Yummy Yarn ......

The shop preview is up, and I'm off!

March 31st, 2007 | |

Wonderwool Wales......

Yesterday I received the list of exhibitors at this year's Wonderwool Wales show. First of all, I was pretty excited, because there are some prestigious names there (including Selvedge magazine!). Then it suddenly occurred to me: it's only seven weeks away....... or 50 days, as the website helpfully informed me.

There was a time when seven weeks seemed a long time, but something has recently clicked in the space/time continuum. Today's seven weeks is about equivalent to the old seven days. This is nicely demonstrated by Sock Club. First of the month comes up, we pack up the sock club packages, go make a cup of tea, and bam! it's first of the month again, and time to do more packages. So, seven weeks may seem like plenty of time to some, but I know that I only have to blink, and it will be show time.

So, first things first: are you coming? And second things second: do any of you seasoned show pros have any advice for us, show newbies? Anything you love/hate to see? Any special requests? Any (I have no shame) advice? I get a little jump in my chest every time I think of it, but I don't know if that's nerves or excitement.

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Onto more immediate matters: Sunday's update! Here's some of my favourites:

Isn't that green/gold laceweight a beauty? Mr P has been playing with some new dyeing techniques, and I'm loving this one. And I'm oh so very tempted by the last yarn picture, which I've named Beach Hut. I want to knit myself something funky for the show, and this yarn is fluttering its eyelashes at me every time I go into the storeroom.

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Finally, some of the things that have made me happy this week: planning a new (bigger! better! tidier!) dye room...... discovering stovetop coffee makers...... living vicariously through one of my favourite blogs...... the 18 foot table that Mr P and his brother have been building for summer garden parties...... browsing through knitting books (quite a range) in my local bookshop...... the perfect gin and tonic...... chilli stuffed olives...... watching this...... listening to this...... and reading this.......

Happy weekend, loves!

March 30th, 2007 | |

So ! Much ! Yarn ! ......

Ha. You all thought I was lazing in the sunshine yesterday afternoon. No such luck! It just took me an awful lot longer than I though to get the yarn labelled and photographed. And that was without putting the yardage on the labels. I'll try to do that in future though, I promise.

I am very happy with the results of yesterday's labour though. Tonight's update is a bumper one, and I anticipate it breaking all records. I'm particularly excited about the photos, because yesterday I discovered that I've been using my camera on the wrong setting for the last year (duh). I changed the setting, and voila! Much better quality photos. The colours are truer, the texture of the yarn shows up better, and you can almost feel the yarn when you look at the photos. See?

Maybe the photos don't look any better to you, but these came straight from the camera, with no twiddling in Photoshop on the way to the blog. Much twiddling time has been saved this week.

So, the shop preview is now up. Have fun browsing, and I will see you later!

March 28th, 2007 | |

Spring Has Sprung......

It was a glorious day here yesterday, so sunny and warm that its hard to believe its only March. We spread a quilt out in the garden at lunchtime, and spent an hour wallowing in the sunshine. I couldn't bear going in after that, so I took my work (labelling) outside.

(Labelling, by the way, is the bane of my life. Over 200 labels each week, all hand written. And why? Because I have delusions of grandeur, without a matching budget. I want properly printed labels, not ones done on my own computer. But we do so many different types of yarn, and the colourways change each week, so we've still not decided upon a label format that is functional and beautiful, without breaking the bank. Until I figure that one out, it's hand written labels all the way. Ack.)

All this sunshine, with its promise of a hot summer to come, has heated up our dyeing. I've noticed that our colourways are getting brighter and bolder. Take a look:

Preview page will either be up later today, or early tomorrow. Depending on whether I can resist the sunshine this afternoon......

March 27th, 2007 | |

Refreshed......

That was a lovely weekend. It started Friday evening, with dinner at a friend's house (thanks C & R, the dinner was fabulous, and how about delurking today and leaving a comment?!). Saturday I had a little tea party for my mother and a friend (macaroons, mmmm). Sunday we had an impromptu lunch with friends, which slid into a lazy afternoon tea (scones with jam & cream, double mmmmm), and then an enormous dinner with Mama. I may not need to eat this week.

But it was totally chilled out, and easy going, and the sun shone, and I knitted and read, and it was just perfect. I hope your weekend was as good. Now, back to work with a vengeance.

We have the most enormous pile of yarn for Wednesday's update, and an equally enormous pile being dyed today for Sunday. So, yummy yarn previews all week this week on the blog. Starting with some of my favourites today. Don't they sing of Spring to you?

March 26th, 2007 | |

Isn't It Ironic......

I was extremely interested by Eunny's latest post, about how many people have commented that now she is the Editor of Interweave Knits, she will find she has no time left for knitting. It's oh so true. Although Eunny is some kind of a knitting superhero, so maybe she'll find a way round it.

But it's an irony of my life that I'm surrounded by beautiful yarn that I haven't the time to knit. I currently have on the needles, and jostling for room in my knitting basket, 2 socks (for 2 different pairs), 2 shawls, and 2 hoodies. (Uh, why are my projects in pairs? Is there some deep significance to this?) Last night I managed to complete the ribbing on the sleeve of one of the hoodies, and turn the heel on one of the socks, and that accomplishment has exhausted me for the week.

Mind you, I do live vicariously through the blogs. Some people are extremely industrious knitters, turning out practically a pair of socks a week. I am in awe. I am also envious. I'm such a slow knitter that I couldn't turn out a pair of socks (hell, even one sock!) in a week even if that was all I had to do.

On a slightly different note: I can hardly believe it, but Posh Yarn is coming up for its one year anniversary. The last year has just flown by, and my baby's all grown up. We're marking the anniversary in two exciting ways. Firstly, if you aren't on our mailing list, sign up. On April 16th (the day we launched, last year) we will be picking a random name from the list, and that person will receive a £50 gift voucher to spend on Posh Yarn.

Secondly, we have a new team member. From April, Posh Yarn will be a team of three. I'm so excited about this, I can't even tell you. Can you see me doing a happy dance?

Finally, a quick reminder that there will be no update on Sunday, since we are doing a Wednesday update next week. I'm going to have a blissfully chilled out weekend (at least, that's the plan), and I hope you do too. May the sun shine on you, may your needles click busily, may you have fun, fun, fun. Mwah.

March 23rd, 2007 | |

Bookish......

Ack. I'm all behind like a puppy dog's tail.

This week's yarn, which should have been dyed, dried, skeined, and labelled by now, is just going into the dye pot. Gulp. If I can get the preview up by Saturday night, I will deserve a sainthood.

Edited to add: Oh, who am I kidding? I'm not going to get it done, and that's that. Ok, well this will be a good opportunity to do a one off Wednesday sale instead next week. So, no update Sunday, but a nice big one Wednesday. Howzat?

You see, earlier this week when we should have been dyeing, we were busy with other things. Namely this:

Oh boy, do I love this bookcase. And boy, do I love the clever Mr P who built it. I had a blissful day on Tuesday, taking all my books out of boxes, dusting them off (I like to dust them every six moves or so.....) and putting them on shelves. I had 14 boxes of books, and I managed to unpack 7 of them before the bookcase was full. At that point, Mr P pushed me out of the way and took over. He does the whole shabby chic boho thing much better than I do - I'm too anally retentive to have my books any other way than in an alphabetical regiment. But he managed to get all 14 boxes onto the bookcase, and I think it looks fabulous.

(Even if I am a little twitchy about the fact that there is no kind of order to the books, and how will I ever find anything, and how long can I bear it before I have to pull them all down and categorise them?)

This is now my favourite corner of the house, which is quite a miracle, since it was the ugliest before - dark, dingy, and uninviting. Now I want to spend two weeks sitting in that chair reading. And knitting. And reading about knitting. Someone send me a spare two weeks.

P.S. Hands up how many of you were straining to read the book titles on that last photo? I get completely distracted in films or photographs when there are bookshelves, doing the exact same thing.

March 22nd, 2007 | |

In The Country......

Oh boy, have I been having drama. We've been here just over a month now, and I've been fighting the whole time to get broadband. Unfortunately, we have a little old country exchange, not digital, and BT are refusing to take me off the DACS line so that I can have broadband. I had high hopes this week, but they've crashed down today. BT have said no, and they are sticking to it.

I can't tell you how many hours I've spent on the phone trying to sort this out. Infuriating. The only phone socket in the house is in the kitchen, so I've been using the laptop in there, which brings me to the second drama. Somehow (and no one in the house is willing to admit responsibility for this, but I can tell you that IT WASN'T ME) the laptop power cable and box got soaked in water yesterday. We discovered this after I plugged it in and it gave a few ominous pops, then fused the house. As you can imagine, the power box was toast. My immediate concern was that the laptop might have been toast also. With my current run of luck, this seemed entirely possible. Thankfully it wasn't, and my borther-in-law had a replacement cable. Phew. Gave me some cold shivers there, and reminded me to BACK UP FILES. This is all part of my excuse for being awol over the last few days. That plus the fact that I've been feeling exceedingly lazy.

Anyway, this morning, I was reminded of some of the pros of living out here in the back of beyond, as opposed to the recent list of cons. Mr P and I took a walk very early this morning, down our lane, over a stile, through a field, and found ourselves in a magic land. First we saw this:

This was a house at one time, but this is all that's left of it. My photography leaves much to be desired, by the way (I don't make a very good mobile tripod, so everything comes out blurry) but bear with me. Around the next corner was this:

If there's one thing I love above all else, its a pathway through a tunnel of trees. Beautiful in any season, but the ground was carpeted in lily of the valley, yet to blossom, so it's going to be stunning to all the senses in a few weeks. At the end of this path we came out here;

This is the other side of the famous Bosherston Lily Ponds. The swans are in mating season, and were behaving like lovestruck children pushing each other down in the playground. They moved too fast for my poor photography to capture, unfortunately. At this point in our walk, we thought we'd reached the highlight. Then we turned to leave, and magic happened:

This robin perched on the bush next to me, within easy touching distance, and talked to us for a few minutes. After a minute or two, he was joined by other birds, all close, although not as close as he was, and all talking to us, and staring as though they'd never seen the likes of us before. The robin hopped down from the bush onto the floor, and began hopping around our feet, talking the whole time. I spent about ten minutes trying to photograph him, but he was a speedy little thing, and most of the photos came out blurred.

It was the most glorious start to the day, especially when followed by sausages and a pot of tea. Who needs broadband when you've got a wonderland like that at the end of your garden?

Well, okay, I do. But I'll get it yet, you'll see. By hook or by crook.

Now then, quick question before I go: how are Sunday updates working out for you? Still prefer it to Wednesdays? Majority rules, but I've had a few emails from people who prefer Wednesdays, so I thought I'd better just check again.

March 21st, 2007 | |

Newsflash......

I'm delighted to announce to you that my dear friend Kerrie gave birth to a bouncing baby girl this morning. Kerrie and her husband Wayne have named her Trinity, and I know Kerrie will be posting photos of her soon on her blog. Kerrie is home from hospital, and feeling fine, (even though her new girl weighed 9lb 6oz!). Congratulations honey, can't wait to see some pics!

Bargain Time......

Are you having a lovely weekend, my dears? I do hope so! The preview page is now up, so go take a look. And there's two small changes to the shop page:

I know lots of you like looking through the pattern suggestions, but it takes sooo much time assigning each pattern to a particular yarn, and time is something I constantly strive for nowadays. So I've put all our pattern suggestions onto one page, categorised into yarn types, and I hope to add to it from time to time. You can see the pattern link page here. And there is also a link on the right of the blog.

The other new feature of the shop page is a bargain basement at the bottom of the page, where we put any yarn seconds. This week it is full of handspun camel yarn, which we discovered does not tolerate the heat that we put our other yarns through. The skeins felted, evvvvvver so slightly. Just enough that I need to tell you, not enough to cause real problems when you knit with it. But I've reduced them all to half price, to be on the safe side.

March 17th, 2007 | |

Decisions, Decisions......

Here's something you didn't know about me: I'm probably the most indecisive person I've ever met.

Actually, that's not entirely true. I'm very decisive. But I change my mind, often, and with startling speed. Just as soon as I decide one way, I instantly know that it's the other choice I wanted. Choosing a meal in a restaurant can be an agonising experience. I have a whole routine in the cinema, where I sit in a chair, get up, try another, and repeat for as long as Mr P will stand it. Then I sit through the film thinking that actually, the first seat I tried was the best.

Do you know what the worst bit is? I'm usually so sure that I'm right. And that I won't change my mind this time. Then I do. At the moment we're swithering (isn't that a lovely word?) over what to do with our living room. Sofas? Chairs? Huge dining table? Shabby chic, French country, Art Deco?

So. Many. Choices. Sometimes I think life will drive me quite mad. Then I change my mind.

The point of all of which, is this: how do you choose from our yarns? I don't think I could. Just picking which yarn to feature on the blog nearly kills me. I photograph 30 or so skeins, then try to narrow it down. Its no good, I love them all. Soft pastels, deep colours, murky shades, brights. Gossamer laceweight, squishy chunky weight. And the more we do (and boy, we've done another bumper crop this week!) the harder the choices get.

How do you do it? Especially under the pressure of the lightening fast update? You must all be made of stronger stuff than me.

So, here's a teeny selection of this week's yarn.

Now I must get to work (despite the fact that I am longing for an illicit nap) because there's stacks to do ready for the update, and we have guests coming tonight for the weekend. Ah, life at the top. See you Sunday, my loves!

March 16th, 2007 | |

Oh To Be A Cat......

You are all very kind, thank you for the lovely compliments. It slightly irritates me that my blog comments don't get sent to me by email, on either blog, because it makes it hard to reply to them (especially on the Blogger one, in fact I haven't figured out how to get any commenter's email address from that). But I promise you, the very best bit of my day is logging on and reading new comments. I do it, oh every twenty minutes or so! Needy, me? No.......

The new yarns came in this week, and some of them are planned for Sunday's update. They are all so squidgy and delectable - Mr P likes one of them so much that he said it makes him want to knit a sweater in it. But since he is still on Row 6 of the illfated scarf, I don't quite see that happening.

And he's not the only fan in the house. Somebody said to me once that if they had a room full of cashmere like we do, they would want to curl up in it and go to sleep. Well, my two cats have never shown much interest in cashmere. But the new yarns, which are various types of wool and mohair, evoked quite the response. I went into the storeroom yesterday, only to see this:

And on the other shelf, this:

(If you have a cat allergy, don't panic - all our yarn is thoroughly scoured before dyeing.)

Rather cute, don't you think? They crawled out, bleary eyed, a few hours later, smelling exactly like sheep. So, here are some of the new yarns ready for Sunday:

Tomorrow, lots more peeks at Sunday's yarn. Some scrumptious colourways coming up this week. I always choose my personal favourites for the blog preview, but this week it's going to be tough to limit myself to just a few. They are all so delectable. So far, this is my favourite, and I can't wait until tomorrow to show it to you:

Could that be more like fluffy sunset clouds? I want, I want.

March 15th, 2007 | |

Dye Another Day......

You didn't really think I'd be able to resist the dye/die puns for long, did you?

Well this morning I was up early, dyeing. Yarn? No, that was yesterday. Today was H.A.I.R........

Briliant red, the box said (although the model was a nice gentle auburn, but we all know not to go by the pictures, don't we? Well, we do now...). And brilliant red it is. A long way from my natural blonde. And quite a long way from what I had in mind. Never mind, I was told that one of the problems with dyeing blonde hair red is that it tends not to take, and looks muddy. Not my hair. You'd better adjust your monitor before I show you the photos.

First, before. Shoulder (ish) length, natural blonde.

After, very short choppy cut, brilliant red.

The jury's still out on whether I like it. I'm still toying with the idea of putting another colour over the top, more of a coppery red which is what I was going for. This is a little cool for my colouring, really, and I think its washing my winter pale skin out (especially when seen next to the blonde pics). It's kind of funky though. Mr P loves it.

Now say nice things......

March 14th, 2007 | |

The Walking Dead......

Ugh, I am sooo tired today. The weekend was mad, travelling all over the place on Saturday, working all day Sunday. Saturday there was a special family event in Bristol, and afterwards I popped in to Cardiff and got all my hair cropped. I LOVE it. I'm not going to show you until it's coloured though. Any readers with experience of dyeing naturally blonde hair red? I'm a leetle bit scared!!!

And yesterday was a mad sprint to get the update ready in time. But I did it, and you all had fun, so there was a happy ending for everyone.

This week (tomorrow actually) we will receive the mohair order I've been waiting for. I can't wait to start splashing dye around on that. We've got some alpaca/merino coming in the next week or so as well. And the mystery new yarn? That's still in the pipeline, and I'll keep you posted......

March 12th, 2007 | |

Feast Your Eyes......

We have never done this much yarn for an update before. There are piles, and piles, and piles, and piles, and.......well, you get the picture. We've redone some of the popular laceweight shades from before the move, including Sari & Peacock. There's lots of sock yarn, all different types. And just a ton of yumminess. I'm battling for time, to get it all ready for Sunday, so the preview page probably won't be live until Sunday lunchtime, but in the meantime, here's a snap of some of what's to come......

March 9th, 2007 | |

A.W.O.L......

I know, I know, I'm a bad blogger this week. But bear with me for one more day, it will be very worthwhile......

March 8th, 2007 | |

Getting The Hump......

I didn't think that virtuous streak would last for long. Yesterday, instead of dyeing, we blew off the afternoon and went out. My choice was to go antique shopping (browsing really), because there's all kinds of things I want for the new house, and only old will do.

But the Mr wanted to do the whole Starbucks/Borders/cinema/restaurant routine, so off we trotted to our nearest city, Swansea.

I don't like Swansea, so the less that's said about that, the better. Swansea people are great, but the city itself.....ahem.

But it does have one enormous plus - one of the best Borders I've ever been in. It's new, spacious, extremely well stocked, and has a huge Starbucks cafe above it. I spent a blissful hour in there, browsing the knitting books, sipping a cinnamon latte, spending money on imported magazines. Including the latest Interweave Knits!

I like the new style, and I was very impressed by some of the patterns. It's lost a bit of the stuffiness which I felt it had before. I've already added the Keyhole Top, the Tea Rose Halter Top, and the Cable Down Raglan (although come on, think up more imaginative names than these, please!) to my considerable projects-to-do list.

But what really took my attention was the article on camel yarn. Because, as you know, we've recently started stocking it, as a regular yarn and as handspun. So it was fascinating to read a little bit more about its background. The writer mentioned that it blooms the more it is handled, which we've noticed. Also that it doesn't pill, and is hypoallergenic for those who cannot tolerate wool/cashmere. I didn't know that! And apparently, some Mongolians wear camelhair socks without shoes in the winter, because it is so warm and hardwearing.

And lookee here, we still have quite a few skeins of camel left from this week's update, including the delectable Flames, pictured above. In fact, there is currently enough of that colourway to make a superb sweater, should anyone fancy it. I'm thinking a simple top down raglan, with maybe a giant cable down the front. Hmm, maybe that would look good on me.....

PS. Speaking of which, I'm thinking of going for a very drastic change of looks - for anyone who has the mag, look at the ad on page 73. What do you think of her hair? Shall I do it?!

March 6th, 2007 | |

What's Your Flava......

Sock or lace? Whatever you love knitting, I think you'll find something to tickle your fancy in this week's update. Go take a look at the preview page!

March 3rd, 2007 | |