The Knitting Club is on the move! After just over a year at the Mount Pleasant, we have decided to move to the Unicorn pub, just a few doors away. The Mount P is considered by the masses to be too dark for knitting so we are moving to the, hopefully, brighter Unicorn! The first meeting there will be tomorrow (Tuesday 18th) at 6pm. I’m sorry I have posted about it quite late. We will be sending scouts back to the Mount P for any stragglers.

Also, this Friday (21st) is late night opening in Great Malvern. It will be a brilliant evening and to add to the festivities we are having a knit night in the shop from 5pm until around 7pm. You can always pop out to see the reindeer, lantern parade and the SNOW!! We are super excited. We LOVE christmas!!

I have just seen some fab “Rugged Rambler”" socks in issue 47 of Simply Knitting!!  These cabled socks are knitted on two needles and use “Escape” yarn from Sirdar.  We have a good selection of this DK yarn in the shop at the moment and I love the subtle way the yarn self stripes and blends its colours.  These socks would be quick to knit up and would make an ideal gift - if you could bear to part with them that is!!

SOCKTASTIC!!

Recently arrived in the shop are some wizardly good new sock yarns from Opal - who have used “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” as their inspiration for an entirely new and exciting colour palette!  I think these new colour ways are simply enchanting!  I have chosen the Hedwig colourway to make my eldest son some fab christmas socks!  I really love the soft muted tones of grey, green and tawny beige of the yarn and I think the finished socks would go well with his jeans (he seems to wear a lot of denim these days)!  The bright and vibrant personality (and hair) of Tonks is captured in a fiery combination of pinks and golds and  Draco Malfoy’s colourway is a deep blend of inky, dark greens and blues.  Potter fans would be able to guess the main colour of Ron Weasly’s yarn and the Harry Potter himself colourway is a very energetic mix of turquoise, green and blue! If these Opal yarns are knitted in the round they will form fair isle type patterns as if by magic!!  I will be including the ball bands with these socks as not only do they carry the important washing instructions, they also have great pictures of their characters featured on them. Even if you are not a great Potter fan, these colours are really so gorgeous they are sure to bewitch you anyway!  Be quick if you want to see these yarns in the shop as they are already fast disappearing!!!

It’s Halloween tomorrow and we have some fabulous felted pumpkins in our window to celebrate. We are also showing off our favourite pattern book, Kim Hargreaves Heartfelt, with 2 Big Wool garments. It is almost the most expensive pattern book we stock BUT it is our current bestseller which says a lot about how fantastic the range of patterns are.

For Kim Hargreaves fans, we have just taken delivery of her new Amber book. This will be on the website next week, in the meantime we can take orders over the phone. Very wearable designs and great shapes.

Pat and I had a fabric buying trip to Manchester and we now have a small collection of gems to add to our extensive cotton range. Some needlecord, funky tartan, as seen above in the window, and lovely linen mixes and checked cottons among others.

For Christmas 2008 we have launched all new Knitting Parlour hampers! Even more luxurious than last year, each one comes packed in a unique handmade cotton tote bag. No two are the same! The best gift a knitter could get; start dropping hints now!

Only 2 weeks ago we were sunbathing on a beach and swimming in the sea, in England! It’s hard to believe that now it’s time to dig the woolies out.

If you need some knitting inspiration, our window may help you out. We have Cheri from the Rowan Cocoon Collection knitted in Bilberry Cocoon. It is only a 4 row pattern and 2 of those are purl and the other 2 are identical but just offset by 1 stitch. It’s a great autumn knit because you can layer other things underneath. The Cocoon book has a great choice of garments. One of our customers has knitted at least 3 things from it already.

A great new addition to our range is the Sirdar Big Softie. It is a super chunky with a brilliant book to get beginner knitters on to knitting easy garments. Look out for it on the website next week. We have all the colours in the shop; if you can’t wait you can give us a ring to order.

It is almost time for the Autumn Quilt Show at the 3 Counties in Malvern. We will be there again with a fabulous new range of kits which will be available in the shop and on the website after the show, at the beginning of November. We are also taking a range of sock yarns including Noro, Araucania and our fave Artist’s Palette.

We are winter fabric shopping on Tuesday so we will have some great additions to our popular cotton range very soon. We do already have a couple of nice needlecords, see my lovely pinafore here. We are also able to order Burda, Simplicity and New Look patterns now. The books are on the pattern bar for browsing!

Unfortunately we are experiencing problems with the website ordering system. The good news is that you can still browse all our products and place orders by phone on 01684 892079 or via email at sales@theknittingparlour.co.uk

We can take credit card payments over the phone or if you send your order by email we will send you a Paypal invoice so that you can pay securely online. (In this instance please DO NOT email any credit card details to us)

For this limited period we are offering FREE UK DELIVERY on UK orders.

Well, I finished the Cocoon tank. I am really pleased with it, it blocked out great and I loved knitting it. You can just see in  the front of the window how many colours there are to choose from!

Have just realised how long it is since I last blogged. It is a glorious autumn sunny day makes a change after all the rain. We thought the raspberries on the allotment had finished but a couple of days of sun and they are off again, long may it last!

Although there hasn’t been much blogging I have done some knitting. Finished the Peter Port Hoodie ( a Ravelry pattern ) and after a few initial difficulties am really pleased with the finished result.  I used the Debbie Bliss luxury tweed and it is really soft.  Jessie also seems to have done quite well as she has grown a lot. will have to get some pictures.  The Sirdar Baby Bamboo knitted up really nicely it has a slight sheen and the slipover in stripes worked really well.

Now I am knitting the Solar fingerless gloves from the RYC Classic Accessorise book.  I knitted some of these for christmas presents last year and then the pair I had knitted for myself got taken as well.  So these are mine!

The new shop is a lovely place to work and it has great when people bring in their knitting to show us and stay a while to sit and knit.  We have also been quite a lot busier so that may explain the long time gap between blogs!

We have had a lot of new bits and pieces in lately, not all are on the website for various reasons. Lots of lovely new fabric from Rowan, including gorgeous Kaffe Fassett shot solids. That will be on the website soon.

We have most of the new Clothkits in stock. We try to have 1 of everything in the shop and although they’re not on the website we can take phone orders for them. I have just bagged myself a Rob Ryan skirt which I plan to make tonight. You might see it in the next photo of the window!

We have a large selection of Artist’s Pallette sock yarn and a bit of alpaca laceweight in stock. You can buy it directly from their website but our stock of it turns over so quickly and we love getting new colours from Juliet so we don’t have it on ours. We have roving in some fabulous colours and that just walks out of the shop almost as soon as it arrives!

To go with our expanding range of fabrics we can now order in sewing patterns from Simplicity, Burda and New Look. I am also making a great corduroy dress from our fabric which will be in the window soon. I seem to be overwhelmed with projects to finish for the shop!

I did manage to finish a Clothkitty doll last week. She was meant to be coming to live at the shop but my daughter fell in love with her and I couldn’t be that mean so I have a ginger one waiting to be made instead.

Also, we are selling some of our ex-display garments off. We have a few nice Rowan pieces, a couple of kids Colinette jumpers and a Rogue hoody which I knitted for myself but it isn’t my colour as it turns out. It was such a pleasure to knit that I can’t wait to knit it again. I never thought I’d say that…

Here is our current window at the shop, shot in 3 goes because it’s that much bigger now!

Here we have the amazing Clothkits!  A real hark back to the 70’s and 80’s and now resurrected. We are one of the only retailers in the country to be lucky enough to stock them. In the window we have the Peekaboo Birdie dress and the hat and bag set. Please phone or call in for details. Pat has also made this cute skirt for my daughter with some of our Amy Butler fabric. And you can see one of Amy’s ready made bags there too!

Rowan Milk Cotton Tabitha Coat, Amy Butler Betty Shopper bag and half a Madison bag.

More lovely things from the Milk Cotton book.

The website is now up to date with virtually all of the new Autumn/Winter yarns and patterns. The current favourites are the Rowan Milk Cotton which is what the coat in the window is knitted with. For adults, the Rowan Cocoon is flying out of the shop. The Cocoon collection book will be on the website asap as we had run out when we came to do this update! It is in the shop though so you can always give us a ring. I’ve just started knitting Cheri, the lace tank,and I’ve seen Tyra knitted and it looks fab. The yarn is lovely to knit.

Cheri and Tyra

My next project is definitely the British Breeds yarn, one of the only yarns we stock that is truly British, from British Sheep and spun in Yorkshire. I was planning to knit a jumper for the Webmaster which I thought would be a great christmas present jumper for you to knit for the man in your life (forget the curse of the boyfriend jumper - it’s an urban myth!)  for the shop window but that idea has been superseded by Bainbridge. I don’t want to call it a poncho because that doesn’t do it justice. It’s so much more than that and I think it will be fab for those bright winter mornings on the walk to school.

Lovely (but cable intensive) Bainbridge

and superseded (but still great) jumper.

Another amazing new yarn is the Sublime Organic merino. Fantastically soft and will be on the website next week. You know what to do in the meantime if you can’t wait!

Happy winter knitting!

Our Amy Butler evening was brilliant! I didn’t really know beforehand what she was going to talk about but I thought it would be really interesting because her work is so great. Anyway, she talked about how she started out, her family, her home and her garden; all the things that inspire her. We had lots of people who came commenting on how much they enjoyed it and how nice Amy was. There was a raffle and Amy did some book signing. She is sending us some signed book plates to put in the books we have in the shop because they didn’t arrive from our supplier in time for the talk.

Amy and me

As you might know, I didn’t think I would be in Malvern for the talk because it clashed with our Cornwall holiday. So I planned to go and see Amy talk at Cowslip Workshops in Launceston. So on the Saturday I prettied myself up as best I could given I was on a muddy campsite and was just about to leave when the heavens opened. I was dubious about whether I’d get the car over the field before that so I knew that was it, I couldn’t go. Then the Webmaster said he didn’t want to me to go and that a journey over Bodmin Moor or wherever in that weather would basically finish me off and was it really worth it.

Lovely muddy campsite

So we sat in the tent and played Old Maid with the kids and then heard water rushing. What was a ditch behind the tent with no visible water had turned into a raging torrent of a river and had risen at least 5 feet in about half an hour. We packed up all our essentials and put them in the car and just watched the river rise and then, thankfully, fall again once it stopped raining. We were lucky our groundsheet is spectacularly waterproof so we were dry but other people were sweeping water out of their tents and wringing their clothes out. Nightmare. So I was quite glad I hadn’t gone in the end because even if I’d got out before that I don’t think I’d have got back!

We took advantage of the only break in the weather to pack up the tent while it was dry the next day and came home 3 days early. Every cloud has a silver lining because then I made to Amy’s talk and I wouldn’t have wanted to miss it.