wip, I'll photograph it properly just as soon as we get some sunshine.

Kaleidoscope Crochet Blanket Club

As I blogged about Daisy's 2014 Murder on the Moor club last week, I thought I'd better blog about my club this week.

My club is Kaleidoscope Crochet Blanket Club 2014 and for now its the only thing I am working on.
In fact my whole life is dedicated to it at the moment.
I spend my time at home crocheting the blanket and a lot of my hours at the studio working on the pattern and promoting it.
It has become an obsession, I'm really hoping the hours I am putting in will be worth it and that my club members will enjoy it and be as excited as I am about it.

I have just finished crocheting May and the blanket is beginning to come together, up until now its looked very busy, but now the design is showing through, I'm really pleased with it and can't wait to start June.
Its a bit frustrating as I have to stop after every month and photograph the wip, most of the photo's are are bit rubbish due to the fact I have taken them at home with my iphone, but members will get the idea.

Also I've just started a Flickr Kaleidoscope 2014 group for member's only, you can only join if you have signed up for the club, I can't wait to see the first photo's posted by members. The group is viewable to the public, so even though its a member's only group, non members can look at the photo's.
If you prefer not to join Flickr there are also several threads about the Kaleidoscope running in my Desirable Crochet Motif Ravely Group 

Yesterday I started dyeing the wool for the first quarter, I hoping we can post it out at the beginning of January, the pattern is finished, it all depends on how quickly Phil winds the wool over Christmas.
(I should add that being self employed means we don't ever stop work and even though we won't be dyeing during Christmas we will be working at home.)
As we are dyeing a huge quantity of wool for the club, there will be several different shades of each colour, this means that members will receive a slightly different set of colours to each other, making their finished blankets all unique to them.
Also as different amounts of colours are used in each month we are having to re-wind all the wool into mini skeins of different sizes.
You would not believe the amount of maths involved, luckily Phil (the excel king) decided to make a mega excel spread sheet that works out exactly how much yarn we need for each member.

Anyway here are yesterday's photo's of the first dyeing session, they are a bit blurry as the dye room is steamy when the dye baths are on and I wanted to get photo's of the action as it happened.

The some of the wool (Godiva HT) mordanted by Daisy hanging on the dye room wall waiting to be dyed.

 The first wool dyed, its going to be Woody Bay (green), which is made by dyeing fustic (yellow) and then over dyeing it with indigo. The colour only looks dirty because of the steam.

Woody Bay and Indigo dyed and waiting to be washed.

Woody Bay

Watersmeet

Westerwood, waiting patiently next to the indigo bath, ready to be dyed today.

More un-dyed club Godiva and Woody Bay, Watersmeet and Withypool, dyed, washed and ready to go outside on the drying rack to be aired. All our yarns dyed with indigo have to go outside to be aired as indigo is very smelly and being outside seems to get rid of the smell.

Here's some Phil prepared earlier, its Watersmeet which he has test wound to make sure we can get the right sized skeins.

And finally a very sneaky peak of the centre of the actual blanket, there are 50+ motifs for January, so I don't think I'm giving away too much by posting this here.

Oh and I forgot to mention there's still time to sign up for January (you can find the link at the top of the page), but you'll need to be quick.

We are considering offering back membership's, so people can join in during the year and not miss all the fun, we haven't quite worked out the details yet, but will let you know when we have.

Murder on the Moor

With the help of Phil I have managed to create three very gifted and talented creative people.

All three are passionate about their life's work and dedicated to their passion.

 My big girl Fep is an extraordinary painter, creating contemporary mythical worlds on canvas, my baby boy Fred is a computer genius hoping one day to build his own games company.

And my number 2 child is Daisy, (only number 2 because she was born between the other two).

Daisy is a serious writer, she studied creative writing at university and has a passion for the written word.
She has been runner-up in several writing competitions and been published numerous times.

You know her as Daisy of The Natural Dye Studio.

This time last year we had just persuaded her to write a few murder stories for our new NDS Murder on the Moor club, it was a bit of fun and completely different to any other yarn club we knew about.

We wanted a club that was new and exciting, so decided to run a club that each month had the next installment of the murder story, a skein of NDS yarn especially dyed for the club and a clue (gift)

Daisy had never written murder stories before so it was something very new to her.

Her main character is Florence Blackmoor a forensic pathologist/detective, and over the course of the year she got to know Florence and been able to develop her character, as a result Daisy's stories have got better and better

This last quarter's story has been the best so far and finishes on a dramatic cliff hanger, you'll have to sign up HERE for January to find out what happens next......

Incidentally Daisy had rough plots for all 4 of next years stories and I'm really looking forward to reading them, you can find the synopsis of all 4 quarters on the link above.

Lynton is linked to murder stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who frequently visited his friend Sir George Newnes who lived here. Sir George is famous as the  publisher who published The Strand magazine and in 1887 he published the very first Sherlock Holmes story, he also built the Lynton town hall, cliff railway and a mansion on the top of Hollerday Hill.
http://www.ingleside-hotel.co.uk/hollerday-hill.php

I like to think that maybe Daisy is following in Sir Arthurs footsteps and maybe Florence will go on to be the new modern day Sherlock Holmes.