Eye Candy Friday......

Updated to add: the shop preview is now up!

Is anyone else feeling mildly disgruntled that Woolfest is on this weekend, and they can't go? I am. Just a little bit.

But look on the bright side, those lucky knitters who are at Woolfest will be missing all the scrumptiousness of this week's sale. And boy, is there scrumptiousness. Mr P has outdone himself this week, don't you think?

The preview should be up tomorrow afternoon. Happy browsing!

June 29th, 2007 | |

Blankety Blank......

It might be the late night we had yesterday, due to dinner with friends, but my mind is a complete blank this morning. Actually, it's rather restful - my brain usually runs at a mile a minute. But it makes for a boring blog. Of course, I could always show you tantalising yarn pictures.......(and I will)...... or I could answer Kerrie's question: What five things do you wish you could stop doing?

1. Reading People Magazine online. Such a time waster, such a guilty pleasure. Actually, since losing broadband, I have stopped reading it (and I use that phrase loosely, since you don't read People, you look at the pictures). But oh, how I miss it. Life just isn't the same now that I don't know what colour Mary-Kate Olsen's hair is right now, or who Jennifer Aniston is/is not dating.

2. Buying broccoli. It always goes bad before I get around to using it. And if I only buy it the day I plan to use it, something will intervene. We'll get take-out that night, or Mr P will do the cooking and forget the broccoli. It's a conspiracy.

3. Staying up late. I feel so much better when I get a good night's sleep, and I'm usually sleepy by 10.30. But if I go past that point, for any reason, I get my second - third, even - wind. I get a little manic. I get excited at the prospect of staying up 'til 1 a.m. watching dvd's. And then I regret it the next day.

4. Picking the skin round my cuticles. This one is a forlorn hope - I've been doing it since I was 11, and the only time I ever managed to stop was before my wedding, with the threat of Wedding Photos hanging over me. And if I forget to wear gloves for even a minute while dyeing, the dyes soak into the picky bits round my nails, and no amount of scrubbing or soaking gets it out. Not a very elegant look, green ragged cuticles.

5. Starting new knitting projects. Three shawls, one hoodie, two pairs of socks, one hat, one jacket, and I'm still planning new projects. And we all know, it's one quick ecstatic step from planning to casting on.

Well, as a reward for reading through that bit of navel gazing, look! Pretty yarn!!

Sophia 2ply in Babydoll

Eva 4ply in Crab Apple

Eva 8ply in Dinosaur

More tomorrow. And oh, did I mention that all the new yarn arrived yesterday? We'll be debuting it all next week (for now, let's just say perfect summer yarns), so those of you lucky enough to go to Woolfest this weekend, don't spend all your money!!

June 28th, 2007 | |

Bookish......

There's been much talk in blogland recently about bloggers getting book contracts. Personally, I land on the side of pleasure - pleased for them, pleased for myself. There's always room for new books on my shelves.

Besides, there's something very Cinderella-y about a blogger being plucked from relative obscurity to the heady heights of having a book published, don't you agree? This is the beauty of blogs, revealing talent where it might otherwise have gone unnoticed, whether that is talent in writing, photography, craft, or just the talent of living beautifully (no small talent, this one).

As lots of you know, I had a book published a few years ago, when I was running a vintage clothing business. I got extremely lucky with that book - I came up with the idea, pitched it to a publisher, and they commissioned me to write it, with a nice fat advance. This, I can assure you, was a fluke. But a very fortunate one. Because if I had to be like the majority of writers, who plug away, day after day, not knowing if they will meet with success, not knowing if they will ever see their book in print, well I just couldn't do it.

And I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling that way. Which is where the blogiverse comes in. You see, when writers write, unless they are extremely lucky like me, or already established, they have no idea whether anyone will ever read what they have written. But bloggers know their audience. They write little by little, getting feedback every day, developing their own style in front of a live audience. I think this is a wonderful thing. It's why I encourage everyone I can to start a blog. Who knows, it may draw something out of you that you never knew existed, or that has laid dormant for many years.

So, three cheers for bloggers with books. Enjoy your moment of glory, and may it lead to much, much more. And three cheers for the blogisphere. Where would we be without it?

June 27th, 2007 | |

Better Now......

Thanks for all the lovely comments and emails. The general consensus is that we cannot do without the Mr. I'll just have to take better care of him, won't I?

There's lots to catch up with today, so no time for chatting. I'll leave you with a few things that are occupying my mind at the moment:

A bientot, cheries!

June 26th, 2007 | |

Poor Mr P......

Thank you, everyone who came along and joined in this week's yarn spree. I hope you all got what you wanted - there was hot competition for some of the colourways! I normally work my way through all the invoices on Monday morning (yes, I do it manually, matching up the invoice with the Paypal receipts, invoicing those who haven't paid straight away, etc) and send every customer a personal acknowledgment of their purchase and payment, but I won't get to this until Tuesday this week, so all the parcels will be going out on Wednesday. Let me know if that is too much delay for you, and I'll try to wangle something.

The reason is that we are taking tomorrow off, completely off. We spent an unpleasant few hours in A&E on Saturday night; Mr P collapsed following a very long day's work on the workshop he's renovating, and they had to run all kinds of tests to see what was wrong. It turned out to be nothing worse than heat stroke, thankfully, but it scared the living daylights out of me, and has left us both feeling like dishrags. We spent most of Sunday napping, but I think we need one more day of total rest before we get back to work. So we're off to potter around some garden centres, eat lunch out, and generally relax. See you all on Tuesday, my dears.

June 25th, 2007 | |

Favouritism......

The shop preview is up! My favourite colourway of the week is Tuscany (Eva 4ply). What's yours?

June 23rd, 2007 | |

Credit Where It's Overdue......

I really cannot take any more credit for our colourways. Yes, it was all me until about four months ago, when the student definitely overtook the student. Partly because of my ongoing health struggles, partly because he enjoys it more than me, and partly because he is just so damn good, Mr P now does all of the dyeing himself. I mix him the base colours, but he combines them.

He has come up with a distinctive new style of dyeing, which you may have noticed, a way of blending a variegated colourway so that it keeps all of the different shades with creating ugly splotches of colour when knitted up. And he's so clever at putting colours together. I know I've said this before, but it stands to be repeated. Because I'm the one who communicates with customers, and because I get to blather on this blog with you all, I'm the obvious one to get the credit for the yarns.

But really, round of applause for the Mr. He's the unsung hero around here. Just look at some of the beauties he's created this week:

The shop preview will be up later tomorrow. See you then!

June 22nd, 2007 | |

Looking Ahead......

How good are you at living in the moment? I am completely useless at it, although not for want of trying. I am always looking ahead, sometimes in anticipation, more often in anxiety. I've tried - oh how I've tried! - to train myself out of it, but it's an impossibility. It's woven deep into the Dee fabric.

So, it's only normal level crazy for me that while I am plunged deep in the middle of two shawls, I am obsessively planning a new project. I won't let it get past the planning stage until at least one shawl is done though (as long as buying yarn for a project still counts as planning?). While I was persuading Mr P to let me spend a big chunk of money on yarn ('why can't you use our yarn?' he asked. Umm, because the only yarn that would work for this project is cashmere 8ply, and it's a hip length intarsia cardigan, and that would cost about a gazillion pounds), he suggested that maybe I should finish my current projects before buying yarn for a new one. 'What do you mean by current projects' I asked suspiciously. 'You mean the two shawls?' No, apparently he meant the three shawls, the two pairs of socks, and the hoodie (and I thought he didn't pay attention!).

Well after I had finished laughing (you have to laugh, otherwise it's just cruel), I tried to explain to him why that would never happen. Knitting is an art, I said. You have to go with the flow. Do you think Monet was a one painting kind of guy? I bet not. So, we compromised. I said I would finish one shawl before casting on for the cardigan, he said he would attempt to turn a blind eye to the yarn, knitting books, and half finished projects that are sprouting all over the house like daisies in a summer lawn. You gotta love that man.

So, the project that is taking up 99.9% of my thoughts at the moment. The Renaissance cardigan from Rowan's A Yorkshire Fable. Looky:

What a beauty. I've been craving some colourwork for a while. I've done plenty of Fair Isle, but I've never tried intarsia. And it's very Bloomsbury, don't you think? I've bought some Kilcarra Donegal Tweed Aran to do it in (they spin for Debbie Bliss and Tahki), ivory for the background and black tweed for the flowers. Tres chic. But do you know, I've Googled, and Googled, but I can't find one person who has made this cardigan. No mention of it, anywhere!! Very strange.

And no, the irony of the fact that I am obsessing over a long wooly cardigan on Midsummer's Day, is not lost on me. I'm in a topsy turvy world, don't you know.

PS. Little yarn update: I have been twisting this week's yarn into skeins and I can tell you, Mr P has excelled himself this week. I keep squealing like a pre-teen groupie - 'this one's my favourite ever........no, this one is.... no, this one is!' Sneak peeks tomorrow. Oh boy!

June 21st, 2007 | |

Idiosyncrasies......

Do you know, one of the things that I have been enjoying the most about Frances Partridge's diaries, are the eccentricities of the characters that people her world. What has happened to eccentricity? What has happened to individualism? Walk around any supermarket now, and look at the women around you. From young girls to grandmothers, everyone dresses alike. Today I went into the shop, and walked behind a trendy woman, with blonde hair cascading down her back, and tight jeans over high stilettos, and the shock it gave me when she turned around and I saw the face of a 60 year old.

Now, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with her dressing like that, or with anyone wanting to look good whatever their age. What I do dislike is conformism. It's one thing to want to dress a certain way, it's another to think that you have to. Fashion says wear hipster jeans and babydolls, so women from 10-70 obediently trot out and buy hipster jeans and babydolls. Every shop you go into, in the High Street at least, stocks the same styles and designs. It's so boring!

And it's especially sad in Britain, where we always were proud of our eccentricity. When did we become so afraid of standing out as individuals, or of what other people might think of us? What kind of entertainment is it, to have a show where a normal woman stands on the street, with strangers estimating her age based on her appearance, before all kinds of strings are pulled and tricks are played, so that the same woman can be sent out again to achieve guesses of a younger age?

The older I get, the more I embrace the idea of walking to the beat of your own drum. I used to be terribly obsessed by appearance, and fashion conscious, and maybe that's why I dislike it so much now. I'm hoping one day that I will reach the stage of such supreme disregard for other's opinions that I will be able to wander through Tesco's with my trousers tucked into my socks (which is so comforting, and what your not-so-posh Dee wanders around the house in) and battered old slippers. I'm not quite there yet, but I'm working on it.

Viva la eccentricity! Isn't that one of the perks of getting older? That, and becoming dreadfully opinionated?!!

June 20th, 2007 | |

Shawls, Shawls, Shawls......

As you know, I'm on a shawl spree here. It started innocently with the Forest Canopy Shawl, and has ended in an orgy of Peace Shawl and Fir Cone Shawl. The Fir Cone is......boring...... but I'm plugging away determinedly, because it will be worth it when finished.

(see the classic egg carton lace effect? impossible to photo, but magical when it comes to blocking.)

And the Peace Shawl is a delight to work on, since the design changes all the time. I'm wandering through the forest at the moment.

I know, cream, a little boring, but I don't have a cream shawl and it will go with everything which is an important consideration because once it's finished I never intend to take it off.

Shawls really are the perfect summer knit. How's yours coming along?

June 19th, 2007 | |

Sunshine & Heavy Showers......

You know how sometimes you work really hard, and suddenly you know you need a break, so you take a holiday, and you start to feel rotten on the plane, and before you know where you are, you are coughing and sneezing your whole holiday away? Or does that only happen to me? Well, this weekend has been.......mixed in its pleasure. There was I, feeling all clever and wise, listening to my body on Thursday, taking some time off to rest and regather strength. But the horse had already bolted, I discovered while shutting the stable door. Thursday rapidly degenerated into a sick day, which lasted throughout the weekend. I did everything I had planned, but to the accompaniment of a racing heart, aching joints, and all the other nasties that thyroiditis brings.

But you know what, I'm a pro at this! Some people would have taken to their beds and wept. Well I did that on Thursday, got it out the way, and proceeded to make the rest of the weekend as comfortable and pleasant as possible. If you don't learn to soften your bad patches when you have a chronic illness, you are in for a rough ride. So, I pulled up the coffee table next to the sofa, piled up everything I could possibly want onto the table, flung a shawl around my shoulders, and settled in for the duration.

There was lots, oh lots indeed, of knitting. Photos tomorrow. Planning some winter projects too. I listened to Cranford (again. It can be revisited over and over.) and some elegant Vivaldi. But mostly, I read. For hours.

On Thursday morning, a much anticipated parcel of Persephone books arrived. I linked to the wrong one last week - I actually bought Miss Ranskill Comes Home, and The Shuttle. I devoured Miss Ranskill on Thursday, and enjoyed it immensely. Such subtle sly jabs at society, such good characterization. The Shuttle was less enjoyable. In fact, I only read a quarter, before putting it on the bookshelf.

Now, this is not the best time to judge a book. I get awfully fractious when ill, and need to smother myself in comfort and happiness. The Shuttle seems very Edith Wharton in style - clever, incisive, but rather depressing. Perhaps I will pick it up another time, and enjoy it. I certainly intend to try again at some point. But not right now.

Instead, hunting around for something else to read, I pulled out a large book (I like looong books, or series of books, when feeling poorly - books that are over too fast aren't anywhere near as comforting.) that I bought some time ago, but never started: the Diaries of Frances Partridge. Perfect. Karen, you would really enjoy this collection.

One review of this book bemoaned the fact that there was more domestic detail in the diaries than detail about the Bloomsbury clique, but I liked it all the more for that. The wartime diaries were moving and vivid, and the first I have read from that period which were written entirely from a pacifist's viewpoint. I could not put them down. Now I'm leisurely working my way through the 1950's, with the comforting thought that I have more than half the book left to enjoy.

(Although already I am anxiously looking about me for a replacement book for when this one is over. I need something just as wonderful to fill the void that this one will leave when it is finished. Any recommendations? Especially letters or diaries, since I'm in that frame of mind....)

I have such admiration for someone who can keep up a diary for more than three decades. I have started a diary, and then lapsed, many times. Apart from this blog, of course. But should blogs replace diaries entirely? Emails certainly can't replace letters, when it comes to the interest they hold for posterity. Will future generations be able to sit down with a volume of letters or diaries from some of today's greats, and be able to draw as much pleasure from them as I have this weekend? I hope so, but I'm afraid I doubt it.

June 18th, 2007 | |

Mutiny......

Darling ones, much as I hate to do this to you, there will be no update on Sunday. My normally hectic life has been cranked up a notch over the last couple of weeks, what with the clubs, wholesale, and the construction madness that is going on around me. I've worked through weekends, and both Bank Holiday Mondays. This morning I lay in bed, thinking of what needed to be done to get this week's update ready, and suddenly I knew Enough was Enough. My heart is willing but my body is rebelling.

So, I'm going to take the rest of the week off. No doubt I will be guilt trippin' the whole time, but I'll try to ignore that. Instead of dyeing, rinsing, winding, labelling, photographing, coding, updating, my weekend will consist of this, this....er, I mean this, and catching up with friends here, and here.

Then next week we'll have a big glorious yarn binge, full of Eva, Sophia, Emily, Kid Silk Lace, and Silk DK. And instead of sleepwalking through the work, your Dee will be bright eyed and bushy tailed.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend too, my lovelies!

June 14th, 2007 | |

Precious......

Do you remember my first ever blog post? (actually, I'm intrigued to know, have any of you been reading the blog since the beginning?) I blogged about some fabulous bracelets I had bought from Heather. They are knitted (or perhaps crocheted) wire, with semi-precious stones randomly placed. I adore them, they are still my favourite items of jewellery.

And they inspired me to have a go at making some jewellery for myself. I even got round to getting stones. But got no further.

I got them all out the other evening, and sat gazing at them, occasionally arranging them into pleasing designs. I want to make a couple of necklaces. But I'm stumped as to the actual construction. I have some fine leather thong, and some copper beading wire, but neither seem right for the job. The leather thong is too thick to go through some of the bead holes, and the copper wire is, I think, too fine. Some of these stones are REALLY heavy.

So, anyone with beading experience out there? How about a few tips on Cute Necklace Making For Dummies? What should I use for stringing, and where can I get it (online)?

Because it seems a pity to waste these beauties in a cupboard, doesn't it?

PS. It seems that there is a vicious rumour going about that I have started the Peace Shawl, while only a quarter of the way through the Fir Cone Shawl. This is a baseless, wicked lie. Ignore it.

June 13th, 2007 | |

Feeling Posh......

Did you spot us?

This is our first ever advert, and I'm pathetically excited about it. Actually, what I'm really excited about is the placing. I may be biased, but this is my favourite pattern in the whole issue, and how appropriate that it uses Kid Silk Haze, when we are just dyeing our last batch of Kid Silk Lace! Mind you, it would look pretty fabulous in Sophia 2ply as well.

It is a little unfortunate that the ad has come out when our stock levels are at an all time low, but never mind. This Sunday's update will only be a tiddler, but next week's will be a whopper. With extra cheese on top.

Also making me feel posh today - I've done my first ever grocery shop online, and am awaiting the delivery van now. Imagine! I now have my own personal grocery shopper! I wonder what she thought of the 20 bottles of vinegar, and 15 boxes of cling film???

One another note, I am not feeling the Fir Cone love. I've pulled the shawl back several times, because there was a (really obvious, but not to me) mistake in the written instructions and I didn't spot it straight away. And now I've got 150-odd stitches on the needles and I'm booooored.

I want to start the Peace Shawl instead. And I'm supposed to be leading a knitalong. I need intervention.

How boring, all these pictureless posts. Pictures tomorrow, I promise!

Updated to add:

Just look at this awesomeness!!!!

June 12th, 2007 | |

Ouch......

migraine.....

send ice.....

June 11th, 2007 | |

Window Shopping......

This week's shop preview is now up. The Kid Silk Lace is a scrummy (in case this word is getting lost in translation, it's short for scrumptious, just in case you didn't know!) yarn, but it's a stinker to photograph. There's lots of bargains this week too, as I've reduced the price on a lot of the yarn.

See you tomorrow night, sweet things!

June 9th, 2007 | |

Rationing......

Good news for those of you on stashalong - it's just a little update this week. Reasons for this are: a) Mr P is neck deep in rubble, as he completes the rebuidling of the new workshop area, b) I'm neck deep in yarn as I complete the wholesale orders for here and here, and c) we have a virtually bare yarn store, since we are waiting for two HUGE orders to come in from suppliers. I did think of blowing it all on this week, and not doing an update next week, but decided in favour of rationing the remaining yarn (Kid Silk Lace and a spot of Lucia) out between the two weeks.

I very much dislike having such a titchy tiny update, but what can you do? When the yarn comes in, we'll have a glorious blow out to make up for it. So, here's my pick from this week:

Kid Silk Lace in Ladies In Lavender

Kid Silk Lace in Poppet

Lucia in What Ho!

Lucia in Wisteria

Lucia in Triumph

Get it while you can!

June 8th, 2007 | |

So Proud......

Our first Posh Yarn bride:

This is Victoria, and she got married on April 28th 2007. Congratulations, Victoria! Doesn't she look gorgeous (and incidentally, a lot like Anne Hathaway!)?

Victoria emailed me a week before her wedding to say that she had run out of yarn for the wedding shawl...... Did I have any more of that yarn? I did not. Panic ensued. On my end, anyway. I rifled through my scrap box, full of yarn left overs, and found three possible substitutions. Thankfully, the yarn was undyed, so we didnt have to worry about matching a colour. I sent the yarn on the Tuesday, Victoria received it on the Wednesday. One of the yarns would do. She had two days to finish the shawl edging, and block the shawl.

As you can see, we have a happy ending. The shawl looks gorgeous (I've lost the original email, but I think it may be the Sea & Shells stole?), Victoria looks gorgeous, and I'm all proud.

Incidentally, I have an enormous folder of gallery pictures now, waiting for the day when I have both the time and the inclination to add them to the site. What a lazy besom I am. But there is a rapidly growing gallery section on the Posh Knitters group, with some amazing photos in it. Go take a look, and then add yours. Pretty please.

June 7th, 2007 | |

Hats Off, Please......

My beloved socks are dead.

Yes, I've known for some time that it was coming, but I've been sticking my head in the sand. I tend to wear my hand knit socks over cotton socks, because I don't like wool next to my skin (although cashmere is another matter), so it was easy to ignore the holes for a while. But when they get to the stage where you have to stop and consider which end is the actual leg opening before putting them on, well it's time to say goodbye.

But not farewell. I'm not throwing them away. Just putting them to pasture in the back of the sock drawer. You see, these were the first socks I ever knitted for myself. I made them from some skeins of Koigu that Kerrie gave me when I handed over the reins of HipKnits to her, a couple of years ago now. I was extremely ill at the time, and the relief of not having to work, but just being able to lay on the sofa and do a few rows of sock when I felt like it was just wonderful. The socks came out perfectly, and I've worn them and worn them (to death, in fact) ever since.

But alas, for all my sock adoration, I'm not very good at caring for them. They get chucked in the washing machine, they get worn without slippers on wooden floors, they don't get darned. And this is the result.

However, out with the old, in with the new! There's always room for new hand knitted socks in my drawer. I was going to show you a pair of socks in Emily, kindly knitted for me by a customer as a sample for Wonderwool, but the photos just looked ugh (self photography is not my strong point). They are superbly soft, and should wear well, because they've been knitted on small needles resulting in a firm dense fabric.

Instead, I'll show you these, my Wednesday Wallflower project. These socks mate's are both on the needles at the moment, but I've been neglecting them in favour of shawls. So today I will be doing some rounds on each. Both of these are rather old projects, not even knitted in Posh Yarn. One is a handspun BFL yarn, the other is a Socks That Rock yarn (slightly too shiny for my liking, I must say, but then I don't like superwash yarn very much, even though with my laundry skills, it is rather necessary). After these are off the needles, I have promised myself a pair of loooong socks, knitted in Lucia. I haven't any socks in Lucia, and I hear that it's rather nice.....

June 6th, 2007 | |

Diversions......

I adore reading. Given the choice between escaping into a book, or watching a film, I will always choose the book. And TV, ugh. Can't bear it. But then that's because I'm more of a 19th century sort of girl than a 21st century sort of girl. I find all the reality TV shows that seem to be on continually quite distasteful, and depressing too. A period drama, well that's another matter, but they are few and far between. Even then I'd rather watch them on DVD, because I don't like being rationed, one episode per week, but prefer to gorge myself on as many episodes as I can fit into an evening. It's so much easier to be absorbed that way.

But as much as I love reading, I have little time for it nowadays. The little amount of leisure time that I do have, I want to spend in knitting. And I'm not one of those accomplished creatures who can knit and read at the same time. One of my customers told me recently that her and her husband get up at 5am every morning, light their woodstove, make a pot of coffee, and sit until 8am, she knitting, he reading to her. The bliss of it! But Mr P is as busy, if not more so, than I am, and has neither the time nor the inclination for reading aloud.

Enter audio books. How did I ever live without them? I've learned you do have to be selective, some narrators murder the book with their dreadful narration (I cringed my way through a PG Wodehouse lately, wishing I'd listened to a snippet before buying). But in general, narration is of incredible quality, and makes the book come even more alive than reading it myself. One of my favourite narrators is Nadia May, another is Juliet Stevenson. If only Hugh Laurie would abandon Hollywood and record some more audio books, life would be perfect.

So now I am to be found, at every possible moment of the day (and some impossible ones too) with my headphones on, listening to a book. I subscribe to Audible, who I would highly recommend as very good value, especially if you go for the longer books as I do. Some recent favourites have been: Queen Lucia, The Enchanted April, The Documents In the Case, Three Men In A Boat (which was abridged, but worth it for the narrator), The Moonstone, and Devil's Cub (Georgette Heyer, a not so secret passion of mine).

Wouldn't it be wonderful if Persephone started doing some audio books? Oh, the joy of it. I would also love to have some Virago fiction on audio books, especially E.M.Delafield's wonderful Diary of a Provincial Lady series.

And this seems a good moment to mention some of the wonderful knitcasts out there. We have two splendid ones in the UK, BritKnitCast and Cast On, and there are lots more overseas. My problem is, I'm still on the painfully slow dial-up, so downloads have to be kept to a minimum for sanity's sake. But if and when I ever get broadband, I will be gorging myself on knitcasts, you can bet.

June 5th, 2007 | |

The Kindness of Strangers......

I'm continually stunned by the generosity and kindness of my customers. You'd think I'd be used to it by now, but I'm not. Each new gesture of kindess surprises and thrills me, and makes me feel very humble too.

There are many instances I could mention (just the lovely comments and emails I get would be wonderful enough), but I'll just tell you about the last few week's worth.

This lovely lady is a master baker. Several times she has surprised me with wonderful gluten free carrot cake, sent through the post. Last week she sent me a chocolate almond cake, also gluten free. It was INCREDIBLE. Fancy doing that, for someone you have never even met? It chokes me up. The gesture, that is, not the cake.

I am a huge fan of Purlescence - their luxury knitting equipment really compliments Posh Yarn, don't you think? - and greatly admire Robynn's enterprise, attention to detail, and general classiness. I'd been complaining to the Posh Knitters about how difficult it was knitting my shawl on slippy Addi Turbos. So the generous Robynn sent me a gorgeous Lantern Moon ebony circular, together with a cute ladybird tape measure. What a treat. I would highly recommend these needles, so smooth, such a delight to knit with.

Claire is one of my lovely New Zealand customers (such a kick it gives me to send yarn to far flung places like that!). Recently she bought some cashmere sock yarn, but it had little white sections where the dye hadn't penetrated, which had somehow slipped past my eagle eyes. So she sent it back to be redyed. But when the parcel arrived, what a treat!! A packet of really cool herbal tea (I love that, how did she know?) and a box of the most fabulous truffle chocolates. They were...... oh boy, so good. But as if that wasn't enough, Claire emailed me last week, when I was complaining about Windows Vista, and offered to give me a hand pulling all my files and emails out of the old laptop and putting them onto the new one. Which offer I jumped at, because although I had my files backed up, I thought I'd lost all my archived emails, which was very upsetting because I save all the emails that you send me, and look back through them whenever I need a warm fuzzy feeling boost.

Claire and her husband (a fellow Welshy) run a computer consultancy, so they are used to helping hopeless nontechies like me. They worked really hard to help me access my files, and it wasn't the easiest of jobs, and they are both poorly with colds into the bargain. Kindness, generosity, patience. The hallmark of knitters.

And finally Natalie, from The Yarn Yard, visited Japan a few weeks ago, and on her return sent me a funky skein of Posh Yarn! Yes, a yarn company over there have named one of their yarns Posh, and Natalie said that when she saw it, she thought of me straight away. That blows me away.

So which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Does knitting make you a nicer person, teach you patience, kindness, generosity, empathy? Or are people with those qualities drawn to knitting? Whichever is the case, one thing is clear:

Knitters are nice. Really, really nice.

June 3rd, 2007 | |

Fluff City......

Shop preview is up! Wallow in fluff to your heart's content.

(Quick question before I toodle off for a cup of tea - are any of you aware of mention of Posh Yarn in a recent knitting magazine, or somewhere similar? I've seen an enormous leap in my number of visitors this week, and I'll love to know why. I don't think even the deliciousness of Kid Silk Lace can account for all of them.)

June 2nd, 2007 | |

Up In The Clouds......

Thank you for all your lovely comments about the shawl. I wore it out last night, and fished for compliments from everyone I met. Now for the real challenge - a shawl in laceweight. I'm already nervous. But I have plenty of company! If you're joining the Fir Cone Shawl knitalong, do make sure you are part of the Posh Knitters group, so you can show us your progress (and help me out if I get stuck).

Even if you aren't joining the knitalong, if you haven't already joined the Posh Knitters group, please, please do so. I'm giving up Notify List at the end of this month, so if you haven't transferred over to the group by then, no more updates (even late ones!) for you. And that would be a real shame, because you'd miss out on scrumminess like this:

And this:

And this:

Oh, this yarn. To. Die. For. It's a 70% kid mohair, 30% silk laceweight yarn, which knits up into gossamer light shawls with the shimmer of silk at their heart. I don't think I've ever seen a yarn this fluffy! Each skein is 50g, with 450 yards, and costs £8.00.

But now for the bad news: I only have a limited supply of this yarn. 12kg, to be exact. That is 240 skeins. Less 3 for me (if I don't have a shawl made from this yarn, my life will not be complete). And at the rate you snapped up the yarn on Wednesday's update, that's not going to last long. So, we're going to try to eke it out over the next couple of weeks, but when it's gone, I don't know how long it will be before I get the next batch. Snap it up while you can!

(Some of our yarns will always be limited supply, while others - Lucia, Emily, Eva, Sophia - should always be in stock. It all depends on the supplier.)

The preview will be up tomorrow, and the shop update as always on Sunday at 6pm. In other news, the sock and lace club yarns are on their way to members, and all Wednesday's yarn purchases are on their way too.

Now, I think I've earned a large hot chocolate, don't you?

June 1st, 2007 | |