It was our first day of being open at number 12 today. The weekend was hard work for everyone but we finished at a quite civilised 8pm on Sunday night. The webmaster was already in bed when I got home to give you some idea of the general level of weariness! It looks great, just how we imagined. The fabric room will benefit when the new Amy Butler fabrics arrive (should be any day) but we are certainly not short of wool. Even in a shop twice the size we are finding it challenging to find homes for everything. We tried to put out of our minds all the new stock that is arriving on 1st August while we were stacking - we’ll be starting from scratch to fit the new stuff in!

Anyway, Bucks Fizz was the order of the day and turned out to be a useful stressbuster after I left the filing cabinet keys at home, so we had no shade cards for most of the morning, then when I went to get the key realised I had locked myself out of my house. So I went to Dad’s for the spare key but it was the wrong one then when I went back he’d gone out. So I went to the in-laws who (what are the odds) also gave me the wrong key. So I gave up and then drank lots of bucks fizz when I got back to the shop!

So here it is in pictures:

The pic of me by the counter is taken from where Pat is in her picture and vice versa.

We have loads of bargains because we had a great clearout while we were moving. We have 3 £1 bins, 2 £2.50 bins and a third off some bits of Rowan, Araucania and Noro. Come and visit! There’s plenty of room to browse and relax and enjoy your yarn shopping. I will try to remember to take some pics of the pattern room and fabric room to show you.

Happy knitting!!

Well we ‘ve been working hard on the new shop - not us so much as the Webmaster and my Dad. Mary and Mike escaped on holiday for a week or so but they did some pretty heroic diy with the rest of us before they went.

The kids loved the painting, luckily we had to get rid of the carpet anyway…

There’s still a lot of work to do to get the workshop ready but that’s well underway. we’re so thrilled with how the shop has turned out and we can’t wait to move everything this weekend. It will be great fun - I hope!

So the big day is monday 30th June! There will be lovely Bucks Fizz (and other things which I haven’t had time to think about yet - probably cakes of some sort) and better yet, some special opening offers like double loyalty card stamps during the first week. I know that only benefits you locals, but we’ll think of something for our web shoppers too!

Tickets are starting to sell well for our Amy Butler event. Check out her website if you’re not familiar with her stuff. It is beautiful and I’m sure it will be great hearing Amy speak about her work. Unfortunately I’m on holiday in Cornwall so I can’t make it. Very bad planning. But it turns out that Amy is also speaking in Cornwall so I am booking onto that instead! Give us a ring at the shop on 01684 892079 if you’d like a ticket for our event.

Anyway, come and see us when you can. It is going to be so lovely!! And so much bigger!

Yes, the Knitting Parlour is on the move! We are moving 2 doors down from where we are now to number 12. It’s a bigger, squarer shop with a lovely big basement where we will hold our workshops. It’s very exciting, we’re planning to open on Monday 30th June after 4 weeks of major painting and hauling kilos of yarn a few metres along the road. I was going to post a link to the article in the local paper because there is a pic of Pat outside the new shop but unfortunately the article is there but not the picture (Pat will be glad about that).

For those of you that visit us once in a while (or a lot), we will be closed on Saturday 28th June but come and visit us on 30th or soon after, we will be having some opening offers and things like that. We will post more details when we know them.

Happy knitting!

Malvern showtime has arrived again.  First the RHS Spring Show and then the Quilt Show.  We seem to have a full house for each event.  It is great to see everyone and to catch up.  Knitting wise I have finished a chunky aran type cardi in Debbie Bliss Chunky Tweed and I am hoping to find just the right buttons for it at the Quilt Show

I have also knitted a pair of socks with the Kureyon Sock yarn,  The colours are wonderful but I agree withVicki that it would probably be better knitted in a pattern as the stripes are quite wide.

the weather has been absolutely fantastic and I have actually spent some time sitting in the garden getting through some of my huge backlog of hand quilting.  Who knows if the summer is fine I may have a new quilt on my bed in the Autumn that matches the decorating we did last Autumn!

Well, baby George arrived 2 weeks early so I was up against it with the blanket! I had 2 sides of border to knit and it had to be blocked. I managed to block it before I took the kids to school/pre-school and I put it in the conservatory so it would dry quickly ready to hand over that evening. George loved it but I forgot to take a picture of it before I handed it over! Typical. So next time we see them I will take one. I have it on good authority from George’s Gran that he had it over him when they visited on Saturday. Cool.

Now I’m knitting bunting for our stand at Quilts UK in a couple of weeks. It will be available as a kit at the show and afterwards in the shop and on the website. I am desperate to start something new and exciting. I have been on Ravelry this morning fiddling around and I think I might start O’Mally from Rowan Magazine 38. It’s a crocheted jacket with clasps down the front. I bought the clasps about a year ago and have had the yarn stashed for a couple of years. That would be a good one for the winter.

Yes, I finally did remember to download the pic of the green yarn I nabbed out of the bargain bin. I just love it! I have an unequal amount of each kind though so I have worked out a random pattern that should make sure I use what I have. Actually I had a dream about the pattern - that’s how obsessed I was!

The denim jacket for Jake did get finished and it looks pretty good. I will as ever post a picture when I get round to it. I have a nice little stash of pics to post to the blog! I am on the homeward straight with the entrelac shawl thank goodness. It does look pretty good but I will be glad to see the back of it.

I nabbed some lovely balls of green from the £2.50 basket in the shop. It is all different types of yarn in bright lime greens. It was just sat in the basket staring at me all week. I put it on the counter for a day just to see. If anyone had wanted it I would have let them. Then on Thursday, that was it. I couldn’t leave them behind for the weekend. I think they will be a crochet ripple blanket for my sister. She loves green at the moment. I have to post a pic of how great these balls look together so that may spur me on to get my camera sorted!

I am seriously hoping to have finished the entrelac by this time next week. I have 2 secret projects on the go for our new kits for Quilts UK in May so I need to get those done. If you live nearby you should really come to Quilts UK. It is so inspiring and just so much great stuff to buy! We have to man our stall with 2 of us at a time so that we can keep wandering off to look at things.

Last year I bought some flannel fabrics to make a bigger version of a quilt I made for Claudie. Needless to say it is still in my fabric box, untouched. I said to Mary  it doesn’t count as started (and so on my ‘to finish stuff’ list) if I haven’t cut it out or anything. She said it counts as started if you have something in mind for the fabric. Hmm. I have a huge amount of started things then.

Spring has been making an appearance this week so we’ve done our window to match. The ladies cardigan is knitted in Rowan Classic Cotton Jeans from the Coast pattern book. It’s from last year’s Rowan Classic books and our customers have knitted several different designs from that book which just goes to show how great the designs are. So often there is one pattern in a book that everyone knits and none of the others!

The little cardi is from the new Sublime Kid Mohair book, knitted in the gorgeous green and pink by Mary for Jess when she gets a bit bigger. Claudia has been coveting it so that is on my to do list now.

Lovely spring fabrics, some by Heather Bailey, and we now have the new Amy Butler tunic and dress patterns in stock.

Oh, and the much anticipated Noro Kureyon Sock Yarn has arrived! It is typically gorgeous Noro colours and typical Noro yarn, slightly slubby and irregular. We have tried it on a 2.25mm which has worked pretty well. The stripes are quite wide so we think it may suit being used for a patternedsock rather than a plain. Have a go with Jaywalkers! We are test knitting a great toe-up pattern for the Noro which will be in the free patterns soon if it works!

I am on a roll. Tonight I will finish a great Rowan Denim jacket that I started knitting for my son this time last year. Luckily it was oversized so I think it will still fit him. If not, it will fit his sister although it’s not pink so that could be difficult. I also finished a crocheted hat (see our free patterns) for a customer. We don’t normally do knitting for customers but I made an exception because she is a friend more than a customer nowadays.

So I feel great that these projects that were hanging over me are now getting finished! I am halfway through the entrelac baby blanket but it is a little tedious so I will be starting something new tomorrow once the denim’s out of the way. Actually I have an Araucania cardigan that just needs sleeves so I will finish that and it can go in the window to inspire some summer type knitting because it’s cotton.

I have been buying a lot of fabric lately so I think some of my knitting time will be taken up with sewing. I made my daughter some great trousers last night which she proudly wore today! I got into trouble with Jake though because I hadn’t finished his “lounging trousers” so that’s my job tonight. Maybe the Denim won’t get finished tonight…. 

Keen Knitting Parlour visitors will have noticed that we now have a selection of fabrics and Amy Butler patterns available on the website. The fabrics are great for a variety of uses including dressmaking. I made a shirt from 2 of the co-ordinating Amy Butler fabrics and I just love it. Any normal dressmaking pattern can look so different with a bit of flair in the fabric choice and the use of more than 1 fabric can make a huge difference. We have the new Amy Butler garment patterns due in any day!

This month we have been to Stitches, the industry trade show and (you know what it’s like) the day before, I decided I needed a new knit. What can I knit in a day and a night? I picked a great pattern from the new Kim Hargreaves Heartfelt book which is knitted in Rowan Big Wool and takes only 5 balls for the sizes up to medium and 6 for the larger sizes. I did pretty well, it is knitted in 1 piece and I managed to get up the front and halfway down the back before I ran out of time. Luckily in the end it would have been far too hot to wear it anyway so I wasn’t too disappointed!

So here is the finished garment in the current window with my lovely Amy Butler shirt underneath!