A lovely thank you from Kate and Diane!

A lovely thank you dropped through my letterbox recently - Diane and Kate, editors extraordinaire of the new online mag, Inside Loop sent me a card, a cute mini-sock on a keychain and a couple of buttons (oh, and the choccy, but I ate that already so no pic!). The thank you was for my article on "kitchen cupboard" dyeing. If you haven't checked out Inside Loop yet, be sure and take a look. There are some gorgeous patterns and great features. Better yet, if you have a good pattern or article idea, why not submit one and see yourself in print!

Fones don't float

Or, multi-tasking is not always a good thing.

So, I have a big dye-batch to finish and the mobile rings. I can see it's Pete calling so I gingerly balance the phone against my ear, dye gloves still on and dripping dye.

Explaining my predicament, we agree to speak later, only, as I close the phone (one of those annoying slidey ones), it makes a break for it and shoots straight out of my hand. I can see it, slow-motion style, heading straight for the full bucket of dyebath water, and ploosh! - direct hit - straight to the bottom!

I haul it out pdq and wrap it in a towel. Somehow I've called Pete back and I can hear his voice, sounding like he's at the bottom of a swimming pool. Then it goes dead and there's just a sad fizzing noise : (

So for now, it's back to my trusty Nokia brick which, I have to say, spent half an afternoon submerged in a bucket of rainwater in the garden and made a full recovery, so there may yet be hope. Maybe it's time for one of those handsfree earpiece gadgets....

Gettin arty-farty

Hair cut day today so a pilgrimage to Manchester was on the cards. As I'd foolishy opted for a lunchtime appointment there wasn't time for a trip to Chinatown for lunch and it wasn't late enough to meet Pete afterwards for tea (terrible planning on my part but better for the pre-holiday diet). Instead Will and I opted for a visit to the Art Gallery, which, I'm embarrassed to say I have never been to despite living and working in Manchester for longer than I care to share in public.

It was a cool trip. The gallery isn't large but they have a neat interactive area which makes the works more accessible, especially for kids. The current exhibition was quite strange, but really clever - life-size realistic sculptures made out of cut up pieces of photographs on paper and varnished. The one of a guy who'd been flattened by a large rock was particularly entertaining! The Tiffany pieces and Victoriana were personal faves (I could have done without the stuffed frogs recreating a Victorian house scene tho'). I also discovered Valette's paintings of Manchester. Dark and atmospheric but strangely compelling.

A trip to Forbidden Planet and a last minute dash to the post office and it was back home for a nice cuppa and to start planning my next Simply Knitting project (more of which later...).

Artesano felting projects

This week I finished the design commission for Artesano . There will be 9 felted knitting patterns in the collection and they should be going on sale soon. It has been a fantastic opportunity for me and I feel so lucky to have been asked to work with them. I've learned so much and am totally addicted to their two new yarns, Artesano DK and Artesano Aran. The Aran is 50% alpaca/50% wool and is divinely soft as well as felting like a dream. I don't have any pics yet, but will post some once the collection has been officially launched.

Dusting off the "blogwebs"

I can't believe it's two months since I last updated the blog! Total respect to those amazing people who blog weekly, never mind the incredibly organised daily bloggers! And the main contributor to my going "blog AWOL"? Work overload - in the last 2 months I've been juggling 12 design commissions, two articles, three workshops, two talks, a magazine offer that blew me away it was so popular, Woolfest, researching a distributorship offer and, most importantly, being busy with my lovely customers. July and August were going to be my "planning, designing for my own yarns and marketing" months. needless to say I haven't seen much of any of that yet. Not that I'm complaining - I love it, but it does take me away from writing about it!

I know this isn't how it's meant to work, but I'll get on with the current news and add some of the other things I planned to blog about as they come to me. Fingers crossed for an improved blog-post quota : )