Designing

I'm hoping that everyone had a happy and peaceful, Christmas, ours was lovely spent with friends in Brussels. I have to say to residents of the UK if you think that the British way of dealing with snow is bad - try going to Brussels, they do NOTHING that I could see! No snow ploughs, no gritters, not a thing done to clear away the snow, it was left to the individuals to clear the path in front of their house and that was it! The roads were solid ice or snow and treacherous - no one was actually having problems though, buses were running but not brilliant, all the trams were running and cars were getting about (well maybe I should say sliding.....)

One of the things I am really aware of is that I never do anything with my yarns - I hate knitting, love crochetting, but haven't a clue how to write a pattern. How do you sell the yarns if there is nothing there for people to see? So I decided when I got back that I would do some designing!

A pair of mittens in Delice - the new 50% silk and 50% baby alpaca yarn, (dyed in pomegranate, cutch and madder extract exhausts, the colour is far more yellow than you would imagine from these dyes, but that's what went into the pan!) it's so lush and warm, these are perfect to keep your hands warm and not a bit "scratchy"!

 I have obviously made them to fit me - fairly large hands but particularly long! Both mittens can be made from 1 50g hank of yarn. Of course the biggest challenge is yet to come - how do I write up the pattern?

If anyone would be prepared to be a tester for me please email and I'll send it out with a hank of the yarn -so far I have made "long hand" notes to tell myself what to do, but putting that into a readable pattern you can follow will be interesting!

Wishing everyone a Happy and Prosperous New Year, speak to you all in 2011!

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!