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This is Jane Ellison, she is a lovely British lady who is coming to visit us.  Sounds very nice doesn’t it?  But, this is JANE ELLISON!  Designer of sooo many patterns that we all know and love.  She has worked with Debbie Bliss, Rowan and Noro but right now we are focusing on her involvement in the Mirasol Collection.

She is coming on Monday, October 8th to do brunch and a workshop with us.  We will be doing the Carlos Gloves, these are really cool gloves that are done sideways on straight needles using the new Hacho yarn.

The workshop is $45 and that includes the workshop (10-1) and brunch.  This is Thanksgiving Monday so no one should have babysitting issues and we will be done early enough that you can still do the Family thing.  You will need needles and 2 balls of the Hacho.  For that one day only, anyone involved in the workshop will be able to buy their Hacho for the gloves at cost AND all Mirasol yarn and the book will be 25% off. 

Jane will also be discussing her visits to Peru and how she got involved in this Fair Trade yarn.

This Thursday was a lovely day!  I had gone on Monday to Koigu and picked up some lovely colours and some of their orphan bags.  So I spent the morning on Thursday pricing and displaying them, and they all play together so nicely don’t you think?

BUT THEN!  Just to make my day so much nicer – Sally Melville and a couple of her friends popped in.  It was so lovely to have Sally in my shop and be able to show her my lovely things and to chat with her about all that is happening in her life.  I think she is living a soap opera!  They even sat at the table and Sally helped one of her friends with a sewing up issue.  And I was right there soaking it all up.  It was a great day!

This is the beginning of our dye workshop with Buffy Taylor of Shelridge Farms.  We had 7 go and we all had a wonderful time.  This time I listened to all the instructions and when we brought our yarn home and had to spin it – I didn’t wander off and do anything else.  Last time I got distracted and came back to agitated yarn – Warning, never agitate your yarn!  I now have a lovely vase of my own coloured yarn.

But, back to Sunday – Buffy did a great job of getting us organized and explaining the different things we could do.  The workshop included 6 skeins of yarn, so we could dye all 6 one colur or do 6 different colours or dye as many as we wanted to pay for.  So the sky was the limit. 

 I think we all agreed that it would be interesting to wind our yarn and knit with it and then go and do another workshop with a clearer idea of what we would like.  I’ve already spoken to Buffy about dates the end of January or beginning of February.

Here are just a few pictures of our day.  Enjoy

This is Darrian, my beautiful Grand-daughter.  She came to visit a couple of weeks ago and helped me in the shop all day.  It was a riot!  And can you see – she is knitting!  She is working on a scarf for her Webkinz monkey (Bananas) that will match the gauntlets that we designed together for her. 

She was very sure of what she wanted.  She saw our sample of Sally Melville’s gauntlets and fell in love with them.  Did I tell you that she has wonderful taste?  But we decided to do them in a heavier yarn, so chose Cascade 220 with a strand of Mohair.  She knew exactly how long she wanted them and what colour and how big the stripes should be and where the flower should go.  I think we may have a future designer on our hands.                    

Isn’t it funny how after a millenium of being together you start to see things the same way?  Or is he just bowing to the inevitable?  Tom always says that I pack WAY too much when we go anywhere.  Maybe I do but you have to be prepared, you never know what you might be needing or doing.  He doesn’t understand the need to have more than one option of purse, shoe, outfit…whatever.  We won’t go into the need for multiple purses, that could be a novel rather than just a blog entry.

But, he rented me a UHaul for getting to the Knitter’s Fair this weekend and he upsized it! That way I can bring whatever I think I might need or want for the display and if I don’t use it then it can stay in the truck.  Also I can bring enough stock and keep the surplus in the truck.  He’s a thinking!

So, tomorrow we start loading, lots of treats to bring and I’m starting to hit that excited panic feeling – will I have enough, what if I forget something, how much is too much…

I guess you’re going to have to come see me at the Fair to see what finally made it onto the truck!