We have been trying to think of an event for National Knitting Week. In the past we have done knitting squares for a blanket which we raffled in aid of Breast Cancer research and had a knitting day with donations for the same charity. Anyway, this year we decided to combine an event with our usual Knitting Club night. So on Tuesday 16th October from 6-8pm at The Mount Pleasant Hotel in Great Malvern we will be having our knitting club but with Goody Bags in return for a £10 donation! We reckon the contents will be worth about £40 because our suppliers have been so generous. We will have about 30 bags which will be enough for our regular club members and for the new members we are hoping to attract. I’m sure it will be a great night with more knitting and drinking than usual in celebration of National Knitting Week!

Pat and I are off to Ally Pally at the weekend. We can just about fit a visit to the show on Sunday after shopping our socks off on Saturday! We always have a great time as we rarely have the time to spend like that normally but the shop will be in safe hands with Mary. I’m sure she will relish it after being on hols for a couple of weeks!

The first christmas that we had the shop I knitted a Colinette Point 5 jumper for James (the Webmaster). There are a massive shortage of patterns for men, especially cool ones so I adapted a Rowan Big Wool pattern and thought it was OK. Well, he said he was very pleased and wore it on Christmas Day but a couple of months later when I commented that he hadn’t worn it much he said “I haven’t got the strength to lift it”.  In fairness it had taken about 15 hanks (1.5kg!) of yarn and it was a pretty hefty jumper but the word ungrateful sprung to mind!

Anyway, he had the sense to wait a year or 2 before asking me if I would re-knit it! It only took a week and I made up a pattern with input from James. It was finished last night and he posed for me this morning.

It’s not really as red as it looks in the left hand pic. The other is a better picture of the colour but it’s not a great one of James. He is looking a bit uptight because the kids are up to something in the lounge. It took about 3 or 4 hanks less and fits much better than the last one did. I totally made up the pattern just based on tension measurements from the old jumper before it got unpicked and it will be in the free patterns section soon.

Anyway, the main point of this post is that even if you have some major knitting disaster it’s worth shoving it in the cupboard for a year or so and trying again because you can turn something rubbish into something great on the second time around.

This is our first garment from the new Rowan Autumn/Winter range. It’s a new yarn called Cocoon, merino wool and kid mohair mix. It’s beautiful to knit, very soft and is unplied which gives the finished knitting a soft, supple feel. We are HUGE fans of it in the shop and it has been popular with customers. The pattern is from the latest Rowan Magazine. We did do it longer than the pattern as it’s quite cropped in the picture. I did the smallest size and it just used an extra ball of the main shade for an extra couple of inches length. The sleeves are quite wide and could easily be made narrower although the 80’s batwing style seems to be back in for this season!

We have lots of new colours in Rowan Tapestry which has inspired me to knit a pair of gloves from knitty.com. I think maybe gloves and socks are the new scarves for this christmas!

There are two new yarns from Sirdar, Hug and Juniper which have been selling very well because the patterns are so great. These will be on the website as soon as Bob has done the pics. in the meantime, please call or e-mail if you are interested in either or if you have any questions about our stock.

The Cocoon jacket takes 5 balls of the main shade and 1 each of 2 contrast shades for the small and medium sizes. The next 2 sizes take 6 of the main and 2 each of the contrasts.

We have finally set some dates for knitting and crochet classes in the autumn. We are hoping to do a proper site update this week but in the meantime the dates are:

Knitting Virgins & intermediate Thursday 20th September 7pm-9pm

Crochet Virgins Thursday 4th October 7pm-9pm

Knitting Virgins & intermediate Thursday 18th October 7pm-9pm

All the classes take place at the shop and cost £15 per class. Please book in advance as numbers are very restricted due to space!

Also, for those of you who are local, our knitting club which used to be at Leaf in Great Malvern is now going to be at the Mount Pleasant Hotel bar on Belle Vue Terrace Great Malvern. The pro of moving is that it’s a bar so we can have drinks! The downside of this is that maybe less knitting will get done.

We’re going to be at the new Quilt Show in Malvern at the beginning of November so we’re making plans for that. We will be unveiling some new kits in time for christmas and will have some nice nick-nacks for pressies. Come and see us if you’re in the area. The Quilts UK show in May is brilliant and I’m sure that this one will be the same.

I have had a really exciting weekend!  My husband and I became the proud owners of a motorhome on Friday and have spent the weekend on a campsite getting used to it.  Had a few teething problems, blowing a fuse on Sat night and having very reduced lighting.  Then trying to get a replacement fuse in an area we didn’t know on Sunday!  All in all though it was a success and am looking forward to the next trip.  Hopefully we will be able to visit lots of places we have been meaning to but never got there.  Knitting wise it great as there is not a lot to do and none of the jobs that sit and look at you when you are home.

I am knitting a Colinette throw at the moment so made good progress with that.

When my daughter was over I showed her a Sirdar pattern for a cardi in Peru I thought she would like and I  actually got it right!  So now the wool is and I have my next project lined up. 

Back to school this week for lots of families so good luck for the new term to everyone and hopefully more knitting time for Mums!

I am still plodding on with my Kauni cardigan, I have now cut it and all seems to be okay, there will eventually be photos of this monumental moment once I have learnt how to download them, afraid I am a bit of a technophobic. Anyway I have nearly completed one sleeve but unfortunately have now strayed onto another project. We have just taken delivery of the new yarns from Rowan and I got so excited I just had to start something else, I couldn’t resist the Kidsilk Aura it is so soft and the patterns are great.

Next weekend I am visiting relations up on the North East coast so will have plenty of time for knitting, hopefully I will finish the cardigan. I am hoping there will be plenty of football to keep my husband occupied, he is a Newcastle United supporter, then I won’t feel too guilty with all of my knitting, and of course I will need to have time for shopping.

For my weeks holiday in Cornwall I packed:

2 x pairs socks to knit

numerous bookmarks to crochet

1 scarf to crochet

I was worried that it wouldn’t be enough what with the 4-5 hour drive each way in the car and 6 nights and days! How much did I do? Half a bookmark and the foot of a sock and that’s all. I don’t really know where the time went! But, I did do some crocheting on the beach…

I have a cool crochet pattern to make bookmarks from the Crochet-Pattern-A-Day calendar and I thought they’d make good pressies for the kids teachers at christmas. It isn’t finished but I reckon it’ll only take about half an hour to do each one once I get going.

The webmaster also enjoyed his holiday…

although some random woman shouted at him that he was a sissy for going in with a wetsuit on!

I’m back to serious knitting now and am making good progress on a Rowan Cocoon cardi which will appear in the window when it’s finished. It is beautiful yarn, lovely to knit and pretty quick. Also, even though I’m not normally a cable fan it’s a nice pattern to knit.

Sorry have just reread my last effort and apologise for all the mistakes that jump out at me on the new screen.  I do know about the use of capital letters, really!

I love the summer holidays. When the girls were small it was always so relaxing not being thrown into the hurly burly of early mornings and sorting out games kit and homework. Now they are both teachers the bonus is we get to see alot more of them in the holidays. Katie has spent quite a lot of time with us this holiday as she is househunting in the area/ she loves coming in the shop and would really like my job! She also enjoys knitting and has finishes a cardigan in NORO BLOSSOM which looks really good and will be very useful in.school. she is never afraid and last night sat down and got well on the way to mastering crochet.

My own knitting has slowed down a bit. The BLUR carigan is nearly finished and I have done the lacy borders down the two fronts. These were a little tricky as I found it difficult to see the pattern in the furry wool, I had to really concentrate.

The next two weeks are a bit hectic withlots of visitors. As both my mother and my grandaughter are staying there will be four generations of women in the house ! I do, in passing, have a moment of sympathy for my husband!

Like most dedicated knitters I have many projects on the go at once, I sometimes feel like a women possessed as I can’t stop knitting, even at the hairdressers. I think I am turning into my mother as she was exactly the same and I used to think I would never get like that, how wrong can you be! There is no hope for Vicki she will obviously be like me, she already shares my passion for knitting, shoes and handbags.

Enough of all that, one of the many projects I am knitting at the moment, and it is a first, is a cardigan using multicolour Kauni yarn, the colour I am using is rainbow coloured and very pretty. It is one of those garments that is knit in the round and when completed is cut. The beauty of it is that there is no sewing up, the armholes are cut and stitches picked up for the sleeves which are also knit in the round, the same goes for the front this is also cut and stitches picked up for the bands, at this stage I think I will be very nervous of something going wrong. We don’t stock this yarn at the moment as we thought it best to try it first, but as it is turning out so nicely we are definitely planning to stock this in the future.