Well, last week’s post hasn’t yet united Simon with his mitts and hat – but I live in hope that he will indeed have kept my business card and contact me soon now it’s September.
I realised a while ago that I haven’t done much spinning at all this year, and towards the end of last week I set about putting that right. I chose a lovely vibrant braid of Rambouillet fibre in a colourway called “Lucy” dyed by Sealy MacWheely that I’d bought at Wonderwool Wales in 2023. It reminds me of watermelons and summer. Rather than do anything fancy with it like try to split the braid lengthwise, I just started spinning from the end of the length of fibre and kept going. There isn’t much left to do now! Either I have got faster at spinning or I sat spinning for far longer during the two sessions I used to spin up what’s now on the bobbin than I thought I had. I’m very pleased with how it looks at the moment.
It’s got long blocks of colour at present with some gentle blends at the colour changes. When I get to the plying stage that could change completely depending on which plying technique I choose. If I do a 2-ply and start from the two ends working towards the middle, I could get something quite funky. If I do a 3-ply chain-plied technique the colour blocks will be largely maintained. I’m undecided! Maybe I’ll do half as chain ply and half as a 2-ply and compare the end results!
I’ve been knitting up a storm this week and I’ve used up nearly 200g of 4ply yarn (that’s 800m!) but I can’t show you as it’s a commission. I am really pleased with it and I’m looking forward to seeing it finished and blocked.
It’s a very long time since I went to a gym, but today my body feels just like it used to the day after a big workout! We’ve been trimming the top and sides of the hedge – and it’s very tall – with our pole hedge trimmer. It’s incredibly good at the job, but it’s so heavy! And it’s quite awkward when you basically have to stand with your face in the hedge to reach the very top! It’s getting there though, looking more under control, and we are gradually reclaiming some of the space it had taken from the garden.
If you follow me on social media or subscribe to my monthly newsletter, you will have seen that I have something new and very exciting in stock. Desktop calendars! Bear with me. That may not sound exciting in and of itself, but the pictures really are! When my lovely wife and I photograph my shawls she has long been in the habit of lying on the patio and getting me to throw them in the air above her head. She somehow takes lots of shots while the shawl is in the air and they often create the most amazing shapes!
Sue has been carrying Ronnie and Elastic band desktop calendars in her shop for a while, and she kept saying that a calendar of flying shawls would be just the thing for me! Well, we selected 12 of the best shots that we could also give interesting names to and the finished calendars arrived last week. They are available in my shop and I will also have them with me at Yarn Gathering (Mold, 15th September) and Yarndale (Skipton, 28-29th September).
As an introduction to the calendars, here is the front cover (which is also December), titled “Beth March as ‘Sparrowhawk'” and March, titled “Petulia as ‘Swimmer'”. By coincidence, these both happen to be brioche shawls!
I’ve been thinking about how lucky I am to have a really good wool shop (Yarn O’clock) so close to where I live. Mold is a small market town near me, and it has a great variety of independent shops, including Yarn O’clock. I can think of at least three more proper yarn shops not too far away, each in small North Wales towns (Find Me Knitting in Betws-y-Coed, Ewe Felty Thing in Conwy and Wayfarer Wool Shop in Ruthin).
Today I am visiting Liverpool with my lovely wife, sister-in-law and nephew and, although I don’t need any more yarn in my stash, I decided to look up wool shops in Liverpool. Reader, there aren’t any independent wool shops in Liverpool that show up on Google! There’s the haberdashery in John Lewis and Abakhan in Stafford Street which I may well visit, but I can see nothing else that is an independent ‘destination wool shop’ for a visitor to the city to explore. I imagine the city centre rents are far too high.
Do you have a good wool shop near where you live? If not (and if you are a knitter or crocheter), how do you find quality yarn to work with and discover new brands or hand-dyers? Maybe this is a good time to remind you that we will have 16 amazing vendors at Yarn Gathering in Mold on Sunday 15th September (and Anne will be opening Yarn O’clock between 12-1pm as well that day)?! They are all fairly local to Mold, all being based only an hour or so away. And there will be 201 independent dyers, designers, bag makers and other wonderful folk who work with textiles from all over the country at Yarndale in Skipton on 28-29th September.
That’s all for today – I may have some plied yarn to show you next week! K x