December Draw - Alpaca Silk Lace.

Last month I had a phone call totally out of the blue from Yarn Forward Magazine. One of the patterns that they had received was using my alpaca silk lace yarn - could I let them have a hank to photograph. That was all I knew really. Whilst in Harrogate in the bleak snow we popped into W H Smith and found a copy of December's magazine - and look!

Here's the yarn looking stunningly beautiful as a scarf designed by Ruth Garcia - Alcantrud also known as Rock and Purl. It is gorgeous! Thank you Ruth very much for showing off the yarn like this! The first time that this has ever happened! I can't tell you what a thrill it was seeing the pages in the magazine!

In deference to this pattern the December givaway will be 2 hanks of alpaca silk lace in indigo "Cracked Ice" along with a copy of the magazine! The yarn is 80% superfine alpaca and 20% silk laceweight in 25g hanks. 350m per hank. The yarn is dyed in indigo - but I use a scrunching technique when the yarn is in the bath to get the multi shading of blues. As most of you know I like my colours to be very even normally, but after trying this technique on cloth to get a sample piece of multi colours I now use it quite often on the hanks so that the colour goes from small areas of very pale blue through to very dark.

If you already have a copy of the magazine and would like to knit the scarf in our yarn then please go to our etsy shop to find which colours are currently available.

New Yarns, New Show

We are off to a new show this weekend in Harrogate - have no idea what it will be like as it clashes with the Knitting and Stitching Show, so most textiley people will probably go there - but maybe if they're doing a couple of days they'll consider coming to the showground for this one - Living North The essence of Christmas. We are going along with WiRE a networking and business support group for women. I have been a member for many years and I really appreciate the work they put in to get information and support for small businesses - I highly recommend membership and getting involved, they are always on the lookout for new events and lobbying MP's etc on women's behalf!

I LOVE silk - I started out spinning and dyeing silk to make embroidery threads, then I started buying in machine spun silk (and dyeing it!) in various thicknesses to suppliment my embroidery yarns. It didn't take me long to realize that the 20/2 mulberry silk that I was buying was perfect as a lace knitting yarn - so I started producing my Gunnister Style Purse Kits, (believe it or not this was at the end of the '90's!) so soon this yarn will be available to buy in lace weight hanks! I am adding to the silk knitting range with a beautiful boucle and also a multiple ply thread which is almost aran thickness - and very lush!

The other very special newbie yarn is a 50% baby alpaca and 50% silk DK weight yarn that is so delicious I've christened it Delice! A good friend and knitting designer is currently at work creating a pattern for the yarn but I'm sure when you've seen and squished it you'll be inspired to produce something yourself!

A Bit more and KHF

Thanks very much for all the lovely comments - can't wait to get started and invite you all to come and run workshops etc!!! It's looking stunning here at the moment with all the autumn colours and is still OK temperature wise! (Not even had enough rain to fill my containers so I can try to do colour matching!)

I have the Mairie looking into the local "gites" and "chambres d'hotes" (sorry need a hat on the o but can't find one at the moment!!) so we know what the facilities are like and all being well there should be some accommodation available on site too!

Last year some very dear friends spent the winter in Portugal looking to buy some land and put log cabins there - they knew we had one already so the brought us back a present of these tiles - aren't they beautiful? We just have to use them as a logo for the workshops and courses I think!

They look fabulous in situ too!

On Saturday I am having an exciting and scary day! I am going to London on the Eurostar - day return from Calais, to attend the Knitting History Forum AGM and Conference. For my sins I am on the committee and also one of the speakers. That is the really scary bit - the other speakers are real heroes of mine - Susan North from the V and A, Philip Sykas from MMU and Dr Carol Christainssen from Shetland. Quite where I fit in I'm not sure, but if you're likely to be attending I think I would appreciate some moral support!!!!

The Knitting History Forum was set up to continue the work started by Montse Stanley and Kirstie Buckland in promoting the history and research into early knitting, we have had fabulous trips to the back rooms of the Museum of London and Ruddington Museum, if you do have any interest in knitting it's well worth joining!

Hope to see some friends there!