Lichen Mists

A little while ago... myself, WoollyWormhead and RockandPurl met up in London, and of course I filled a bag with yumminess and let them choose whatever floated their designer boats :D
Ruth chose a turquoise/teal skein of 'Perfection' sock (amongst others... powerless to resist you see *GRiN*) ... and turned it into this beautiful shawl... !!
It never ceases to amaze me how people can design and make such beautiful things with my yarn, and it makes me very proud when they do...
'Lichen Mists' is available to download on Ravelry, here, and when I get my act together, I will list some 'Perfection' plus pattern slots in the shop...

(all photographs are used with the very kind permission of their owner)

Community... and other ramblings

Sorry for the long blog silence... *sighs*
I have had a KA~raaaAAaaazy couple of months, culminating in some remodelling work here at Casa Longlegs.

But, hopefully (fingers/toes/everything crossed) normality will resume in the non-too-distant future ... whatever normality is :)

A few things have happened within my online community too ...
I have wanted to write about a few of the issues that concern me, as I feel really strongly about them. I don't always like to express a hugely biased opinion, publically, about stuff either, as more often than not, there are ALWAYS more complicated factors involved, which are hidden and may colour the situation.

I am not referring to any incident in particular either, as much more has been said, in a way more eloquent fashion, by people more closely involved.

But, I can share how I feel in general, I mean this is my space ... if you don't like what I say you can always close the tab and stop reading !!

Because of the way things work in the Woolly World, a lot of business relies on the internet, particularly marketing through social networking, eg. Ravelry, Facebook, Twitter etc... and it also relies very heavily on reputation. There are only so many shows one business can attend, so the majority of buying and selling has to occur electronically...
One wrong word on the right page can cause devastation for a small independent business, and this damage can take a long time to recover from, if at all.
I pride myself on my communication and customer service... you may not see a lot of me in the public eye, but should you deal with me directly, via email or whatever... I will always do my best to help you and give you what you want, in a timely fashion.
If I cannot be timely, I will tell you directly about it.

All of my Woolly friends are the same as me, in this respect. We value our community and our supporters enormously, because if it were not for that... we would have nothing.
We also value each other, and if someone is having a hard time, or has problems... we try our best to help, even if it's just a quick email/Tweet or Facebook comment.
*whispers* I have even sometimes been known to pick up the telephone *shocked face* ...

I switch on my computer when I get up in the morning, and it's then that I begin 'work', and when I turn it off before I go to bed, that's when I stop 'work'... so you see, 9 to 5 doesn't even come close!!

I love my job, and I love my peeps ... but it is sometimes very hard to stand by and watch the bandwagon when it starts rolling by ... and the carnage it causes in its wake.

Just call me a Bag Lady :D

As you all know, I am very good friends with Nic Lucas, aka NicsKnots
We've done a few shows together now, and I have my own exclusive range of her project bags too :D
We've known each other for ages, we met through a Parenting website called MumsOnline, as at the time our kids were babies, and we shared a love of using cloth nappies as opposed to nasty plastic ones, as well as a love of knitting of course. If I remember correctly, Nic's daughter was one of the first recipients of a pair of Babylonglegs woollies... or was it yarn to make some... :P
Over the years, we've built up our respective businesses, from home, juggling children, housework (or in my case avoiding housework) and Husbeasts :D
Not an easy task, I can tell you!!
Nic has recently moved away from Folksy (do I dare insert 'About bloody time' here or would that be unprofessional of me?) and has set up her own website... which looks fantastic, and will cost her a LOT less and she'll have more control.
She's currently running a blog competition, asking customers to submit pictures of her products 'in the Wild' so to speak, as she wants to build up a picture gallery on her site.
All you have to do, to be in with a chance of winning, is take a picture of a NicsKnots product, be it a bag or a needle roll, or BOTH... and post it on her Facebook page or you can email it to her if you don't use Facebook.
The prize is a £30 voucher for Nic's shop, a skein of Babylonglegs yarn, and Rachel Coopey, an awesome British Indie designer is donating some of her patterns.

So what are you waiting for??
Get snapping... you've got till 25th of March to enter!!!!

P.S I am totally unashamed of my collection of project bags... and this is only half of them :P

OOOh... !!!

My lovely friend, NicsKnots tweeted this picture this morning, she's the most awesome person for finding me in magazines :)

The colourway that was featured in "Knit Today" was this one, 'Rainbow Brite' ... A lovely, happy space-dyed colourway :D

The Happiest of Hats!!

Okay, so a couple of weeks ago, I got a mystery birthday package in the post from my friend, WoollyWormhead ... all wrapped up and looking very squishy.

It was SOOO hard not to open it on the spot, I can tell you, because I am a very impatient person.... and I just knew it was gonna be a new Hat :)

I kept going back to look at this irresistable and intriguing package, poking it and shaking it...

*whispers* at one point I even peeled back a bit of the cellotape...

My awesome Husbeast surprised me too, with a Birthday weekend away to Westward Ho!, so I got to open this, and many more breathtaking gifts, by the seaside.

It was all so magical...!

I was just so completely blown away by this awesome gesture. A unique gift made with me in mind.

The colours are just perfect, they bring out the green in my eyes and it is so comfortable...

It's completely fit for its purpose, as a hat FuLL of HaPPeH, and just shows how much she knows me.

We had a chat about how it should be published, and we both agreed, wholeheartedly, that it should be available as a free pattern. Making money off the back off something so uniquely personal to us just felt ... wrong?

It's made from scraps of stash yarn she had available, so you don't even need to make it with my yarn... everyone is a winner :D

WoollyWormHead has blogged about it herself, here ...

Fibre Flurry...pics

If anyone wants to join the Blog-a-Long to celebrate P/Hop's 2nd Birthday, and my post has inspired you to help, please visit their website and sign up for it. Then, come back here and leave me a message.

You can blog about anything knitting related, it doesn't have to be about Fibre Flurry!!

All Blog Post Donators will go into one of my many hats, and the winner will receive a custom dyed skein of semi-Precious DK :)

Make, Do and Knit

This is what my stand finally looked like at the weekend....
As you all could see from my previous post, I took wwWWWAAAAAAAY too much yarn with me, hehehehe, but at least now I can have a bit of a hollyday from dyeing and get some other stuff done :)
I had a wonderful time and met a lot of loverlee peeps :)

Infamy!!!!

How cool is this??? My first appearance as an Indie Dyer in a magazine!!! Alongside such eminent peoples as Jeni and Amanda!!!

Wooohoooooo!!!!

And, all the yarn/fibre pictured is also all mine!!!

But there is a catch, this now means its really real, and now I need to get off my Hass and do some work.....

Aaaaarghhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

Fate's conspiring to keep me on the up...

Karma comes around :)
Thanks for your support, Jen....means a lot!

Therapy

This is a colourway thats been on my mind ever since Woolfest :) I dedicated a colourway to Lottie, so its only fit and proper to do one for Olivia too....so here she is, meet "Olivia"

I had to rethink my colours for the custom spin....the purples/plums/salmon just wasn't sitting right in my brain....

Here they are all together......feel much better about it all now......

I tell you, being artistic is a right pain sometimes ;)

I would have gone mad today if I hadn't made myself do all this work. We got next years class allocations yesterday, and my Daniel has got the short end of the stick, again :( Been isolated from ALL his friends, and not given the teacher I specifically asked for when I went in to talk to the deputy head about it all. The teacher he wanted was the one he had in Year 3 (he'll be in Yr 5 next term) and he blossomed in her class. She just understood where he was coming from.

Saw the deputy head again today about it......so we shall see what occurs....

But to say I am a tad upset about it all is an understatement...... :(

My Woolfest was all about my friends :)

This is what Woolfest was all about for me this year, meeting online friends I hadn't seen in a while, saying hello to new friends, and spending the weekend with my two bestestarOOnie friends :)

Of course there was obligatory fibre and yarn purchasing, but that, as you all know, goes without saying! To say I've doubled my fibre stash is an understatement!!!!

Anyway....on to the pics.....


After spending the afternoon at Woolfest, Livvy and I made camp at Grayonside in the pouring rain and howling wind. Its very safe to say we had a few **moments** but we managed to get the tent up, all the beds and bedding in and dinner on before the Purple Peril = Lottie arrived... and then we had more beer :)

After a wild and woolly night...thank goodness for earplugs says I...we went to a lovely little cafe in Cockermouth for breakfast...we're all looking so happy because we'd just enabled Livvy in a shoe purchase....some Mary Jane Style Crocs in black, so she can show off her expertly knitted socks :)
Our first port of call, only because he was by the entrance...hehehe was Andy Robinson, of BlueFaced.com fame.... I helped him out later on in the day, selling tickets for the Mirasol School raffle he's doing. Theres a lot of lovely prizes to be had, so if you didn't get a ticket at Woolfest, but are going to IKnit London this year, be sure to get a ticket!!!

On the stall next to Mr Wool was Jeni of Fyberspates......oooh....just look at all that fluffy goodness!!!

No Woolfest is complete without seeing Mr YarnYard in his kilt..... :) Oh and of course, buying some of Natalie's expertly dyed sock yarn.....yes I did!!!

And here is the wonderful Amber, I've known her through her blog for a long time....but have never met her.....it was brilliant to put a face to the wonderful musings and photos of immaculately knitted socks :)

We met Mr Mog too......well you couldn't really miss him!!! Here he is on the KCG stall, teaching finger knitting :) Also on the KCG stall was a display of WoollyWormheads Hats, you could try any of them on for 50p a go.....

Just look at that exquisite rose shawl in the background......the lady who made it is in the next photo ;)

Isabella and Sue..... so good to see them both, the last time I met them was at Skipnorth 2007....where Lottie and I got a rep for being drunken Mums..hehehe....totally unfounded!!! Isabella also owns a Louet S10, so we were chatting about that...... In the marquee, when we stopped for a break, we met some jolly nice Ravelry Peeps.... (left to right) Gonga , ArtyFartykat and Dominocat

I also paid a visit to the Guild of Longdraw Spinners and had a thoroughly good time of getting the hang of longdraw....

Here's Lottie trying out one of the many wheels on display, a Lendrum Original DT....I think its her new object of desire ;)

And here's the woman behind everyones new Knitting Notion purchase at Woolfest, NicsKnots
We spied her buying fibre and a spindle.....she finally succumbed!!! She shared a stall with KraftyKoala....
Okay, so you can't have a blog post about Woolfest, and not show some sheep....I took this one of a Wenslydale simply because it's a case of "Where does the sheep begin, and the straw end?"

It was alot colder on the Saturday night under canvas.....here's me trying to look happy to be there ;)

We all had a fab time, there were some peeps we met I didn't take piccies of, and I wanted to give a shout out to.

CheekyImp was there (or Madriggie as I formerly knew her) with her 3 beautiful children!!! Now see me and Bex have a LONG history on Parenting forums together....it was finally so good to meet her, and I am very sorry not to have taken a photo :(

We met Woolydoodles and her partner Jack.....the super organised campers who had a playstaion and DVD player in their tent.... hehehe....its definitely the way to go!

Artis-Anne (or Eluned on Ravelry) who was a complete twinkly star, as she helped me dry out my coat after putting up the tent in the pouring rain...thankyou my love :)

ClaireUk who hatched a plot with me at Tebay services to get Livvy spindling.....and travelled there and back with Lottie, to keep her (in)sane :D

And finally, a random picture of something that is dear to my heart.....yay for Tebay Services!!!

The Three Fluffskateers :)

This was one of 8 photos we tried to take......and my prequel to a huge, pic heavy Woolfest post.......

Just wanted to thank my bestestaroOONie friends, for making our Woolfest weekend the best weekend ever :)

Woolfest post to come........ ;)

Woolfest here I come!!!

Leaving in a mo to go up to Woolfest, am so excited!!!
Miffyrabbit is driving, we'll have Foo Fighters on the stereo......and a weekend away from it all doing what we love, all best friends together, and Lottie is coming tonight!!!
Also be seeing lots of people there I know from blogland and Ravelry........its gonna be so much fun!
Watch out for a picture heavy post when I get back, so all you guys who couldn't make it can feel like you were right there with me.... :)

Laters Alligators!!!

My lovely friend, Mrs Flowerpot!!!!

I recieved a gift in the post this morning, from MrsFlowerpot. I was browsing etsy the other night, and kept sending her links, as you do, over MSN…. I have a thing about cute skull stuff, especially bags…..and look what she made for me!!!!
Thankyou Clair.......I love it :)