It's Saturday morning and I have been home from my Norway adventure since Monday evening. Came home to normality of life as it is here in the Crowfoot household: the washing basket piled almost ceiling high with either dirty clothes or those that the kids couldn't be bothered to put away in their wardrobes; carpets badly in need of some vacuum attention; an empty fridge and a pile of unopened post. Needless to say it didn't take long for the novelty of being home to subside!
The first delivery of Crochet Club yarn arrived here on Tuesday followed by the more yesterday. I cleared space in the studio and have managed to fit in all but 4 of the 27 boxes full of the lovely Rowan Cotton Glace. Im a bit of a neat greek when it comes to the studio so will have to just accept that for the next 2 months I will be negotiating cardboard boxes and seeing hundreds of packs of cotton out of the corner of my eye as I work. Moving the yarn to the studio was a tough job and it took me about 4 hours to check it all through and move accordingly. There is more to come before Christmas so I will need to clear a little more space. Its a tough job making room for nearly 10,000 balls of yarn, but always exciting when it starts to arrive.
We will keep the applications system for next year's crochet club open until the end of December. We have ordered more yarn than we currently have applications for, but we always see a surge in enquiries in January and February, so if things go as they have done in the past we may not be able to guarantee places for applicants after Christmas. For more info and images click here.
We are hoping that parcels will be sent out so that they arrive with members mid February. However we are currently waiting to hear on a confirmed delivery date for the bead order. This was placed in October, but Steve at Debbie Abrahams beads has advised us that there may be a slight delay on the order due to the bead factory closing for annual holiday. Don't panic just yet - Steve has enough beads in stock for us to get the worldwide orders out in time and hopefully by the time these have been packaged up and left us, we will have stock in for the remaining packs. If there are any confirmed changes to dates I will let you know.
I have kept under the radar quite a bit this week and not really launched myself into anything too taxing. Spending more than a week in near darkness 24/7 seems to have thrown my body clock out! I keep wanting to slope off to bed at about 8pm. I can't say I've achieved my normal amount of work this week and having a constant long list of things to do this has me very slightly panicked, however, I have had a bit of a rest and have added a few more segments to my 'wingspan' shawl that I started last week. I had forgotten how nice it is to sit in front of the TV and knit, crochet takes up so much of my time these days. Last night I sat and knitted the beaded iPad cover design that I have been commissioned to do by Steve at Debbie Abrahams beads for the next bead club that starts in the new year. It's a beaded fair isle design in bright shades of Cotton Glace and will be the spring project so keep a look out!
There are 2 things that I've been especially excited about over the past few days: Rowan have added to their lovely Kid Silk Haze family and launched a version with sequins in it. It's called Kid Silk Glamour and whilst the colour palette is not amazing it does look really nice and of course especially good for Christmas events and prezzies.
The second thing that has got me really really excited is the launch of a monthly crochet magazine from those lovely people at Future Publishing - they're the guys who produce the lovely Mollie Makes and The Knitter magazine - so chances are it will be a really fabulous magazine. I have designed a simple crochet collar for the first issue and am really chuffed to have been invited to write a monthly piece for the magazine. You can subscribe to Simply Crochet now and can get the first 3 copies at the bargain price of £5.
Next week has a lot in store with the Crochet Club taking priority. Erica will be working through the first set of pattern layouts in early December so Nicky and I need to get things sorted ready for her. The design is more or less complete and I am really pleased with it. Can you believe that it is around about now that I need to start thinking about design themes for the 2014 project? Any ideas gratefully received!
Yeah! My copy of 'The Simple Things' magazine has just dropped with a thud onto the door mat - the timing couldn't have been better as Mr C has also just presented me with a nice mug of hot coffee so I am off to enjoy a quick flick through before my day gets going properly. Summer is horse riding at lunch time and then off to see Breaking Dawn at the cinema later on, so no doubt I will be required for taxi duties in between my knitting sessions on the sofa - not too much of a chore really is it!!! Have family coming for dinner tomorrow - planning Chicken Lasagna (everyone's favourite) and no doubt Summer will want to make a cake. I just love the weekend!!
The first delivery of Crochet Club yarn arrived here on Tuesday followed by the more yesterday. I cleared space in the studio and have managed to fit in all but 4 of the 27 boxes full of the lovely Rowan Cotton Glace. Im a bit of a neat greek when it comes to the studio so will have to just accept that for the next 2 months I will be negotiating cardboard boxes and seeing hundreds of packs of cotton out of the corner of my eye as I work. Moving the yarn to the studio was a tough job and it took me about 4 hours to check it all through and move accordingly. There is more to come before Christmas so I will need to clear a little more space. Its a tough job making room for nearly 10,000 balls of yarn, but always exciting when it starts to arrive.
We will keep the applications system for next year's crochet club open until the end of December. We have ordered more yarn than we currently have applications for, but we always see a surge in enquiries in January and February, so if things go as they have done in the past we may not be able to guarantee places for applicants after Christmas. For more info and images click here.
We are hoping that parcels will be sent out so that they arrive with members mid February. However we are currently waiting to hear on a confirmed delivery date for the bead order. This was placed in October, but Steve at Debbie Abrahams beads has advised us that there may be a slight delay on the order due to the bead factory closing for annual holiday. Don't panic just yet - Steve has enough beads in stock for us to get the worldwide orders out in time and hopefully by the time these have been packaged up and left us, we will have stock in for the remaining packs. If there are any confirmed changes to dates I will let you know.
I have kept under the radar quite a bit this week and not really launched myself into anything too taxing. Spending more than a week in near darkness 24/7 seems to have thrown my body clock out! I keep wanting to slope off to bed at about 8pm. I can't say I've achieved my normal amount of work this week and having a constant long list of things to do this has me very slightly panicked, however, I have had a bit of a rest and have added a few more segments to my 'wingspan' shawl that I started last week. I had forgotten how nice it is to sit in front of the TV and knit, crochet takes up so much of my time these days. Last night I sat and knitted the beaded iPad cover design that I have been commissioned to do by Steve at Debbie Abrahams beads for the next bead club that starts in the new year. It's a beaded fair isle design in bright shades of Cotton Glace and will be the spring project so keep a look out!
There are 2 things that I've been especially excited about over the past few days: Rowan have added to their lovely Kid Silk Haze family and launched a version with sequins in it. It's called Kid Silk Glamour and whilst the colour palette is not amazing it does look really nice and of course especially good for Christmas events and prezzies.
The second thing that has got me really really excited is the launch of a monthly crochet magazine from those lovely people at Future Publishing - they're the guys who produce the lovely Mollie Makes and The Knitter magazine - so chances are it will be a really fabulous magazine. I have designed a simple crochet collar for the first issue and am really chuffed to have been invited to write a monthly piece for the magazine. You can subscribe to Simply Crochet now and can get the first 3 copies at the bargain price of £5.
Next week has a lot in store with the Crochet Club taking priority. Erica will be working through the first set of pattern layouts in early December so Nicky and I need to get things sorted ready for her. The design is more or less complete and I am really pleased with it. Can you believe that it is around about now that I need to start thinking about design themes for the 2014 project? Any ideas gratefully received!
Yeah! My copy of 'The Simple Things' magazine has just dropped with a thud onto the door mat - the timing couldn't have been better as Mr C has also just presented me with a nice mug of hot coffee so I am off to enjoy a quick flick through before my day gets going properly. Summer is horse riding at lunch time and then off to see Breaking Dawn at the cinema later on, so no doubt I will be required for taxi duties in between my knitting sessions on the sofa - not too much of a chore really is it!!! Have family coming for dinner tomorrow - planning Chicken Lasagna (everyone's favourite) and no doubt Summer will want to make a cake. I just love the weekend!!