Dye Studio Diary

And finally

2012-02-08T13:11:00.000Z

Introducing Jubilee - our exclusive new yarn especially spun for the Jubilee.

Each skein will come with a pattern booklet containing 2 shawl patterns.
A knitted one by Ann Kingstone and a crocheted one by me.
It will be on sale later on in the year when both the patterns are ready.

The yarn is a 4 ply and is 75% BFL, 20% Silk and 5% sparkle and weighs 150 gms, and measures 600 metres and is totally amazingly beautiful!

Think that's all for now, that is until the next time I forget to blog about all the news.

2012-02-08T13:07:00.000Z

One new blanket pattern called Rita and the Anna coat pattern with new photo's.
At the moment they are only available in the ETSY SHOP and on RAVELRY
But they will both be in friday's update.

Rita

Anna

Lots of things I haven't blogged about

2012-02-08T12:57:00.000Z

Firstly a new stunning new lace yarn - Dazzling
Its 55% BLF and 45% silk.
It will be in Friday's (10/2/2012) update at 1pm UK time.
Hopefully there will be lots more colours when they are all wound.

Designing & guilt

2012-01-30T11:13:00.000Z

I used to run my own business.
I packed and posted orders, did all the day to day clerical work.
I dyed and washed and labelled all the yarn, sorted out wholesale.
Managed all the clubs, which is a full time job in its self.
This left me about 2 hours a week to concentrate on designing.

When Homer joined me in the business I thought he would take some of the workload and he did, he took over the clubs, he took over the daily orders, but I still didn't have much time for designing.
And then Daisy joined us, she took over what was left of my job, except for the dyeing.
And I still felt I didn't have much designing time.

But I have come to realise the time I thought I would have for designing was actually spent writing books and patterns. That the designing time I wanted I actually had, but hadn't realised.
I still feel guilty if I spend time sitting on the sofa crocheting in the day time, but I don't feel guilty sitting at the laptop writing patterns and editing photos.
I still need to come to terms with the fact that sitting on the sofa crocheting is working, its difficult to watch Phil and Daisy running around being busy doing my old job. I feel incredibly guilty that I am relaxing and indulging my passion.
Hopefully one day I can come to terms with the guilt and spend more time crocheting, which in turn will make more pattern writing and photographing work.

If I was a full time designer would I still feel as guilty?

P.S so far today this is all I have done,.photographed and edited the photo of the swatch for Rita's pattern.

Rita

2012-01-27T15:13:00.000Z

Are you coming to UNRAVEL?
If so you can see Rita at her first public appearance.

Stupidly I forgot to announce

2012-01-26T14:52:00.001Z

The publication of.....

DESIRABLE CROCHET MOTIFS

Volume 1

2008 to 2010

You can find it HERE on the site

And HERE on Ravelry

And HERE on Etsy

A set of wheels and a small piece of metal

2012-01-25T17:20:00.001Z

My zoom hasn't been well recently, she was due to take us on our new year's holiday.
But on the day of our departure she wouldn't start, she'd been a bit stroppy during the previous weeks, but I wasn't really worried, I thought it was just the cold weather and the fact that mice had eaten the HT leads.
I was sad that our road trip was going to be in the van, but she is nearly 20 so is allowed to be a bit stroppy.
When we came home she still wouldn't start, Homer bought her new HT leads and she worked for a couple of days and then refused to start again.
So Homer had her towed to Sean our local garage man.
Yesterday Sean phoned to say the zoom was dead or rather terminally ill, she was going to cost a minimum of £500 to mend, but if his plan A didn't work, his plan B was going to cost £2,000 plus.
He also said plan A was a shot in the dark and we should prepare ourselves for the worst.
I was heart broken and did lots of crying.
Homer managed to scrape together the £500 for plan A, but we still both felt that this was the end of the zoom and that our life would be a lot emptier without her.
BUT we have just had a phone call from Sean saying that plan A worked and she is sounding better than ever.
I still feel a bit tearful, but I am a million times happier than I was this time yesterday.

I know what you are probably thinking, that I am really silly and stupid to get so upset about a set of wheels and small piece of metal?
But the zoom is so much more than just a car.

The zoom is the only possession I have, she is all that is left of my once normal life.
I've lost my house, I can't afford shoes, but I have my zoom.

My zoom is my only holiday, she takes us to exciting places when we can afford them.
5 years ago she took us over the Alps to the South of France,

We spent our 21st wedding anniversary in a cafe on the quayside at St Tropez, eating Soupe de Poisson and Tarte Tropezienne while the zoom waited patiently in the hotel car park.

We had planned to take her to Rome on our 25th wedding anniversary, but that didn't happen due to falling off the real world. So we had 3 days zooming in North Yorkshire instead, which was lovely in a different way.
But we did promise ourselves that one day in the future we would drive the zoom to Rome and relive the anniversary we didn't have.

The prospect of life without the zoom was heartbreaking, all those exciting possibilities would be gone. We'd never get to Rome, as we would never be able to save enough money to replace her.
It brought back all the despair and depression we went through when we lost the house, it was horrible and I didn't want to go back to that dark place.
Somehow managing to hold onto the zoom when we had lost everything else was what we needed to get through.

BUT now there are hearts and flowers and butterflies and glitter in my life again :-)))))
We WILL go to Rome, it might take years to save up one tank of petrol at a time, but me, Homer and Zoom will be on an autostrade one day in the future, with the wind in our hair, eating gelato.

My Motif Books

2012-01-17T10:49:00.000Z

I have decided that 2012 is going to be the Year of the Book for me.
I don't mean a year of reading as I do that every day anyway, I'm a avid reader and can't sleep until I have read at least a couple of pages.
I mean a year of writing books and publishing them.

I am starting with the back catalogue of motif designs.
The first one is almost ready to publish, hopefully it will be finished in a week or two.
It will be an e-book to start off with and will be available on Ravelry and the website.
Then I am hopeing to put it on the kindle and if it sells well we will get it published as a proper book.

The book contains 20 motifs, all of them have been published in the past, either as part of a garment pattern or as part of the motif club and also some from a CAL I ran on Ravelry.
The patterns have been re-written, tec edited and have a new layout for the book.
It will cost £9.95.

There is a second motif book in the pipeline and then I am going to move on to small collections of already published patterns. For example a scarf book, a blanket book, shawl book etc etc etc

And in case you are interested here is the cover.

Christmas prize draw winners

2012-01-16T12:05:00.000Z

Drum roll please....And the winner's are.....

1st prize - Jean Mackay
Runners up - Caroline Landgraf and Petra Dams

Thought you might like to see Daisy Maisy spending hours writing on tiny pieces of paper and doing the draw.
Incidentally the hat is Homer's new winter hat, knitted in Dazzle Aran, by him.

Better late than never

2012-01-14T11:37:00.000Z

HAPPY NEW YEAR

And DON’T FORGET - the christmas draw closes at midnight tonight.

You have just over 12 hours to buy 200 gms of our yarn to have a chance to win.

The first prize is a set of Addi Click interchangable knitting needles, a skein of scheherazade and a skein of Precious 4 ply.

A truly fantastic festive treat worth in excess of £140!!

There are 2 runners up prizes each consisting of a set of Addi circular knitting needles and a skein of Scheherazade.

http://www.thenaturaldyestudio.com/

Iris and rainbow overdose

2011-12-05T15:24:00.000Z

Very, very tired.
Just come back from 6 days on the road and 2 trunk shows.
There is no peace for the wicked so I have had to some how kick my brain into action to get some yarn back on the site.
However this is not a good day for communication, dyslexia creeps in when I'm tired, but I've updated anyway.
You will have to forgive me if I've made no sense, I'll get Dais or Homer to edit me later.

Here is Iris

The pattern is free until January, there were some kits on the site, but there aren't as many as there were an hour ago. I've said there won't be any more until January, but I suspect we might have to start winding mini skeins again.
Until then you can always join the mini skein club

And here is some wool - I'm really not happy with the photo's, the light is rubbish at the moment, but I suspect the camera is rubbisher, roll on the day when we get a decent camera - sigh.........

Two Trunk shows

2011-11-09T09:41:00.000Z

This weekend we are on the road again.
We have 2 trunk show's, I love trunk shows, so am very excited.

The first is at Jumble Jelly in Bradford on Avon on Friday
http://www.jumblejelly.com/
And the second is at Nest in Crouch End on Saturday
http://www.handmadenest.co.uk/

Hope to see some of you there
:-))

The Great British Wool Club

2011-11-07T12:44:00.000Z

Is now on the website and running out of the door

THE GREAT BRITISH WOOL CLUB

November 2011 Mini skein club

2011-11-06T13:21:00.000Z

Is all packed and ready to be posted tomorrow.

Jan to March 2012 mini skein club is selling fast, so don't leave it too late and miss out on all the pretty boys.
http://www.thenaturaldyestudio.com/mini-skein-club---3-months---january-to-march-2012-7085-p.asp

Why recession is good for me

2011-11-05T13:30:00.000Z

In 2008 during the Ally Pally weekend the banks went into meltdown.
I remember sitting on the steps in the sun looking at the view thinking my life was over and NDS wouldn't survive.
How could it?
It was a small business selling luxury yarn, people would cut down on the luxuries and that would be the end.
But I hadn't taken creativity into consideration.

We spent new year with our very dear woolly friends after much merriment and celebration Madam Fyberspates and I came up with the Unicorn club, (to be fair there was quite a lot of input from the men in the room). I really think this is what saved us both in the beginning. I think our customer's needed cheering up and were happy to play along with our game.

We managed to carry on until I had shingles, I didn't know it at the time, but I nearly lost NDS for real. Looking back I can't believe how close it was, maybe only the matter of a few days. I'd sold all the wool, paid all the bills, but had nothing to buy new yarn with. Even my loyal supportive supplier thought it was over and didn't think NDS would make it.
But my Dad gave me the money to buy yarn and NDS was off and running again.

Then came the redundancy nightmare and losing the house, but NDS kept going and kept growing.
As soon as Homer became full time he upped the wholesale by 500%, stupidly I had previously thought him working with me would mean I could concentrate more time on designing, but what happened was that it made me spend more time dyeing.
We started new clubs, started doing trunk shows, visiting wholesale customers and created lots more new possibilities.

And now if you believe everything the media says we are back to recession time again!
I hate the constant doom and gloom that we are being subjected to every day, it just makes us depressed and panicky. I think we all lose sight of hope and confidence.

However I'm not scared of losing NDS this time.
For one thing it has to survive because its our only source of income.
But more importantly the threat makes me far more creative, so creative I can't fit all my brilliant idea's and plans into my waking hours.

This morning I woke up thinking about e-books, its something I have half heartedly been discussing the idea with Dais and Valerie for ages. But today was a day for action!
So I've done some researching and discovered that its a lot easier than I thought, so I plan to produce 2 motif e-books to start with and then maybe some more covering the old patterns in my portfolio.
I should be labelling November's mini skein club and designing November's motif club, but all I want to do is re-write motif patterns.
We also need to write up The Great British Wool Club and put it on-line.
I need to label our new 50 gm Dazzle HT skeins, especially designed for Lily and other blankets such as the Beekeepers Quilt, and photograph them and get them ready for an update on monday.
And finish the next blanket as its needed for a magazine in a week.
And restrain myself from starting the new psychedelic blanket
And restrain myself from working on Anna, because I need a giant snuggly cardi before the weather gets too cold.
And dye wholesale.
And label wholesale
And try not to have any more good idea's before we have put some of the existing ones into action.

So in short the reason why the recession is good for me is because it makes me panic, wakes my brain up and sets it racing off in all directions, all I have to do is hold on and hope someone invents more hours for the day.

LOOK!!

2011-11-04T15:49:00.000Z

We are really proud to announce that we have just accepted as members of The Campaign for Wool and we are now authorised to display this

And as a celebration I have been authorised by the big bad Homer to tell you the name of the exclusive new club, it is

Drum roll please.........

Its going to be called The Great British Wool Club

AND - its going to have a limited number of places as we only have 10 kgs for each month.
And I need some and the knitwear designer I have on board needs some and probably Homer might need some, just because.. and maybe so does Daisy
So we are probably down to 50 kgs before we even start putting it on-line :-)

To tantalise and tempt you

2011-11-02T16:56:00.000Z

In the next couple of day’s we will be unveiling an exciting new club for next year.

I’m not going to give you the details yet as we haven’t finalised them.
But I can give you a hint.

We are working in collaboration with John Arbon from Fibre Harvest, Coldharbour Mill, John Arbon Textiles etc etc

Each month will be a different yarn, I’m planning to dye them coordinating colours, so the yarn can all be used for the same project.

And I've decided on the colour scheme (the photo's are of Angel lace and NOT the new club yarn)

What do you think?

Excited?

Desperate for more details?

If so watch this space, and Ravelry and maybe Facebook

Dazzle HT is full

2011-11-02T12:47:00.000Z

Of lovely new colours, which you can find HERE

Since Friday morning

2011-10-31T15:06:00.001Z

We have...

Spent 4 hrs on the road driving to Birmingham for Fibre Flurry, this involved a huge detour to avoid the traffic jam on the A14.

Set up the stand for the show, which takes at least 3 hrs as Phil has to screw it altogether before I even start to get the yarn out of its boxes. It also involves lugging 40 or 50 kg's of yarn and a big wooden stand from the van to our place in the exhibition hall, lots of trips to and fro, thank goodness we have a trolley.

Being on the stand for 7 hr's chatting to all our lovely customer's (this is the really enjoyable bit) and in between all this I had a 3 hr workshop teaching some lovely ladies how to make motifs.

Straight after the show we had to dismantle the stand, which is far quicker that constructing it, but still involves all the trolley trips back and forth to the van.

Then we drove to Stone for a trunk show at Yarn Gathering, Gloria our sat nav decided to play up and kept cutting out, so we missed several turnings trying to make her work again. Eventually I remembered the road map, which is fine for getting to the right town, but not fine for finding a yarn shop once you are in the right town. My iphone got us to the right place or rather almost....

Then we spent 4 or 5 hrs at the shop, after unloading all the yarn (again!). Had a lovely relaxing afternoon chatting, drinking tea, eating yummy biscuits and spending some serious quality time with customer's.
Re-loaded the van and then spent another 4 hrs driving home.

This morning we woke up at 7 due to the stupid clocks changing and un-loaded the van so we could get some of the yarn back into the website shop.

Since then I have looked at my screen quite a lot, spent time on Ravelry and Facebook, forgotten what I was thinking and almost managed to write coherent sentences

In between all the above we had 2 nights with our woolly friends, who went through same experience's as us (except the shop visit)
If we were sensible people we would of drink camomile tea and all go to bed at 9 pm, but alas we are not sensible and don't see each other often enough so feel the need to spend every spare minute together, this involves drinking, laughing and eating too much and then not going to bed until the bar staff throw us out.

I love my woolly friends, without their support my life would be a struggle.

So all in all a fantastic weekend, but I think that my today is now over and I am sofa bound.

But before I go here's a update taster
As per usual you can find it all here - http://www.thenaturaldyestudio.com/new-this-week-214-c.asp

Daisy Blogs

2011-10-26T13:15:00.000Z

Hello all who read the Dyestudio blog.

I'm sure you've all heard about me in the many years NDS has been around. But for all those years I was connected to NDS but never (unlike now) fully attached and working for NDS.
At 15 I started to take an interest in NDS. Back then there were plastic boxes of wool in the dining room and mum (NDSQueenie) was dying in saucepans on the cooker and dad (NDSHomer) was coming home in a company car all suited up.

I would wind yarn into skeins in front of episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lord of the Rings.
I attempted sixth form for 3 months after that realised I hated it and took the rest of the year out. NDS offered me full time work for that year. This I believe is when I developed a passion for the company and understood its true unique quality and saw how far it could go.

The business saved me from a year of working in some labour ridden soulless job that so many people I know got after leaving school.
This would have been the first time the business saved me.

After this I went to Performing Arts College and continued my work for NDS part time. We moved the business from the house to the farm, I remember painting over the walls of graffiti, having an enormous sense of achievement and excitement about what was to come.

But then 2007, I left to pursue my writing career at university in Liverpool. I met my husband to be after the first year and settled there. But every break, I would journey back home and do what I could for NDS.
Last summer after university finished Mark (husband) and I spent two months looking for work in the Northwest. Not easy and not fun. We were homeless and moneyless and jobless.

I think I was probably depressed that summer, I remember a lot of time spent crying on other peoples sofas. We both got very good degree's but because of the economic climate and the fact that the Northwest has been a black spot for employment for years we were rejected from the simplest, easiest jobs.
NDS stood in again and offered to help me look for a job, they also offered me a month’s work paid.
It meant I had to move back home and leave Mark looking for work in Liverpool but ultimately it saved us.
NDS helped me get 2 jobs. One as an intern with prestigious Susan Crawford from Arbourhouse Publishing and one with Riana and Nigel Martin who own the inspirational Fibre and Clay shop in Knutsford.
I left after my month of work with NDS to return to Mark and Liverpool.

The third time NDS saved me was this summer when my husband said the most devastating thing he could have. My life turned upside down and inside out. I moved back home and left my life in Liverpool. I could have very easily lay in bed for the rest of my life, but NDS was a constant reminder that there was work to be done, and I spent most of those days after working all day and working hard. Keeping my mind off things and feeling like I was needed for something.

Since then things have healed but not fully been re built, although it's looking positive between us.
But for my working life I was offered an official job by NDS and am now an official employee (took long enough!).
Finally realising that NDS has always been my career, always been there for me, especially in the hard times, it's a passion, something I know I am good at and something I know I can have fun in and learn everything off.
I feel blessed to have an opportunity like it, something that a lot of people my age (especially in a recession like this) don't have. It means I will go without a lot of things as it'll be a labour of love, like any small businesses.
To be honest I would rather be dedicating my life to building this and being penniless, than having the creature comforts most wouldn't sacrifice.
I am looking forward to getting to know everyone in this world, I know some of you, but I would like to know everyone better :)

NDS is my future, I am here to stay!

Anna & Dorothy

2011-10-21T14:33:00.000Z

Earlier this week I published Dorothy. Dorothy was never meant to be, I showed you Anna's wip and you loved it, so I wrote the pattern with the help of my valiant tec editor.

You can find Dorothy
Here
My Ravelry pattern shop
and here
My Etsy shop
She's not on the website as I need to dye the yarn to go with the pattern.

But alas Dorothy has ceased to exist!
She has now morphed into Anna, which what she started out as in the first place!

I design as I crochet, I kind of have an idea in my head of what I want before I start, but I'm never quite sure what is going to happen. This is why I am best working with motif's, I can build the design like a jigsaw and if it doesn't work the way I haven't got to start from scratch again.

Anyway here is Anna, as you can see in the photo's I have been having design issues. My original plan (the side marked with a green arrow) didn't work. So I did some frogging this morning and came up with an alternative (red arrow side). I need to redesign the top triangle block of the increase, but all in all I'm pretty pleased with it

I designed Anna with a very wide front which you can overlap and snuggle inside,it can then be worn either open or closed.

Our next show is.....

2011-10-16T11:25:00.000Z

Fibre Flurry
http://www.fibreflurry.co.uk/event.html

I've just stolen the below info from the website, but go and have a look anyway, as there's lots more info and photo's.

Hope to see some of you there :-)

The Event

Fibre Flurry 2011 is taking place on Friday 28th and Saturday 29th October 2011.

It is held at St Nicolas Place, a 15th Century building on Kings Norton Green, South Birmingham.

On 28th we're hosting a special stall preview with a selection of stallholders having special offers and lovely goodies for you to see before anyone else! We've also got a great quiz night planned with some awesome prizes! Entry to the preview is by workshop or quiz night ticket.

On 29th we will have a smaller selection of workshops, and over 20 independant shops, dyers, designers, spinners and producers spread across the building selling their gorgeous wares.

Tickets are now on sale in the online shop and are also available in the shop in Kings Norton.

Dyeing and Mini skeins

2011-10-14T09:46:00.001Z

The first month of the Mini skein club was posted yesterday, all the continental ones went on Tuesday.

I thought you might like to know a bit more about them, especially as why they are more expensive than a normal 100 gm skein of Dazzle HT.

This is how we turn white yarn into coloured yarn ready for you to knit.

Our yarn comes in 100gm skeins ready to be dyed.
We tie 5 skeins together into big hanks, so we always have at least 500 gms of any one yarn/colour.

The yarn is mordanted for 45 minutes, this involves simmering it in a mix of Alum and Cream of Tartar.

Then I dye it, some colour's only need to be dyed once, but some need to be over-dyed with a second colour and some need to be dyed a second and third or fourth even fifth colour to get all the colour varigations.
Some dyes dye instantly, some dyes take 24 hours for the yarn to soak up the colour.

Then the hanks are washed with lots of washing up liquid, spun, rinsed and spun again. If its a particularly stubborn dye like indigo (blue) it has to go through the whole washing process for a second time and even then you might still get blue fingers - sigh......

When the yarn is as clean as we can get it it goes outside on the drying rack to dry, the ties are cut on the big hanks and each 100 gms is dried individually.
If the weather is good the yarn dries on the rack, if not it comes in and is finished off in the dribuddies, which can take several hours.
In the day's when we had a house and radiator's they used to go home and be finished off there, these days we don't have radiators which makes drying a much longer process.

When they are dry we give them to Val who re-winds each skein individually.

They come back to the farm to be labelled, photographed and sold to you.

However the mini skeins get an extra process.

When the 100 gm skeins come of the drying rack and its dry, Homer takes it off to his cabin. He has a very noisy electric ball winder and winds each 100 gm skein into a ball, its very slow, but enables him to carry on filling in the vat return and pestering you with club reminders :-)

Then the balls go to Val.
She puts the ball on a set of scales and weighs off 20 gms at a time, that means she has to stop, tie and twist 4 times more often than a normal 100 gm skein.
Poor Val hates it, but gets paid so suffers - I would say in silence, but Val's not a silent person :-)
We couldn't do it without her.

She brings them back to me, I sort them out into huge piles of colour and then choose 5 colours that go together and then label each bundle lovingly.

I won't even begin to describe Homer's club management and packing processes, it all goes on in his lovely cabin, so is a mystery to me.
I get the easy jobs, dyeing, washing, drying and labelling :-)

Looking forward to hearing if you've got them yet and do you like them?

Update day today

2011-10-13T11:27:00.000Z

We finally have Scheherazade back in stock and here's a preview
It will be in the shop at 1.30 ish
http://www.thenaturaldyestudio.com/new-this-week-214-c.asp

Before and after's

2011-10-11T09:43:00.000Z

Just had a quick photo shoot, its over now as we have tons of work to do.

But here are some before's and after's...

or rather after's and before's

Why I've fallen out of love with Twitter

2011-10-10T09:15:00.000Z

Since Homer joined NDS he has upped the workload, which is fab, but I don't have time to do all the things I need to do any more and something has to go, that thing is Twitter.

Before I became to busy to breathe I used to spend hours on Twitter chatting to my friends, I talked and they talked back, over the past few months I have been talking less and less and being talked to less and less.
So I have decided today is the day I do the unthinkable and delete almost all my friends, heck I've even deleted my own children and husband.
Deleting all my friends means deleting all the distractions, I find myself checking in even though I don't have the time and don't have anything to say.
I haven't deleted them because I don't like them, I've deleted them because I'm in contact with them in other places, so if you are one of my deleted friends please don't be offended. I have only kept people I don't see or talk to in any other place, all 2 of them and Sky news as I like to check the headlines.

I'm getting more and more frustrated with Twitter, I can't write in full sentences and as I don't have anything witty to say in 140 characters I don't say much at all.
But I have been spending more time on Facebook, in my NDS group, as I get to really talk to people, rather than write snippets.
To be honest I don't really like Facebook either, I only joined when my babies went to Uni as it was a good way to keep in touch, but the longer I've been there the more I've used it and intend to use it a lot more.

You can find the NDS group
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Natural-Dye-Studio/166548117409
And my profile
http://www.facebook.com/Queenieamanda

But I do like Ravelry, it has been the best on-line place in the world to be, I have formed friendships with customer's I have never met, keep in contact with my stockists and generally keep up with the woolly gossip.
I have all my yarn and patterns on Ravelry and it has been a brilliant marketing tool.
At the moment I have 2 groups
1 for NDS and the other for my crochet designs

You can find my profile here
http://www.ravelry.com/people/Queenieamanda
The NDS group here
http://www.ravelry.com/groups/i-love-the-natural-dye-studio
and my crochet group here
http://www.ravelry.com/groups/desirable-crochet-motifs

And finally the blog has suffered - I don't need to give you the link as you are already here :-)))))
I like blogging I can talk lots and lots of rubbish in my own place and you can comment on it.
So hopefully the death of my Twitter will mean the rebirth of my blog.

Love Queenie

Thanks for the feedback

2011-10-09T09:39:00.000Z

WOW - Thank you everyone for your thoughts and really helpful comments, both here, Facebook and Ravelry.
I really appreciate the time you took to consider my questions and reply to them.

The post really wasn't intended to be a "poor me" post, it was more of a "ummm, wonder what everyone else thinks??" I really hadn't intended to stop designing garments, but I do intend to concentrate on blankets and make garments in between as secondary projects.

I already had some idea's in my head, but wanted some second opinions.
Here's a precis of what you told me

1 - The photo's - Yes I already knew they were a problem, I do intend to re-photograph all my designs, but its finding the time in between everything else and remembering when my model's (daughter's) are here.
NDSMaisyMae is now working with us part time, so that solves half the problem, Madame Zhukov visits occasionally, so normally I forget as I'm so pleased to see her.

BUT I promise I will put photo's at the top of my list.

2 - The cost of the yarn. Sometimes I forget how expensive it is as it a perk of the job for me. I know if I didn't run NDS I couldn't afford to buy it, in fact I would be in Oxfam looking for old sweaters to frog and re-use.
And the fact that all the same dye lot is used makes it worse as you have to buy all the yarn at the same time, but in fact Elsa has 2 different dye lot's of slightly different colours, I ran out of the first and had to dye some more :-)

SO in future I will make single colour garments out of several different dye lots, its really easy to do with motifs as you can spread the colour changes about which means there is no nasty line in between the colour changes.

HOWEVER my newest garment doesn't solve either of these problems, I doubt I will ever sell the yarn to make it. But its for me rather than you, all I intend to do is share the pattern. I'm making it to replace my favourite comfort cardi which is nasty black acrylic bought from Primark years ago, I really shouldn't wear it in public, but love it so much I can't help myself.
Its started off as Dorothy, but I've re-named it Anna, as its my Anna Karenina cardi. I'm using 100 gms a night, thank goodness I dyed 2 kg's, the bit below is nearly 600 gms and its no where near finished.
It's going to have long arms and a long sweeping bottom.

3 - Blocking, I do block, but find it difficult as the motifs stretch in so many different directions at the same time. Also I don't have anywhere to block except for a garden table.
Obviously I must find a better solution and try harder :-)

4 - The project description on Ravelry. I tend to write what I think, rather than think about what I write. Guess everything I write should be tec edited :-)

I think I've covered everything, however so many of you have answered in so many places I might of missed something, let me know and I will answer here.

Again THANK YOU
Love Queenie

P.S

I thought you might like a sneaky preview of the first photo of my newest blanket. I would show you more, but its going to be published in a magazine in December, so this is all you get until then.
It's photographed (badly) next to the knitted blanket design its replacing.

Design conundrum

2011-10-08T08:48:00.000Z

In August I published 2 designs.

The first was Elsa.
Elsa took me to hell and back, I really struggled getting the waterfall right and writing the pattern was a struggle - thankfully I had my trusty Valerie at my side who lead me through it.
I was really pleased with Elsa and had some brilliant feedback from people who's opinions I respect.
But Elsa has been almost ignored, she didn't get the reception I thought she would, maybe its because of the photo's, but I have other designs photographed on a mannequin that had lots and lots more comments.
To date I have only sold one pattern.
I am disappointed, as I thought I was going in the right direction to be taken seriously as a grown up designer, obviously not!

The second was Lily
The response has been amazing.
I published the pattern for free on Ravelry and have had nearly 2000 downloads to date, we have also sold about 50kgs of yarn which is amazing.

Lily is still being downloaded every day and the yarn is still selling well.

The reception of these 2 patterns has really perplexed me.
Why has Lily been so successful when Elsa wasn't?
Is it because blankets look easier?
Is it because of the photo's?
Is Elsa out of most crocheters comfort zones?
And what do I do next?
Do I concentrate on blankets, because obviously they sell more yarn and we need to sell yarn to be able to live, if we didn't I be in Tesco's stacking shelves and Homer would be a job that makes him unhappy and NDS would die.
Don't get me wrong I love making blankets, I love that I am able to use all the colours together. I've always thought garments are better in a single colour or maybe 2 or 3 at the most, otherwise they end up looking like granny squares.
Can I be taken seriously as a designer if I specialise in blankets?

I'd love some feedback and answer's to my questions, so please feel free to tell me what you think?

8 life's left

2011-09-13T10:06:00.000Z

I forgot to share this.

We took the Zoom and van to Liverpool for no 1 wedding, there were too many of us to fit in either one, so we needed both.

I followed Homer in the van on the way home after Wonderwool, he unknowingly ran over a tire iron that flew up into the air and hit the Zoom. It hit Zoom's nose then bounced onto the bonnet, before hitting the edge of the roof. If Zoom had been a normal height car, it would of hit the windscreen at my face level.
I was very very lucky, the Zoom saved my life.

July 2011

2011-09-12T10:28:00.000Z

Two week's after the wedding and only 3 weeks after Woolfest, we did Knit Nation.
But were so exhausted we forgot to take any photo's.

The a couple of day's after Knit Nation we went to North Yorkshire for holiday for a couple of days.

We drove over this in the rain.

Spent the next day showing the Zoom the moors

Went to Scarborough and didn't ride a donkey

Went to York and didn't go and see the vikings, because Homer wanted to eat cake at Betty's and then we accidently visited a wool shop and then by that time it was too late. He promised me we will go back another day to see the vikings.

And stayed here, which was the perfect place for a few days away.

And the gratuitous baby photo

2011-09-12T10:18:00.000Z

They might be big and all growed up, but they are still my babies and I'm a very very proud mummy, constantly amazed by what brilliant people they have become.

And then this happened

2011-09-12T10:09:00.000Z

My biggest baby became a Russian Princess, that is according to her new Russian mummy.

The wedding photo's were amazing, Fep didn't opt for the normal wedding photographs, being Fep she wanted something a bit different and artistic, she trawled Flickr until she found some photo's she liked and asked the photographer if he would do her wedding photo's.

They were taken by a very nice man, who works in the music industry and happens to take amazing London landscapes.

June 2011

2011-09-11T18:05:00.000Z

Was my birthday.

We went to Pin Mill, I ate a pint of shell on prawns and we looked at the river.
I told Homer story's from my teenage years when I spent time sailing on Thames Barge's (as in the photo below).
My memories are of Ena, I wonder if she is still afloat...

Then we drove to Clacton and looked at the offshore wind farm.

I don't ever remember going to Clacton before, but I'm sure I have. We couldn't find an ice cream shop, so drove on to Jaywick and found even less chance of an ice cream.

Then it rained inside the farm

So Homer cleaned out all the gutters on the roof, trouble was it was a bit late for the poor flooded Romanian farm workers.

The we went to the Woolfest and Homer didn't take any photo's of NDS, but he did take photo's of our friend's stands.

May 2011

2011-09-11T11:35:00.001Z

The calender tells me that

The house sale finally went through. We paid off the mortgage and a couple of big loans and are no longer in debt - I'm still slightly in awe of the sense of relief it brought me.
I don't miss the house at all, I thought I would, but as I spent 90% of my life here at the farm working I had already moved on in my mind.
We are homeless nomads, but that's fine its far less stressful than being phoned every moment of the day and night because you can't pay the mortgage and having the constant threat of repossession over your head.

We went to Get Knitted in Bristol for a fabulous trunk show day

Then went on down to Devon to visit some wool shops and spend some quality time with our lovely friends, in the most beautiful unspoilt little town ever. We drank lots of wine, laughed a lot, I ate a stick of seaside rock and looked very fat.

Then we had a picnic in the forest for Baby's 21st birthday, with all the family except sadly for Son-in-Law no 1, he & Dais only had enough money for 1 train ticket.

I'll do some more months later, as my internet connection is about to be cut off, by Baby and Homer who are installing a network into the log cabin

Blog lapse

2011-09-11T10:57:00.001Z

Dear Blog

I'm sorry I haven't been near you for month's, but I've been so busy, I write blog posts in my mind, but never have the time to write it here.
Since Homer joined NDS he has increased our wholesale by 500% - or so he told me, I have no understanding of this statistic, but I know there's a lot more wool to dye.
You would not believe what we've been doing, I'll try and remember for you, but forgive me its been so much that I have already forgotten some of it.

I'm posting photo's that might jog my mind, my last post was our 25th wedding anniversary, so I have may, June, July, August and September to remember.

Love Queenie

Unplanned growth

2011-06-18T10:42:00.002Z

What do you do when nature refuses to be beaten?

You play along and pretend it was all part of your grand plan

I think nature will be doing a lot more unplanned growing in the next couple of weeks, we've had a huge amount of rain and soon to have a huge amount of sun.

We've lost the battle for a garden, but we can still pretend all the wild flower (weeds) were intentional.

Facebook

2011-06-08T09:23:00.000Z

Just a very quick update to let you know I'm still here. I've been pattern editing which is a total trauma for me.
I can draw, I can crochet, but I can't write, thank goodness I have found a brilliant tec editor who walks me though the struggle. But even still it takes me days.

I've also decided to awaken the Natural Dye Studio Facebook page.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Natural-Dye-Studio/166548117409
I didn't like Facebook, but joined years ago so I could communicate with my babies.
I still don't like Facebook, think I am influenced by my previous dislike.
But I'm spending more and more time there, so come and join us :-)

Have more to tell you, but need to go do dyeing, so it will have to wait until next time, maybe today, maybe tomorrow, who knows, watch this space!

Blue Face update

2011-06-03T08:58:00.000Z

Ok - so I updated yesterday, but forgot to tell the blog ;-(

So here are a couple of photo's to tempt you, I'm not going to tell you what they are, you have to go and look.
http://www.thenaturaldyestudio.com/new-this-week-214-c.asp
They are all Blue Faced Leicester, sometimes I forget how much I love it.
I spend a lot of time dyeing vast quantities of it for wholesale that I'm not allowed to steal, that when I do dye some for retail I forget to take my angel's share.
But a couple of dye sessions ago I dyed a stunning dark purple/blue, unfortunately one of the skeins of Shimmer was tangled so I had to keep it.
I've just finished using it and it was a dream to work with, I loved its plumpness, the subtle sheen of silk and the finished item - sigh.....
Wish I had the time to use all the yarn I love all the time, maybe I should make a rota.......

More Scheherazade

2011-05-20T10:17:00.000Z

These will all be on the site next week, probably Monday or Tuesday.

There is only 1 skein of each colour, if you want a skein join our mailing list, as I'll be mailing the list to say when the update is. You can find it in the top right hand corner of our homepage.

http://www.thenaturaldyestudio.com/

Scheherazade

2011-05-19T09:24:00.001Z

I am in the process of test dyeing a new yarn.
And its totally amazing and beautiful and stunning and soft and smooth and will have an amazing drape.
I already have an extra special shawl design in mind

Its going to be called Scheherazade 4 Ply.
65% Silk/35% Baby Camel - 400 metres
I’m afraid its going to be expensive, but for me its worth every penny.
£21.95 per 100 gms

One of the many reasons its so special is the colour, the undyed yarn is a pale beige as its un-bleached. This means a whole new set of colours.

Here is the first skein, its dyed with indigo, but is totally different to our normal blue. The colour of the photo isn’t quite right, but you get the idea.

Deleted

2011-05-18T10:57:00.000Z

Thought I'd better delete most of yesterday's post.
Obviously I was having a really grumpy day.
We still have lots of non NDS stuff going on in the background.
I find it difficult to understand why some parts of our life are perfect and positive and running smoothly and the rest is a total nightmare.
Hopefully we will get it all sorted out soon.
And its better that I get angry rather than sit in a corner gently rocking myself and crying :-)

Tinuviel

2011-05-17T16:16:00.002Z

Tinuviel, who I am very proud to say was featured in November 2010's edition of The Knitter.
A big Thanks go to The Knitter for their support.

You can find the pattern on Ravelry here - http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/tinuviel-crochet-lace-shawl

P.S

2011-04-25T10:18:00.002Z

I forgot to say

To Homer

You are my whole world - I love you

25 years ago

2011-04-25T10:06:00.000Z

I should be writing this post tomorrow, but we are having a whole day off tomorrow, so I won't be able to.
I have been thinking about writing this post for a long time, I have an awful lot to say, it might be a bit emotional and possibly sad, but overall it will be full of happiness and love.

On the 26th of April 1986 we did this.

It wasn't the wedding I wanted and the dress was hideous, the head dress was even worse.
But it was the thing I wanted, my parents organised everything , we were completely rubbish. If they hadn't given us this day I might not feel as effected as I do today.
Sadly my mother died a couple of years ago, I know she would of been upset at the way our life has turned out, but she would of been very happy and celebrated our milestone with us.

We had planned exciting things for our 25th wedding anniversary. We didn't want a party with presents, we wanted everyone to give us a tank of petrol so we could drive the Zoom to Rome, where hopefully all our family and close friends would meet us and we could celebrate in style.
Instead of which we will be driving the Zoom around Suffolk and celebrating on our own.
If you read the blog you will know what happened to our plans, if you don't read the blog I will give you a quick precis.
Redundancy, NDS and a race to sell the house before its repossessed. Plus both our daughter's getting married a few weeks either side of our anniversary, oh and of course NDS again!

Please note the very carefully placed flowers, that I was hopeing would hide the fact I was 4 months pregnant and already huge. Feppy has always been larger than life and impossible to hide, think I needed bigger flowers

I have felt very sad about our lack of celebration, I'm incredibly proud that we made it to 25 and felt very despondant that we wouldn't have the chance to share it.
Over the past couple of months we have been so busy with NDS and Daisy's wedding and more NDS that I am almost too tired to care. A day alone in the Zoom together is going to be perfect.

Like I say the headdress/veil thingie was hideous, I didn't want one, I just wanted flowers, but at the last moment before we got in the car to go to the church my mother decided I needed one. I had no idea what I looked like until I saw the photo's.
I hated the dress too, the one I wanted was a beautiful brocade floral renaissance dress that I had seen in a magazine, but as I was expanding weekly I needed a dress that would expand with me.
Mum made it, she was an expert seamstress, which was very lucky as it had to be let out every time I tried it on - Thanks Fep :-)

Homer and I haven't had an easy life together, but the one constant through out is how much we have always loved each other. We've been through epilepsy, cancer, massive negative equity, gigantic debt problems, his job taking him away from us when the kids where small, his job taking his mind over until I almost didn't know him.
But its also been amazing and fantastic and full of laughter and happiness.
3 amazingly talented, beautiful children who have turned out to be 3 amazing talented adults who we are still incredibly close to. I'm so proud we made them and sometimes find it difficult to believe how lucky we are to have them in our life.

I love this photo of us with our respective grandma's. Both of them amazing strong women, who had a powerful influence on our lives. I would go into their historys here, but I think this post is going to be too long already, so will leave it for another day.
My Bessie was one of 16 children born to a poor family in Lincolnshire, she worked hard and always knitted or crocheted, she has been my inspiration as a designer, my first design published was Bessie's Blanket and was made in her honour, thanks to her I have discovered my wings and continue to fly.
Homer's Ra lived a far more affluent life than Bessie, but didn't settle into it comfortably, she had her own milliner's and went on to become a very well respected florist who traveled the world teaching others her skills.

And now we are metaphorically jumping off a cliff together, we move out of our house on thursday to become technically homeless, we don't have a choice, if we don't sell and move out we will be repossessed. Luckily we have friends and family who will support us until we find somewhere to live.
Leaving the house is going to be heartbreaking, we have lived there for 15 years, the kids all grew up there, its their childhood home and the fact it is 200 yards away from the farm gate makes it impossible not to be reminded of every day.

However we live in a total blissful bubble, we are together, sharing our NDS adventure, who knows where it will take us, who knows we'll be doing next week or next month or next year.
We have got each other and NDS has got us, between the 3 of us we will move onwards and upwards.

And when we get to our 50th wedding anniversary its our turn to have the party, both the girls have been told their 25th's will be celebrated with us big style.
Maybe I should tell our son-in-law and our soon to be son-in-law or maybe I should leave it as a big surprise for them:-))))

So if you fancy raising a glass to us tomorrow, know that you are part of our virtual party and that we are celebrating in style zooming round Suffolk being in love.

Just discovered

2011-04-24T09:07:00.002Z

That there is a little button on Flickr that says share with blogger.
If I press the little button my flickr photo's appear here.

Doing a happy happy dance :-))

Oh and happy easter everyone.

Miranda - work in progress

2011-04-24T09:04:00.003Z

I have been working on Miranda, until Friday she looked like a screwed up rag, but a few extra motifs placed in the relevant places and Miranda underwent a huge transformation.

Stardust

2011-04-21T09:06:00.000Z

Introducing STARDUST

A lovely soft wool lace yarn, with a lovely stitch definition, a slight shimmer of silk and lightly speckled with flecks of star dust, truly beautiful.

800 Metres/874 Yards per 100 gms

75% Merino, 20% Silk, 5% Stellina

On the site at 3pm today, you will be able to find it HERE

Stupid van

2011-04-20T10:27:00.000Z

After the wedding we spent a few days in the north west visiting customers and generally relaxing with our friend.

On the Thursday we set sail for Wonderwool, the sun was shining, Wales was truly beautiful - all was good with our world.
We got to the show ground, set up the stand which looked stunning, then set off to our B&B.
2 miles away the van lost power, luckily Homer managed to steer it across the traffic into a tiny back road.
We sat playing I Spy for an hour and a half till the AA man turned up.
He shook his head and said tut tut, thought it was the fuel pump in which case it meant towing the van back to Suffolk.
So as you can imagine that put us into a huge dilemma, the zoom was still in Cheshire at our friend's house, we had 2 days show ahead of us, and after the show we needed to get our remain stock home. The only van hire in Builth was a local van hire which meant we would of had to take the hire van back to Wales.
So the AA man towed the van back to the show ground, said he would get the garage to look at it the next morning, lovely friends came to pick us up from the show ground to take us back to the B&B and we drank lots of beer.

Next day was the first of day of the show, we had an amazing day, true to his word the AA man turned up with the man from the garage and managed to weld some wires together to get the van going again. He said it would get us to Cheshire and then home again, but not much further.
Which it did.

So last week it was at Shaun's (our lovely local garage man) being fixed. To be truly fixed it would of cost us about £1,500, but Shaun managed to do a permanent bodge job that cost a third of the original quote.

On Saturday we were back on the road again, this time to Newcastle for a trunk show at The Knit Studio.
We had a fabulous weekend, even though the van was making a bizarre noise in first gear. We thought it was Shaun's bodge job settling in.

How wrong were we?????
We got to Newcastle and back no problem, yesterday Homer went out to buy cream of tartar and string for dyeing, I thought he was taking a long time.
He arrived back at the farm smiling (I think it was hysterical smiling) and beckoned me over to the cab to show me the gear stick which was very very floppy. he had driven home 12 miles home from our nearest Tesco's (who are the only ones which big enough amounts of cream of tartar) in second gear.

So we managed to drag the van back to Shaun and are now looking at a massive bill for a new gearbox. Luckily we don't need it for another 3 weeks when we go to Get Knitted, but even still its still a disaster.

I used to love my van, I'm not so sure anymore and I'm certainly not talking to it at the moment!!!

The offending vehicle when it still worked

We are a bit tired

2011-04-05T12:46:00.000Z

The first wedding is over.
We had an amazing sunny day, I don't remember feeling so happy and energetic for a very long time, not to say I'm unhappy with my life, because I'm not, however it is very exhausting.
You will have to excuse my seriously dyslexic blog post, but I'm struggling to put the words in any coherant order.

My baby is a married.
Mark and Daisy were officially married at 10.15 am in Liverpool registry office.

The look on Mark's face in the registry office sent Feppy and I off into floods of tears, the registrar had to stop and hand us a box of tissue's. I know we have given Daisy Maisy Mae away to the right man.

15 minutes of being married and they had already separated.
The family ceremony was in St Luke's bombed out church at 3pm and we needed to get them ready to perform to the crowd.

I had dreams of this image a long time ago. It holds a special place in my memory's as we had a wedding card 25 years ago that has stuck with me. I wanted my girlies to have the same experience of togetherness and excitement that I remember from the card.

And then Homer proudly walked her up the aisle in the sunshine.

And for the second time in a day they were married.

We celebrated with all our close family and freinds until the early hours of the morning, it really was a golden day that we will remember for ever.
A massive Thanks go to Terri, who made it all happen while we were busy playing with wool.

Oh and Feppy - you're next!

Totally drained

2011-03-25T15:29:00.000Z

As if leading my life wasn't exhausting enough, today I have conquered a demon.

I don't make garments because I can't write garment patterns and really wasn't good enough to design garments.
But over the last few month's I have been developing some new garment making techniques,
I've lots of idea's of how to shape garments made of motifs, I'm not saying they haven't been done before, but I'm not sure if they have.
I certainly can't find them anywhere.

I have been sooooo scared of writing my idea's up as a pattern that I haven't done it. Its ok making things for myself because I only have me to keep happy. But the thought of putting a pattern out into the world that I can't explain is only asking for trouble.
But every time I wear one of my garments to a show people ask for the pattern, I normally shuffle my feet and say no, but not anymore!

Its taken me all week and I feel like I've been to hell and back, but I can proudly say -
I HAVE WRITTEN MY FIRST GARMENT PATTERN!
I had a lot of proof reading help from some wonderful Ravelry girls, I couldn't of done it without them.

So without further ado here's Dulcie
You can find her on Ravelry - http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/queenies-dulcie-crochet-sweater

Ooops - after all that fuss I've just remembered my Juliet top, but as there isn't really any shaping it doesn't really count - right???

Why we're not blogging at the moment.

2011-03-17T10:10:00.000Z

Because in the next 2 months we are so busy that there aren't enough hours in the day to do everything.
So here's the list.....

In the next 2 weeks we need to..
Dye, wash, dry, wind & label - 60 kgs of retail yarn (for Wonderwool)
Dye, wash, dry, wind & label - 20 kgs of wholesale yarn
Pack and move out of our house, put everything in storage, then find somewhere to live.
Build our new office/design studio before the wood gets rained on and ruined
Help organise Daisy and Mark's wedding

In April we will be..
Attending the wedding in Liverpool
Visiting stockists in the north west
Attending Wonderwool.
Having a trunk show at

The Knit Studio, Newcastle upon Tyne

Sunday April 17th 2011

11.00 - 15.30

Celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary or rather sleeping through our 25th wedding anniversay trying to regain a bit of energy before May's events.

In May we will be...

Having a trunk show at

Get Knitted, Bristol 7th May 2011 - from 10am

Visiting stockists in the south west

Dye, wash, dry, wind & label - 30 kgs of wholesale yarn of the pre orders we have at the moment

Celebrating Fred's 21st birthday.

Helping Feppy organise her wedding

and then finishing off with her wedding and meeting and entertaining her new Russian in-laws.

In June we will be mostly be sleeping or rather we would be in a alternative reality as there is Woolfest at the end of the month...

Angel DK

2011-03-02T13:40:00.000Z

Angel DK - http://www.thenaturaldyestudio.com/angel-dk-264-c.asp

Circe - 3 skeins

Erica - 3 skeins

March Hare - 7 skeins

Rose bud - 3 skeins

Tinkerbell 2 skeins

White queen - 6 skeins

Dazzle DK

2011-03-02T12:36:00.000Z

Dazzle DK - http://www.thenaturaldyestudio.com/dazzle---blue-faced-leicester-dk-179-c.asp

Petunia - 5 skeins

Friar Tuck - 3 skeins

Ursula - 6 skeins

Caterpillar - 5 skeins

Red Queen - 8 skeins

Dazzle Aran

2011-03-02T11:33:00.000Z

Dazzle Aran - http://www.thenaturaldyestudio.com/dazzle-bfl-aran-295-c.asp

Circe - 10 skeins

Erica - 9 skeins

Fauna - 4 skeins

Flora - 5 skeins

Flora and Fauna were dyed in the same dyebath at the same time, there is a difference in colour but they will blend together.

Red Queen - 9 skeins

Long time, no blog

2011-03-02T11:14:00.000Z

Since Homer gave up his grown up job and became full time NDS we have been actively building NDS. Now every moment of every day is full, its a struggle to find time to eat let alone blog.
We have just come back from the Unravel show at Farnham and 2 days visiting stockists, I would like to spend the day in bed relaxing, but life isn't that easy.
Today I will be adding all our stock to the site, so yarn will be appearing all day.
Watch the site closely, because some of it will disappear before it has time to settle :-)

Decay & Rebirth

2011-02-06T16:57:00.000Z

February is a strange month....it is still technically winter, and whilst everything that is going to die or wilt will have done so by now, there are early signs of spring starting to squeeze the winter back in its box. So Loki and I set off around the countryside for a ramble and along the way I thought that this would be a good blog subject. The following pictures run through the decay that we found on our walk, and the hope that comes at this time of year...

I'm always impressed how long the oak can hang on to its leaves for, it is literally the arrival of the new leaves that 'push' the old leaves off the twigs...I love this photo as it shows the dead leaves clinging on and the new leaf buds starting to emerge

WARNING!!

2011-01-28T10:26:00.002Z

Coming soon to a yarn shop near you.

Its bloodier in real life, I had to take this photo indoors - the stupid weather is yuk and grey. There will be better photo's next week when its re-wound into skeins.

Precious lace and Dazzle HT

Sir Hiss etc etc

2011-01-25T12:51:00.000Z

The almost start of another week and the start of a new running update.

In the shop now we have....

Kanga Dazzle DK x 5 skeins

Peter Pan Dazzle Sock x 5 skeins

Sir Hiss Dazzling Sock x 5 skeins

Tigger Dazzling Sock x 5 skeins

Tweedledum Dazzle Sock x 5 skeins

Tweedledee Dazzle Sock x 5 skeins

White Rabbit Angel DK x 10 skeins

A dull day in January

2011-01-22T12:18:00.000Z

Woke up this morning and it was dull and grey.....again....I think we've seen the sun once this month so I really hope that this will come to an end soon.

As Queenie is taking a dyeing break this weekend, as we managed to move about 60 kilos in the last week between us I think she's earned one, I thought I'd use the time to catch up on a bit of walking. So my long suffering hairy companions and I set off across the marshes to take in the sights at Shingle Street and find the sun...but all we found was mud, wading birds, and more grey...who says you have to go to the north yorkshire moors to find bleakness! I have to say though I am happy with my bleakness :-)
As we rolled down onto the shoreline there was a magnificent sight out to sea......on the little islands that appear at the mouth of the river literally hundreds of Cormorants had gathered, I've never seen so many in one place at one time. This photo doesn't really give you the scale of the event but it does give you an idea...that black line in the water is all cormorants.

Ted and Loki play happily in the surf, and Felice just look we have a beach in Suffolk to rival anything in Thailand...just look at all that sand! Haha

Tomorrow I'm picking up Fred and we meeting Grandma in Aldeburgh for another beach wander, the dogs will be excited.

The last this week

2011-01-21T14:32:00.000Z

http://www.thenaturaldyestudio.com/new-this-week-214-c.asp

Lots more next week :-)))

Briar Rose Dazzle Sock x 5 skeins

Maleficent Dazzle Aran x 10 skeins

Maleficent Dazzle DK x 5 skeins

Peter Pan Dazzle HT Sock x 5 skeins

And while I'm here

2011-01-20T13:07:00.000Z

Talking about being proud of my family...

I need to mention Feppy and her Moonpie who will also be getting married this year, not sure she is going to like me using this photo, but it is her profile picture on Facebook.
How can you not love them and be proud, both following their dreams and carving their own careers out of nothing.

And Baby, who is just the biggest BT superstar and personal Fallout consultant to his mummy.

Team Thomson

2011-01-20T12:58:00.001Z

Maisy Mae and Mark graduating from Liverpool Uni last year.

We woke up to a text this morning from Maisy Mae, saying that her Mark had been offered an un-conditional place at Manchester Uni to do his MA.

We're sooooo happy and proud of him (and her).

Officially and biologically he's not our's (his mummy wouldn't be happy if I said he was:-), but we love him just as if he was

He is one of our family and later this year will become legally one of ours when they get married.

Their life will not be an easy one, following your dream is bloody hard work, you need to make sacrifices most people wouldn't consider and refuse to ever give up.

But they will be following their dream together and we will behind them all the way.

YAY! GO TEAM THOMSON YOU ROCK!!!

Peter Pan

2011-01-20T11:38:00.000Z

Yet more....
http://www.thenaturaldyestudio.com/new-this-week-214-c.asp

Cinderella Shimmer Lace x 5 skeins

Flora Dazzling Sock x 5 skeins

Maleficent Dazzle Sock x 5 skeins

Peter Pan Dazzle Aran x 10 skeins

Maleficent & friends

2011-01-19T12:18:00.000Z

Today's offering is......
http://www.thenaturaldyestudio.com/new-this-week-214-c.asp

Bambi Dazzle sock x 4 skeins

Flower Dazzle HT sock x 5 skeins

Maleficent Angel 2 ply lace x 5 skeins

Merryweather Dazzle HT sock x 5 skeins

Wendy Dazzling sock x 5 skeins

Wendy is Tinkerbell but with a hint of green

More Tinkerbell

2011-01-18T13:50:00.002Z

In the SHOP today we have.....

Esmeralda Dazzle Aran x 10 skeins

Tinkerbell Dazzle DK x 4 skeins

Oh and I forgot

2011-01-17T11:23:00.002Z

Poor Cinderella

Dazzling Sock x 3 skeins

A little something to make you smile

2011-01-17T11:00:00.000Z

On a nasty wet grey January day, here's a little something to cheer you up - NEW THIS WEEK

Bambi Dazzling Sock x 5 skeins

Esmeralda Angel DK x 10 skeins

Emeralda Dazzling Sock x 5 skeins

Esmeralda Shimmer Lace x 5 skeins

Thumper Dazzle HT Sock x 5 skeins

Thumper Shimmer Lace x 5 skeins

Tinkerbell Angel DK x 10 skeins

Tinkerbell Shimmer Lace x 5 skeins

So the season to be jolly has passed.....roll on the Easter bunny!

2011-01-16T18:38:00.000Z

It's been a while since I last blogged.
Over the last month I have so nearly blogged several times, but for one reason or another it just didn't happen, so this is an amalgam of my thoughts and experiences over the past month....the season of good will, alcohol and shed loads of grub!
My last blog was written after we had finished our trunk show experience, which was great fun but we were both happy to finally collapse and know that we didn't have to go anywhere else until New Year.

What will stay with me for many years was the weather that followed us into December and stayed with us until the week before Christmas. Loki, Ted and I went hunting in the snow and freezing temperatures, and despite the layers the cold still managed to get in and so the only way to keep warm was to walk hard and fast...here's Loki emerging for the pristine crystalised heather having put up a rabbit and is desperately trying to see where it went!

As we closed in towards Christmas Day my darling babies started to come home, with their respective partners. Felice and Phil were home first, on 21st, and the day after they arrived Felice and I set up home in the kitchen and cooked for the whole day! Here's a little taster of what we got up to :-)

After all that cooking it was time to get out and about and blow away some of the floury cobwebs...so I went to the beach with my 4-legged boys and it was wild...here is my best effort to give you a flavour of what it was like on the shingle at the mouth of the Ore, it's only a mile from the house and we're so lucky to live with such wonderful places on our doorstep.

Two days before Xmas the family volume cranked up with the arrival of Daisy, Mark and Fred. Queenie, Felice and I went to Ipswich to pick them up from Fred's new house, then off to Makro for a MEGA-shop...and oh my god it was a big shop...we filled two Makro trolleys and filled the van with food and drink. We strapped Mark in the back of the van and off we rolled to happy Hollesley for 4 days of drinking, eating, laughing, playing cards, music and 'morning after' cures (!!).
Here at last Xmas morning...we have as tradition in the family that goes back several years, that Xmas morning is always accompanied by Bucks Fizz and Salmon sandwiches...so I thought I'd include them in the Xmas morning photo set.

...and then it was past all too soon...on the 27th the family dissembled...Daisy and Mark headed back to Liverpool (for work), Felice and Phil set off for London to pack for Thailand (you can see more on Felice's blog http://www.feptopiachronicles.blogspot.com), and Fred got a lift back to Ipswich to do it all over again with his mates that night!...and peace descended.

The next day I left Queenie with complete peace and trundled off to meet my brothers for a meal at Snape Crown, and then back to Knodishall where we left the cars and strolled to the Parrot & Punchbowl in Aldringham where we whiled away the night consuming copious quantities of Adnams Broadside...here they are in their full glory some time during the evening! (my brothers that is, not the Broadside heehee).

We spent the next couple of days sorting the house out, then we packed and left for Chester to see the New Year in with our special woolly friends. We filled the van with wine and nibbles, and trekked off up the A14 to join the festive flow.

We love Chester, and this is our second New Year's here. It is a majestic city with such a depth of history, and on New Years Day we walked the city walls which are steeped in this history with plaques every few hundred yards with detailed history of the city and how that part of the wall fitted into that history.
I'm afraid no photos as the effort of getting out if bed in the morning was as much as we could bear, struggling to make it up before midday (!!), and that wasn't just NY morning haha. So you have a photo of Chester main street.
On 2nd it was my birthday, and on our walk on NY we found a restaurant by the river that grabbed my attention - Hickory's - and so I booked and Daisy and Mark came and joined us for evening. We drank cocktails all night, although Mark was on alcohol-free cocktails as he'd made a NY resolution to cut out alcohol, and I was injured by some "suicide" wings and so I got my revenge on the BBQ rack of ribs!

Finally the festivities had to end..on 3rd January we rolled back down the M6 to a very grey Suffolk, and we were welcomed into the New Year with grey skies and rain....only 343 days to go to
the next one ;-)

..and to sign off, today I went walking and it felt like spring...I don't think it will last as the freeze will return, but the sight of skylarks playing, a Yellowhammer in the hedgerow, and birds everywhere just enjoying the temperature change, was heart warming and I look forward to Spring with a renewed fervour.

Not pastel

2011-01-07T14:18:00.003Z

Occasionally while eavesdropping on the stand at shows I hear people saying they don't like pastels.

I get ever so slightly annoyed, I don't dye pastels!!

I dye subtle beautiful complex colour.

As illustrated by the stuff on the shelf above my desk

Christmas break & Sabine

2011-01-05T09:51:00.000Z

Yesterday was our first day back at work after our long Christmas break, it was a break from the dye studio, but not from work. Being an on-line business means we are logged on 24/7, so one of us is always at the other end of an e-mail.
We slept, ate, drank to much, laughed with our family and friends - taking time off is exhausting, am so glad to be back to work, maybe now I can catch up on lost sleep.
I won't go into more detail instead of which I'll let Homer post all his photo's and tell you the stories.

I spent most of my time off designing and making a new sweater. I'm so excited by it, I feel like its really turned a corner in motif design. I've almost finished the fat version for me, when I have worked out the measurements for the smaller sizes I will get it tested and it will be a pattern for later on in the year.

Before our Christmas break I made Sabine, its a variation of my Circles blanket, but I worked out how to join the blocks as I crocheted rather than sew them altogether afterwards. I'm rather chuffed as I think it would be a brilliant man scarf. Its made with Angel sock, so is extra soft and cuddly, but can be made with Dazzle sock and if yours won't wear it in Nutmeg, we have several man colours that would be perfect.
The pattern will be available in a couple of days.

10% January Sale

2010-12-29T12:45:00.001Z

In case you don't get out mailing list mail I have cut and pasted it here.
Dear Mailing list

We hope you all had a lovely Christmas, ours was hectic with all of our grown up children and partners.
You may have noticed we are not dyeing and updating at the moment, but there is lots of lovely yarn on the website. We will start dyeing again the first week in January.
Most of you will know that the UK will be incresing VAT on January the 4th, unfortunately this will mean we have to rise our prices.
We have decided to keep our prices the same until the 1st of February. This will give you a few more weeks to recover from Christmas..
We have also decided to have a January sale as a special “Thank You” to all our loyal customers. The sale will start today and end in the middle of January. There will be a 10% discount on everything in the shop.

A quick club reminder - You have 2 day’s until the January to June 6 month club sign-ups close.

And finally a huge “THANK YOU” to all of your support, 2010 has been a exciting and momentous year for us and NDS, we couldn’t have done it without you.

Have a very Happy New Year
Amanda & Phil

The last update of 2010

2010-12-20T15:39:00.000Z

Part of tomorrow's update.
Plus lots of Dazzle sock, Sphinx HT and a little bit of Dazzle HT that is being wound now.
Then that's it until next year - do you know how weird that sounds to me?

2 kgs of Queenies Love - Silver and Cinnamon
500 gms of Sphinx HT - Nutmeg
1 kg of Dazzle Aran - Sage
1 kg of Baby Alpaca Chunky - Lavender

Last kilo until 2011

2010-12-19T14:30:00.001Z

Is in the dye bath now.
We have lots of yarn to go on-line this week and then that's it until the new year.
When we start dyeing again we will be dyeing lots of aran and a little bit of chunky.
Earlier in the week I was rather surprised at the reception the aran got, it was all sold within a hour of being on-line. So you can expect much much more, I am dyeing a kilo of each colour, so there is enough for you to make a sweater out of.

We are having a few day's off, when I say off I don't mean that in a holiday type way I mean that we will be relaxing and pottering and making plans for 2011.
I have lots of designing to do, including a design commission for a magazine, a scarf version of the circles blanket and a sweater for me, if it works it will become a pattern.
It started off being worked in rows, but I lost inspiration, frogged it and am now much happier crocheting it as a motif sweater.

I will leave you with this, a preview of the super soft baby alpaca chunky which will be on-line later this week. Be quick there is only 1 kilo :-)

Yesterday's rant

2010-12-18T10:52:00.000Z

I've just had a e-mail from a small dyer who was worried I was ranting about her.
I wasn't.
Instead I'm humbled and flattered that she would take the time to write to me.

To the small dyer
Thank you for listening, thank you for having integrity, respect and understanding.
I hope you do really well.

Read this bloody stupid copy cats!

2010-12-17T15:13:00.001Z

Its tantrum time again, I haven't had one for a while although I have thought about writing this post or a similar one for ages.

Today I was wandering around Ravelry clicking links to hand dyer's sites like I do from time to time and I came across a hand dyer on one of the UK Etsy type sites. Of the 60ish yarns she had for sale at least 75% were my colours or rather colour ways that I dye and have dyed in the past. Not only are the colours very similar but so are some of the names and yarn types.

Normally I ignore copy cats as its just not worth my time getting hysterical, I have too much else to do, but this time I boiled. There are several other reasons why I am boiling about this particular dyer, but I'm not going to go into them here.

Copy cats are a hazard of my job, it happens all the time, its annoying that someone has copied an original idea, it shows a complete lack of original thought and respect.
I have never knowingly copied anyone, I might have done as a coincidence, but it was unintentional and I apologise to any one who thinks I have.

I think I am especially angry and protective about NDS at the moment because it is our sole source of income, to put it simply if we don't sell yarn we don't eat.

This is what I'd like to say to the copiers both present and future.

Do you really think copying is the way to create a successful business.
What are you hoping to achieve?
To steal our customers?
Do you know the energy and time and dedication it takes to make a business work?
Do you know the sacrifices involved, do you want to lose holiday's, weekend's, sick day's, your house?
Go find your own inspirations.
Use your brain!
Work out your own plan, your own usp
Give me a bit of respect and STOP BLOODY COPYING ME!!!!!!!

Aran & Queenies Love update

2010-12-17T10:43:00.001Z

Homer knitted a swatch of Queenies Love last night, he told me he hated it with a huge grin on his face - he's such a big liar!!
Then asked if I can dye it in man colours, if not he might have to force himself to knit me a sweater.
I wish I could keep all of it, I have 2 skeins sitting on my desk as I type, I really don't want to put them on the site, but until I have finished the cuddly Angel sweater I am making I can't justify the theft - sigh....
Its going to run out soon as there was only 50 kgs spun as a sample and a couple of my competitors seem to love it too.
As far as I know there is more arriving in January, so it might not be too far away.

I don't normally dye aran as I've always thought I can't sell it, stupid me - of course I couldn't sell it in the summer! So now as its winter its selling like hot cakes.
My new Dazzle aran is beautiful and soft and I can see a lovely warm snuggly full length cardi in its future, I know we will be very happy together.

Now I have done a bit of lyrical waxing I can share with you today's update.

Snow Cloud - Dazzle Aran - 10 skeins - Even though all 10 skeins come from the same dye bath there is a slight colour difference between them.

Snow Cloud - Dazzle Sock - 5 skeins

Empress - Dazzle Aran - 10 skeins - The colour might be a bit too vivid, it's so vibrant in real life and is difficult to capture. Even though all 10 skeins come from the same dye bath there is a slight colour difference between them.

Fern - Dazzle Sock - 5 skeins

Fern - Queenies Love - 10 skeins

Fern - Sphinx HT - 5 skeins

Nightshade - Queenies Love - 9 skeins

Nightshade - Sphinx HT - 5 skeins

Running update

2010-12-15T14:11:00.000Z

Those of you who receive our newsletter will already know we are going to be updating our site with new yarn as soon as its dyed, dried and wound. It makes life easier for us in the run up to Christmas.

We might even keep our updates in the same format, who knows, we will have to wait and see.

I will blog them both here and in our Ravelry group, you can find the update thread HERE

Anyway enough dithering, here is the first update and the all important link to our "NEW THIS WEEK" page

Alder - Dazzle Sock - 5 skeins

Bluebell - Sphinx HT - 5 skeins

Empress - Sphinx HT - 5 skeins

Victoria - Queenies Love - 10 skeins

Tinuviel

2010-12-15T09:44:00.001Z

Tinuviel was featured in issue 29 of The Knitter. I don't think the photo's do Tinuviel justice, so here she is in her full glory.

And a huge THANKS to Emma who did most of the crocheting :-)

A few photos from our travels

2010-12-13T10:43:00.000Z

Following up from Queenie's post earlier this month, I've now found time to download a few photos from our travels.

Unfortunately my camera got left in the van at Knutsford but Riana has kindly posted some photos on her facebook account - here's the link http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=37042&id=155331967832043

Similarly after battling through the snow into Newcastle, and having got a bit lost around Chinatown the main aim was to get everything into Anne's stunning studio as quick as possible (which was no mean feat wheeling a trolley through the thick snow)...so camera got left in the van again. but as always there is someone on hand to save the day, and at Anne's Ravelry group you can find a photo, so comments and I'm sure if you search there will be more :-)) http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/the-knit-studio/1263744/26-50#27

So here is what I have from our travels around the wonderful wool shops of northern England, meeting some lovely people, and experiencing the onset of winter.

What we woke up to the morning after the Knit Studio show.........

On the road from Newcastle to Chester, via the Lakes....we wanted to visit friends in Penrith but the weather denied us the pleasure, however I did manage to get some photos when we stopped at Tebay Services on the M6. Here are the photos on the road out of Newcastle...

...and what I managed to take at Tebay...

....and so the day ended....(taken from the van, so a bit fuzzy but still quite impressive)

On to Manchester last Wednesday.....Queenie setting up at Purl City and some good Manchurian hospitality...

...then over to Leeds to Baa Ram Ewe and a lively evening with woolly friends....

Queenie and Verity

...and some photos of the event..

On Friday morning we woke up (slightly road worn!) and trooped off to Laxton Spinning Mill in Guiseley for a meeting with James Laxton, and a viewing of his spinning facility. No photos I'm afraid but it was a very interesting visit, and I am pleased to say I now understand a little more about how this wonderful business works.

Then it was home to collapse and recuperate before further exploits in 2011, and just so there were no illusions about the fact the weather had left an indelible mark on the landscape when we pulled into the car park at the services on the A1 around Nottingham parking was still rather awkward!!

Thanks to everyone on our travels that made us feel so welcome and we look forward to hitting the road again in January for more woolly fun :-)

A special thank you goes out to Andy (Bluefaced) without whom our travels would have been nowhere near as much fun, cheers mate.

Found a couple of photo's

2010-12-09T12:18:00.002Z

Two new yarns coming very soon to a yarn shop near you or rather website - http://www.thenaturaldyestudio.com

Sphinx HT

And Dazzle Aran

Busy, busy, busy

2010-12-09T11:32:00.002Z

We have been very busy bee's and a bit useless about blogging.
What have we been doing since we last blogged?

To start with about 70 or 80 kgs of wholesale, which takes a lot of time and concentration.
Then our first 2 trunk shows at Fibre + Clay and The Knit Studio, we had a fantastic time at both of them.

Spent a lovely relaxing day at Fibre + Clay, sitting in a little room surrounded by our yarn and crochet, it was like being at a show, but much more relaxed and we had time to talk to our customers, which is something we don't do enough of.
Also Daisy Maisy works for Riana at Fibre + Clay, so we spent the day with her too, it was a bit weird seeing how grown up she is, I've only ever seen her selling when she works for NDS, so to hear her speak with knowledge about Noro and Rowan and discussing patterns and problems with customers was a bit of a shock.
Guess most parents never see their children working at their work, so can safely think of them as still being their babies.
I should think it would be an even bigger shock to watch Baby at his grown up BT job, I wouldn't know him, at least I know the world Daisy Maisy works in.

After a night in Chester with our best-est woolly friend's we went to Newcastle on the weekend the snow hit big time. People were being warned not to drive, customer's were snowed into their houses. But we were on an adventure so didn't care, I don't know whether that makes us really stupid or really brave.
Anne's shop is amazing, its part of a 13th century priory - I love history.
Unfortunately a lot of people were snowed in and didn't make it to the afternoon, but we had a lovely time talking to everyone who did.
I like talking:-)
We had planned to go to Cumbria after the show, but made a last minute decision that it was not a good idea to travel in a blizzard, so spent the night in Newcastle, I think we were very close to being snowed in, but made it home.

And now a week later we are back in Chester, I did ask for a name tag to be selloptaped to our bedroom door, we seem to be here more often than we are at home.

Last night we were at Purl City, again another lovely shop.
Met and talked to lots more lovely customers.
I love the wool world, its so much nicer than the real world, beautiful woolly surroundings filled with happy lovely people.
So a huge Thank You to Charlotte for having us.

And tonight we are off to Baa Ram Ewe in Leeds, which I am sure will be another fantastic visit, so if you are in Leeds tonight come and see us.

I could waffle on for ages, but there are no photo's and I always get slightly bored by long blog posts with no photo's, so I will write more later.

Gigi

2010-11-21T11:23:00.000Z

On Wednesday I took delivery of 70 kgs of white yarn, including 4 kgs of the most amazing Alpaca/Merino/Silk, its a singles spun DK.
Single spun means there is only 1 ply, I love it, it is spun in the same way as Precious 4 ply.
The only thing that would make it more perfect is to swap the merino for BFL superwash, but I will work on that one :-))))

The new yarn is called "Queenies Love" and here is its first pattern.
I dyed it Wednesday afternoon, dried it on the radiator and finished the sample piece last night, its the softest snuggliest scarf imaginable.
At the moment I am only going to sell the pattern and yarn as a kit, although if you are coming to one of next weekend's trunk show's there maybe a little bit to buy.

At the moment the yarn is in very short supply, there was only a small amount spun as a sample, the next batch won't arrive from the mill until January. So you will all have to wait until then to get your grubby little hands on it, although I did manage to beg my supplier into letting me have a little bit more of the sample batch and I might let you have a little bit or I might design and crochet a sweater for myself - wtach this space or rather I should say watch the shop.

Office - by Queenie

2010-11-20T14:38:00.000Z

Just a very quick post.

Am feeling miserable due to several things. Someone had made an offer on the house, I made a comment on a thread on Ravelry about Homer being made redundant and us becoming homeless and had several "disagree's" and a "funny".
People can be so mean, I don't want sympathy, it will make me cave in on myself and I will become a blubbering wreck.
I do want support, I want to confront this situation head on and win..

So enough misery and on to our potential new office, the planning application is in, we won't hear until January.
I'm already dreaming of sitting with my laptop in the sun working from the office steps.
But also terrified we won't get planning permission for some bizarre reason.
Its not like the farm is picturesque and pretty or the business isn't already on site or the portacabin will be out of place, the farm has numerous derelict portacabins. But council planners live in a different world to ours.

And here are some lovely photo's of where it is hopefully going to be.

The view from the side window, you can almost see the sea behind the trees in the distance.

The view from the front facing the Dye Studio and some nettles.

The view from the Dye Studio front door, the green trailer and black container are where the office will be.

The black container marks the spot - :-)

Thought for the day.

2010-11-18T09:08:00.000Z

Whilst out walking this morning I had a moment of clarity...it happens sometimes...

The time was 7.50am and it struck me that for years at that time every day of the week I was on the A14 heading into Felixstowe tuned into Radio 4 eagerly awaiting 'Thought for the Day'. I think on reflection that this in some small way enabled me to deal with the day ahead - I didn't always listen to every word but it was the ethos of the moment that lifted my spirit and channelled my thoughts into a cohesive order.

At 7.50am today I had my own thought for the day when I snapped this old digger in the garden behind Glebe House, our local retirement home. The digger was clearly no longer of any use to its owner, the mechanics were slowly rusting into disuse, the upholstery ragged and worn, and the paintwork had faded....but what stories could it tell about the life it had lived? What adventures had it been on before it was laid up and left to die. Is this what happens when we reach that point in our lives, are we left to slowly disintegrate in some backwater, or do we live our lives to the full and when the time comes we gracefully accept the march of time and sit and recall the memories of our former lives?

For me that time is still a long way off, and I have another huge chapter of my life story to write as yet, and with the delivery of 60 kilos of wool yesterday I think that today will be a busy one...

I have wool to tie, and mordant, and Queenie is about to arrive and so i better get to it.

I leave you with a song that I heard for the first time in over 20 years on 6music this weekend, and it rings as true today with me as it did then (not sure how to embed the video so I've given you the link)..

Rush - Freewill

Quick apology

2010-11-16T13:35:00.001Z

Because I should be packing the clubs.

I'm feeling a bit guilty as I have been a very bad blogger of late.
And now Homer is entertaining you with his beautiful photo's it kind of makes me feel even guiltier.
So I will try and make amends, I have been thinking about a natural dyeing post for several weeks and I will write it I promise once the words are in the right order in my head.

We have been so busy, that I haven't had time to think, stupidly I thought when Homer became full time I would have lots more time to do all the things I needed to do, but instead he has upped the workload so much I am struggling even more than I was.

We are up to our necks in wholesale, we did the Fibre Flurry show in Birmingham and I taught my very first work shop, all good things and I enjoyed every second of the last 2.
Now we planning our trunk shows and trying to keep wholesale under control and just generally doing 2 million things at once.

Oh and of course there is the demise of Brian and the beginning of the upheaval of our life.
We can't really share too much, but lets just say we are not paying the bills, because we don't have any income except for NDS. And life will get very traumatic before it gets better.
We have applied for planning permission for our new office - I will leave you to work out what this means!
But for the first time in our lives we are really free, we can do anything, go anywhere, as long as NDS takes us, its such a amazing feeling knowing that the world really is your oyster :-)

Oh and both our girls decided to get married next spring, unfortunately our contribution will be buttons or wool. But we can give them love, which is what they both want and all they need. Frills and cakes and champagne are fine if you can afford them but not essential for happiness. I keep thinking about how my mother felt about my wedding and am sure she would be overjoyed for the girls, but not understand my attitude. The only important thing is they have long happy lives with their men.

So much for a quick apology!!
Must get back to the clubs, I'm especially happy with this months colour :-))))

Trunk Shows

2010-11-16T13:22:00.000Z

I'm not sure if we have already told you this, but here it is again, just in case.

We now have 4 trunk shows booked for November/December, I'm really looking forward to them.

I can't wait to see you all and in-between the shows we are staying with several woolly friends, its almost going to be like a holiday, doubt the dogs will see it in the same way.

Fibre + Clay

From 10 am

27th November 2010.

11 - 13 Minshull Street, Knutsford, Cheshire

The Knit Studio

From 1 pm

28th November 2010

Blackfriars, 6 Friars Green, Newcastle upon Tyne

Purl City Yarns

From 5—8 pm

8th of December 2010

62 Port Street, Manchester M1 2EQ

Baa Ram Ewe

From 6—8 pm

9th of December 2010

87 Otley Road, Headingly, Leeds

Jack Frost had a busy night....

2010-11-16T08:33:00.000Z

As we walked back from the farm last night, with our path lit up by the half moon, the stars we starting to peep out and the sky was clearing...it was going to be a cold night....and we weren't wrong.
When I woke this morning the sun was just clearing the horizon and the frost lay thick on the garden and surrounding fields.
So off I went with the faithful hounds to see what wonders lay out in the early morning....
It was fascinating to see how the asparagus had turned white over night, and with the early morning sun it was turning a rusty pink and as the sun rose it lit up the poplars at the end of the lane.

Today we have a viewer of the house, and whilst I know this is a path we have to tread the thought of maybe having to leave this area, and the beauty it holds, fills me with sadness, but I'm also conscious that there are many beautiful parts of Britain that we have yet to explore and that, in a way, balances the equation and makes me feel more positive about the whole adventure.

Queenie is tired today after a heavy day of dyeing yesterday, and the residue of her illness clings on and pushes down on her stamina, but she is a fighter and I know that she will be up and about her day with a strong heart, something that I'm always impressed and proud of.

Val has just dropped off a bag full of yarn ready to be sorted and despatched - so the day starts....

A new week...

2010-11-15T08:55:00.000Z

Contrary to popular culture I love Monday's....they represent the birth of a new week with endless possibilities and multiple permutations, but this is only a recent phenomena. In the bad old days Monday marked the start of 'another' week of hell, the respite that the weekend had afforded was now passed and it was down into the spiral of meaningless denial, where hope did not spring eternal and the road blocks were increasing and becoming more damaging - but those days are behind me.
I will be using this blog as a cathartic tool to cleanse my spirit, as well as bring something new to NDS - so I hope along the way I manage to sound more positive :-)) I'm afraid I'm still fighting the demons, but they will all eventually be exorcised.

OK, so here's today...

After a rain-lashed Sunday I woke to the sun peeping over the sea, it was a most welcome sight after a miserable Sunday - but that being said it did offer up the opportunity to have a lazy day in front of a roaring fire watching F1 etc.
The thing that caught me out this morning was that last night the temperature dropped dramatically, and after all the rain a hard frost and the first ice of this autumn were clearly in evidence...

The asparagus fields are now giving up their final bounty of the year, they have small red berries, and the stems have turned into little bushes and glow in the morning light...

A small clutch of partridges shot out of the field like darts across my vision, and a dozen of more pigeons exploded in a mess of noise when the dogs thundered through their patch - I'm afraid it all happened to quickly for me to catch on film - maybe next time.

So to work - I never really thought of this as work, it's the place I went when I wasn't in Felixstowe (all my spare time was consumed by NDS) and when I was made redundant in September it seemed like the first couple of months were holiday and I was waiting for the call from Felixstowe to drag me back to hell...but it never came, and now this is my world.

We had 30 kilos of yarn land last week, which has been mordanted and Queenie has started to dye, although her cold has been rather a vicious one so she didn't push it over the weekend. The sock club is hanging in the studio awaiting rewind, so that will be out this week, and motif club is packed and will go out today.

The really special news is that Dazzle and Angel are back in the UK (yipee!!) so we're full steam ahead again now and look forward to having a busy few months ahead.

Homer hijacks the blog!!

2010-11-13T18:56:00.000Z

It looks like my conclusion of the adventures in the world of 'Brian' left Queenie with nothing else to write about! Or perhaps she needed a rest..either way I (Homer) faithful servant of the queen of wool have been given licence to play in blog-land as well :-) so here is my first post (the first of many no doubt).
When I'm not following my education in the woolly world I enjoy walking - in this corner of Suffolk we are so lucky to have beautiful countryside to wander about in, and everyday I walk Loki (the hairy GSD) and Ted (the defective Poodle), and some days I just take Loki and we walk for miles. Queenie gave me the best gift ever for my birthday last year, a Panasonic DMC-LS80, better known as a 'point & click' camera, that goes everywhere with me. We have marshland, woodland and an amazing beach-line that seems to be constantly changing and I never tire of its eerie beauty. At this time of year the woods are ablaze with the stunning colours of autumn, and the marshland tracks are muddy and tricky to traverse, but worth every ounce of effort as there is always something that catches my eye.

Today I went over the marshes behind our house and down to the river path that leads to the estuary of the Ore.

On route we have to travel through some lovely hidden paths like this..

In the summer this track is thick with brambles and the cover completely envelops the path, but as winter approaches the tracks open up...

The estuary has many inlets and the oyster catchers fly in and out with their plaintiff cry filling the air, but they are not the only ones hunting for tasty morsels - I snapped these two guys fishing at the mouth of the estuary.

We meet all sorts of wildlife on our travels, but there are plenty of established residents on the marshes, and Loki was a little concerns by these three boys...

and shortly afterwards we came across some splendid spotty pigs...the two little piglets were running about everywhere, but stopped when they saw us...
Sweet hey? :-)

Well that's it for today, I hope you enjoyed it, and I will be back again soon.
I leave you with a rather pix-elated picture of a little chap who woke up unexpectedly this morning outside the studio and then decided perhaps it was better be in bed...

Not making garments

2010-10-07T12:14:00.000Z

Remember a few days ago I said I wasn't going to stress about making garments and that I was going to stick with what I am best at?
Well I kind of lied, not totally, but slightly.

Here is my over-dress that started out as a sleeveless top, stupidly I forgot that it was made with silk and that it would drop.
Its motifs, so is 2 D, they are just joined together to make 3 D, am writing the pattern, it will be one-size fits all, as its silk it drapes, with the option to take a line of motifs out to make it smaller.
Delilah (the model) is size 10 I think and it looks ok on her, maybe a bit deep plunge, but as its an over-dress it should be ok.

The update that wasn't going to happen

2010-10-06T13:32:00.001Z

I did some dyeing at the beginning of the week, not a lot as I don't have much yarn.

But my wonderful supplier managed to find a few kg's in his storeroom at his office.

These 2 yarns are nearly all thats left until December, I have about 5 kgs left of Dazzle Sock and 500 gms left of Angel 2 ply.

The update will be Friday, we are putting the time back as some of our international customers keep missing their favourites.

It might be 6.30 pm or 7pm, will let you know what we decide tomorrow.

In the meantime you can lust over these for a while.

The top photo is Dazzle Sock and the bottom is Angel 2 ply, there will be 3 skeins of each in the update, I did have 5 of each, but some of them have gone as wholesale, if you need more of a particular colour e-mail me as I might have a couple of skeins held back.

Knit Camp tutors

2010-10-05T15:18:00.000Z

Those of you who are on Ravelry and who keep up with all the gossip of the knitting world will know the full Knit Camp story.

If you don't here is the very simple version of the story.

Knit Camp was held in August in Stirling, Scotland.
It was a week long camp with lots of international tutors and events planned.
Before hand a lot of tutors dropped out due to contract issues, classes were rescheduled with home grown tutors.
A lot of the events didn't happen, tutors didn't have visa's to enter the country, one was denied access and sent straight back to the US.
The organisation of the market place was chaotic to say the least.
All the time there was no communication from the organiser except for outbursts on Ravelry at various people who had dared to try and help.
At the end of the day attendee's had a good time, enjoyed each others company, enjoyed most of the classes and made the best of a bad situation.

However 6 weeks later the tutors haven't been paid, not just they money they should of been paid for teaching, but also their expenses such as airfares from the states - we are talking about an awful lot of money.
And as far as I know some refunds haven't been paid to attendee's who couldn't or didn't want to attend their rescheduled classes.

You can read about the saga on several Tutor's blogs
Lucy Neatby
Woollywormhead
Deb Robson
There are also blog posts by volunteers and attendee's too numerous to mention.

As you can imagine those of us in the wool world are very upset about the situation that the tutors have been forced into, but there's nothing we can do, well there wasn't until the wonderful Babylonglegs came up with a plan.
She is organising a very special ebay auction, she has invited several other well know indies to each contribute a skein of yarn which will all be auctioned. The money earn't will all be donated to a fund that has been set up from a Knit Camp attendee. The fund is to help the tutors fund any legal action they choose to take.
You can find the details here on Ravelry
http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/uk-knit-camp-rav-day-2010-social-group/1333148/1-25#13

The participating indies are as follows
Sarah - Babylonglegs
Us - The Natural Dye Studio
Jen - Fyberspates
Joy - The Knitting Goddess
Debbie - Skein Queen
Dee - Posh Yarn

Watch this space for more details of the auction.

Why I design motifs

2010-10-04T13:48:00.002Z

Over the weekend while designing for October’s motif club I came to the conclusion that I’m not a designer, I’m an artist.
I really struggle to write garment patterns, I wish I could, but garments have far too much maths involved
I’m fine making garments for myself, but as I make it up as I go along, I have no idea what I’ve done, even if I do write it down, it gets frogged so many times that I can never remember which notes apply to which version.

But I am brilliant at motifs
I think because they are 2 D rather than 3 D.
I use them to create images, instead of using paint I use yarn.
I have so many ideas that i want to develop, including one that will probably be unsellable as a pattern, but its something I am passionate about and want to see if its possible to make. When I told Homer, he had a blank look and struggled to understand what I was talking about. But we shall see.....

So why am I wasting my time and getting frustrated trying to design garments when I should be concentrating on what I’m good at?
Because I am setting preconceptions and limits on myself that I don’t need.
I have always thought that the motifs are considered second class and instead of playing with colour and shape I should be aspiring to be a clothes designer.
I also thought that shawls and scarves are an apprenticeship for designers, once they have tackled the basic’s they can move on to more complicated designs which entail more of the dreaded maths.
And that I needed to move on from scarves, shawls and blankets and do some proper grown-up designing.

Then it occurred to me that some designers who I admire and consider successful designers haven’t moved on to design garments (well maybe the odd one or two).
Woollywormhead only makes hats, Yarnissima only makes socks, these are the first two that came to the top of my head.

I don’t need to make a living from being a designer, its something I do because I love it and have to do to keep me sane.
My designs also help to sell our yarn, which we need to sell to make a living, so maybe I do need to design

So yesterday I came to the conclusion that its good to stick to the thing I am best at and develop that instead of trying do something I’m not good at.

And so today I am much, much happier and content with my life.

Exciting New Yarns

2010-09-27T09:13:00.000Z

My lovely supplier has given me the list of the new yarns which are arriving next week.
I have ordered 10 kg of each of them, so you can all try them and see what you think.
We will probably start stocking at least one or two from the list.

They are as follows.

Lace
80% BFL/20% Silk - 800 metres

Sock 55% BFL/45% Silk - 400 metres
70% BFL/20% silk/10% Cashmere - 400 metres
100% British Falkland high twist - 400 metres
50% British Falkland/50% Silk - 400 metres

DK
50% British Falkland/50% Silk - 210 metres

We won’t stock all of them and will probably fiddle around a little bit with the twist, metreage and/or % of fibre content, just to make sure whatever we choose is a exclusive to us.
Excited??
Looking forward to being Guinea pigs??

Yarn Shortages & ETA's

2010-09-27T09:06:00.001Z

Ok - here is the latest.

Dazzle HT Sock - Sold out
The new Falkland HT sock arrives in the country next tuesday, fingers crossed its just as lovely.

Dazzle Sock - 1 skein
We have 11 kgs of this arriving tomorrow, so fingers crossed will be able to do a update with this next week.

Angel 2 ply lace - 8 skeins
Angel 4 ply/sock - 8 skeins
All the Angel yarns are due in at the end of November, so they won't be back in the shop until mid December.

Forgot to say

2010-09-23T16:07:00.000Z

The update is tomorrow at 5.30 UK time
You can find the preview HERE on Flickr
And HERE is the page you need to be on at 5.30 tomorrow evening if you want some of the last NDS yarn for a while.

Lots of news

2010-09-23T16:03:00.000Z

Its been a while since I have blogged, I kept meaning to, but life is busy. I should be packing at this moment in time, but thought I would do it because I was thinking about it.
We have had 2 major events in our life, one expected, one un-expected.

The first expected one is Homer has at last finished working for the administrators and is a free jobless man. Today is his first day of freedom, he's been sorting out things that are essential but too small to have done before.
Things like turning my mobile phone contract into a business account, so he can have a phone too. He still has one more week's pay and then we will be penniless and unable to pay the bills.
I'm not looking forward to all the stress that will be the result of having no money, but we have to go through it, what else can we do?
He's getting proffessional advice from several directions about how to handle the crisis, but even still its going to be a nightmare.
Its wonderful to have him here, even though he keeps finding new jobs to do, his business brain works in a different way to my creative one, together we make one whole - very soppy I know, but also very true.

The second event is not so good, its actually a disaster rather than an event.
On monday I had a phone call from my supplier saying that his warehouse had burnt down, along with all our un-dyed yarns that were inside it.
He'd only just recieved a shipment of Angel and now its all gone :-(((
I was a total panicky mess on Tuesday morning, trying to work out how we would cope with no yarn, echo's of shingles last year kept coming back to me.
But I managed to pull myself together and move on.
My supplier is also one of our closest freinds, so not only was I worried about NDS I was also really worried about him.
I am sure quite a few of you know who he is and have read his story on Twitter and Ravelry, he's fine, well as fine as any man can be who has lost all his wool, he will survive and so will we.

However I won't be dyeing any new yarn for several weeks, as there is nothing for me to dye.
The Angel has been put on special order, I have no idea when it will be spun and delivered, we might not get it until November, we might not have it on-line till December who know's!
There is a very small amount of Dazzle sock left that was in his office rather than the warehouse, so thats something.
And the Precious comes from a different supplier so we can still dye that.
There is a mythical container somewhere between here and Peru, I believe it contains Dazzle DK and some HT, it also contains some new yarn some of it destined for NDS, in theory it should be here in a week or two, but I don't know when.
I haven't seen the new yarn yet so I'm not sure what its like but knowing my supplier it will be amazing, he only does the best quality yarns and I totally trust his judgement.
The yarn is BFL/Silk lace weight and should go someway to fill the gap that was created losing the Angel for so long.

Being yarnless also causes us huge problems with our stockists, they have been lovely and understanding and surpportive of us, which is just what you expect from the wool world.
However keeping them and retail fed is going to be a problem, there just isn't enough yarn to go round. I have several stockists who have shown an interest in putting in an order, I have asked them to wait until next week.
The reason for this is I want to give my retail customers first dibs, there is an update tomorrow, but who knows when the next one will be.

SO if you want some NDS yarn you will need to buy some before Monday, there might be some left on Tuesday, there might be some left next week, but its possible the website will be empty very very soon.
Below are a couple of photos of the update yarn.

Draco - Precious 4 ply - my favourite colour, please DON'T buy this as I am sure I can come up with a design for it if it remains unsold for too long and obviously no one else will like it, how could they?

And Serpens - the last of the Angel sock for a very long time!

Did you miss it?

2010-09-07T09:57:00.000Z

Dazzle Sock Mountain

20 kgs of Dazzle sock, we haven't had it since the spring, we have been waiting for so long I had almost forgotten what it was like to dye. Apart from several kgs of wholesale and some update yarn its all coming to I Knit with us.

Happy days :-)

Psst - wanna see some yarn porn?

2010-09-05T12:24:00.001Z

This week has been eventful in a kind of expected way.

Homer is officially redundant - YAY!!

It happened on wednesday, he has the letter to prove it, but for the time being is being kept on to tidy up a few ends. In the end he could of stayed at Brian a bit longer, but the future was bleak and it would of only been for a few months, so why put ourselves through another few months of confusion and stress, now is a good time.

We have I Knit at the end of next week and is constructing his own little NDS niche, that I have nothing to do with. I'm quite glad its all numbers and things, but it seems to be working.

One day I can just do dyeing and designing, maybe its a dream world, but you never know.

Talking of I Knit - the photos below were all taken just now, its about 90% Dazzle sock, think its about 50 kg, might be 40 kg, might even be 60 kg, I don't know am too tired to string thoughts or words together.

So what did I decide to do??

Write the blog, forgive me if I sound confusing or ramble.

After 3 days of solid dyeing I have forgotten how to sleep, I have yarn on the brain.

Ok - photos

The dyeroom waiting to be washed, I dyed this this morning, am a bit concerned about some of the colours..

The drying rack, the first batch of Dazzle sock of today, its only 1.15 and I have dye 13.5 kgs, I know this number to be correct as I counted it last night.

The packing room, damp Dazzle sock that needs to go in the dri-buddies

The showroom table and dri-buddie.

Waitinng for Maisy Mae to come and do some winding, its the weekend and so Val doesn't work, she has kids and a husband and a real life.

The sofa, dry Dazzle sock waiting to be wound.

The place where the Dazzle sock will go when its wound.

And finally a gratuitous Precious shot, you may think there is quite a lot of blue, but wait till you see it at I Knit, its nearly all red or rather my version of red, which is actually not red, but almost.

Today's update 3/9/10

2010-09-03T13:33:00.002Z

Ooops forgot to blog about tonight's update.
Its a good one!

Firstly we are really pleased to have a Woolly Wormhead hat pattern to add to our pattern collection.
Its called Trenza and is knitted with our Dazzle DK, it can also be knitted in Angel DK.

So I am sure you can guess this weeks update has a lot of DK in it :-)

Remember the update is 5.30 UK time and here's the link.
http://www.thenaturaldyestudio.com/