Still here

I thought I'd better do a quick post to let you know I am still here :-)

When Phil left us in August Daisy took on most of his work load, she is now running all the clubs and wholesale and does almost all the dyeing, I have been doing all the website work, preparing updates and crocheting blankets for my book and designs for NDS and writing the patterns, photographing them etc etc

As you can imagine NDS without Phil is hard work, luckily we have Nicky to help one day a week, but even still its a challenge.
A few weeks ago Daisy damaged the tendons in both of her hands, as she was not only running and dyeing for NDS, but she had also moved into a giant flat and did a lot of the decorating single handedly or rather broken handedly :-)
So for the last couple of weeks I have been doing the dyeing as well as everything thing else, I'm exhausted and slightly broken.
The good news is after a second trip to the Dr's for some stronger drugs Daisy's hands are much better and she should be able to start dyeing again next week.
I'm so relieved, but will have to watch her like a hawk to make sure she doesn't do too much too soon.

As a result of having to do 3 jobs I haven't had any time to clear my head and write any blog posts.
But I have been posting a photo diary on instagram, as I can post photo's where ever I am at any particular time.
You can find my Instagram account HERE

Just to give you an idea of my life at the moment, here is today's to do list, all of which needs to be done before I can go home tonight.
1 - Take Tinks to the vet as she cut herself quite badly running through barbed wire.
2 - Finish dyeing wholesale and next weeks update and then wash it all.
3 - Photograph, edit and update the website with this weeks update, which is a odds and ends update with some amazing colours and yarns.
I've already added some stunning DK's, which you can find it HERE, 
I will be adding lots more as soon as I've edited the photo's.
.......sigh.....wish me luck

In the meantime here a couple of photo's of what I've done in the past few weeks.....

Dyeing club yarn

Test dyeing (and drying at home on my Rayburn) our brand new extra special christmas yarn

Finishing my second Kissing Circles Design - Myrtle crochet scarf

Photographing and preparing the Kaleidoscope blanket pattern for December's instalment and the whole pattern to be hopefully (daisy's hands permitting) next week

Busy and blanket clubs

I haven't posted here for a while as at the moment I am struggling to cope with my work load and just don't have the time.

I have been putting the final touches to this year's Kaleidoscope Crochet Blanket Club, yesterday I finished the last 2 monthly instalments of the pattern, it was a major milestone for me and I felt quite sad that it was over when finally I pressed the last "save as PDF".

Yesterday we sent November's pattern out to the members.
As you can see the pattern has reached its edge and the only bit left to do are the corner's.
I can't wait and am so excited about finally being able to reveal the photo's of the blanket next month.

I do have a little bit more work to do on Kaleidoscope as I have turned all 12 pattern instalments into a booklet, which will go on sale towards the end of December after the members have had their final instalment.
The members will all receive the PDF version of the booklet for free and then the PDF and hard copy will go on sale to the rest of the world.

For me the end of the making and writing the pattern for the Kaleidoscope blanket marks the beginning of making and writing the pattern for the Zodiac blanket.
I've already spent 6 months designing Zodiac, its been incredibly complicated trying to turn the whole Zodiac into a blanket design, but I think I've done it.
Now I need to turn 6 months of hard work into a pattern that is easy to follow and makes sense to all the club members.

As I said at the beginning of this post I am struggling with my work load and have thought long and hard of how I can cope with it in the future, and have come to the conclusion that the Zodiac mystery blanket will be my last blanket club for a while, maybe even for ever, who knows what the future will bring.....

So if you haven't already signed up and want to be part of my very last blanket club you will need to do so soon.
The whole of the club needs to be paid up by the beginning of January 2015, as this is when we will send out the yarn.

There is a crochet blanket option and a knitted blanket option for the club, we took the both sample's of January's instalment to Yarndale, so I think its only fair that I share some larger photo's with you here on the blog :-)

This is the crochet version
You can find details of the club HERE

And this is the knitted version

You can find details of the club HERE

Yarndale and beyond......

I would say we've just got back from Yarndale, but we actually got back 7 day's ago.
Dais and I had most of last week off, I was in the bed with the flu and she was suffering with the bad cold version of my flu.
So yesterday (Monday) was our first proper day back at work.

I've been photographing all the left over yarn, there is no where near as much as I'd expected.
We always dye at least double the amount of yarn we think we will sell for a show, as there is nothing worse than an empty stand.
Over the course of this summer we have held back some show stock for the next shows and so the website has seemed very empty at times.
I thought I would be able to fill it up with the Yarndale stock and just dye small amounts as and when we needed to.
However this has not been the case, we sold ALL the kits, plus an awful lot of wool!
So this means we need to do lots of dyeing and re-stocking our website.

I've just updated the site with Primavera 260, which is the yarn used for the Kissing Circles Blanket

And I've updated our Godiva Silk 4 ply, as we have a stunning new knitted cardi pattern in Godiva Silk, its called Beatrice.

Anyway back to Yarndale, we had a brilliant time at the show, met up with lots of our woolly friends

And yet again I had some of my lovely Kaleidoscope ladies coming to show me their blankets, they are all slightly different and all amazing and I LOVE seeing them!!

Karen and Denise

And Hilona all the way from The Netherlands

And Denise again with her absolutely amazing king sized Lily.

I would love to be able to make blankets this size, but unfortunately there just isn't enough time or room on the stand.

Blanket Club Update

Firstly here is Bettina's September Kaleidoscope crochet blanket.
Its a brilliant progress photo and much better than the one I took for the pattern (which you can see below)
I'm so pleased and proud of the way the member's blankets are developing, I can't wait until the finished blankets start appearing in December :-)

And I'm really excited to show you the below photo's of next year's Zodiac club blankets.

I've thought long and hard about how much I should reveal in these photo's, originally it was going to just be detail shot's, but the 2 January's side by side look so amazing that I have to show them off.

A huge Thanks to Nicky who is knitting the knitted blanket, she's never tackled anything like this before and I think she's done a brilliant job.

For some reason the colour's of the crochet blanket are wrong, but the knitted one is fine

And 2 detail shot's of "The Sun"

You can find all the club details HERE