Thursday, 13 February 2014

Dyeing for Unravel 2014

Daisy and I have turned into mega dyeing machines.
We are doing the UNRAVEL yarn show in Farnham, Surrey next weekend and like a lot of our friends and competitors are still dyeing yarn for the show.
We are so busy I haven't had much time to Tweet, Facebook or chat on Ravelry, so I thought I would share a few photo's with you.

This is what NDS at Alta Lyn looked like 20 mins ago, its all yarn for the show.


And this is what I dyed on Tuesday, Daisy is still dyeing her batch, she would of done it yesterday, but a tree was blown over on our power line in the storm, so we lost electricity.
Once its dry and has lost the worst of its indigo smell it goes home to be wound by Phil, Poor Phil has been sitting in our flat winding solidly for the past few weeks and he doesn't realise how much more there is to come home to be wound for the show.



After taking these photo's I thought I'd take a longer shot of the dye room.


And then I walked around the corner of the building....
We have had quite a few messages from people asking if we are ok because of the storms and floods, so I thought I'd show you that we are.
The below photo is of Hollerday Hill and the whole of Lynton in front of it, our flat is in the bit of town in the middle of the photo, its 500 feet above sea level, so we are safe from the sea surges, although Lynmouth is at the bottom of the hill hasn't been so lucky.


And another photo of Lynton and the Bristol channel on a very clear day you can see the Welsh mountains across the channel and on a clear night you can see lights sparkling on the Welsh coast.


This is our little bit of Exmoor, which cleverly leads me on to our Exmoor White yarn, (50% Exmoor Horn wool/30% Exmoor white Alpaca/20% Silk) some of which is in tonights update, we only have it in small quantities as its an exclusive yarn spun especially for NDS in small batches.
Its spun by John Arbon (our friend and neighbour) at his mill in South Molton, its spun from the sheep and Alpaca's that live in the fields around us, which makes it extra extra special.




Thursday, 6 February 2014

Crochet Art

I spend a lot of time on Pinterest looking at crochet pictures, I have been know to have a mini rant about seeing the same old designs time and time again.
They have their place in the world,
But I want to see are things that really inspire and excite me, so I thought I'd share some crochet artists with you, maybe they will inspire and excite you too.

The photo's I'm sharing are all on Pinterest, so I hope the artists don't mind.
So in no particular order here are some of my favourites, there are more, but thats for another time.
Please click on the links to see more work from the artist.




Anu Tuominen




Toshiko Horiuchi MacAda












Thursday, 30 January 2014

Kaleidoscope Part 1 - January 2014

January's Kaleidoscope was sent out about 2 week's ago.
I was very anxious and excited, I hoped the member's would like it and hoped it was going to live up to all the hype.
But I needn't have worried, its seems like everyone was/is happy.
So I thought I would write this post to show you what my Kaleidoscope Ravelry girls have been up to.

Firstly there are a couple of blog posts to read.

Valerie's - Agrarian Artisan



And Sarah's - Knit along with me


And the project photo's posted on Ravelry.
I had intended to only post a couple, but I don't know how to choose between them, so I've posted everyone who answered my call for photo's.
I think you agree they are all brilliant and I love the way you can see the blanket building.
A big "Thank You" to all for letting me use your photo's.
Incidentally all the names are linked to each relevant Ravelry project, so you can go and read how everyone is getting on.





carolinew



















Wednesday, 29 January 2014

Secret exciting project

I have just signed away my life for the next 2 years.
I am going to be working on a top secret project, that hopefully won't be secret for too long.
And I will share the news as soon as I get permission.

I'm so excited and can't wait to get started, at the moment I'm doing lots of research.
Its really distracting and I'm struggling to concentrate on anything else.
So please forgive me if I seem a bit absent, I'm still here, its just I am manically working away in the background.