Hello!

What's in a name?

I once read somewhere that some actuaries in the USA looked at data to do with how long you live in relation to your name. They discovered that if you have unfortunate initials such as Arnold Samuel Smith or Boris Ulysses Marwick your lifespan was likely to be shorter than someone with more careful parents who had been named Steven Underwood Norton or Lionel Oliver Vernon Endicott.

This may be an urban myth, but names are definitely tricky things. Yarn naming is almost as difficult, and swapping to numbered colourways has saved me hours each month. I'm in good company here as Koigu do something similar. Often customers say that the colours conjure up quite different images.
Golden yellows for example can be mustard, custard, creme caramel, pancakes, someone even suggested a JCB digger!
Base yarns however do need names, I think, especially when you have more than three or four.

When I was getting ready for Woolfest, I was racking my brains to come up with a name for the new merino/nylon/cashmere yarn. There were many suggestions.
Selkie - used already by another company for a cashmere yarn.
Cairdeas - gaelic for love (I think) which is nice but is again a bit similar to something else.
And then one of my customers, Jenny, suggested this ...

Macushla.

852

863

870

Very soft and squishy with a little bit of nylon for strength.
You can see it knitted up on Joy's blog.

Macushla is an Irish word which it means darling.
Perfect.

n

PS. I have exciting news, there is going to be a new yarn at the Yard.
It will be exclusive to The Yarn Yard.
Quite different from anything else in the UK.
I'm going to call it Cairn.

There will be more news about it soon, it's very exciting!

Adam Cooks

My younger son Adam is 18 and has been doing a cooking course at college for the last six months. He starts the level 2 course in September and is looking for work at the moment, but in the meantime he has started a cooking blog. It's only a few days old, but there's nothing like a few readers to add to the momentum.

It's called Adam Cooks.
He's having fun with it, learning to edit photos, upload them and add links. All the usual bloggy stuff which we take for granted, but if you've never done it before it's a bit of a challenge.

He has added a subscribe by email option, so if you would like to get updates, it's just a click away...  and of course comments are great too.

n x

Woolfest photos

It's too hot to do much at all at the moment, so here are a few photos of Woolfest.

The sign.

Complete with collapsing boxes. I think they were wilting in the heat.

I have some fibre left for the shop as well.

A little colour.

BFL in the Woolfest colourway. I took lots of these and there are four left so they will go in the shop today for anyone who wanted to get there but couldn't.

And I have just one of these left.
Toddy, also in the Woolfest colourway.
Should I keep it for myself?

I'm updating the shop in stages, normally I would do this all at once and then "open the doors" but there is quite a lot to go on the site and I don't want to run the risk of duplicate orders etc so please just visit over the course of the day and click on New Stuff at the top of the blog which lets you see the most recent additions.
I'm not posting anything until at least tomorrow and this will allow combined orders. I don't normally do this but I'm adding in stages and that's hardly your fault. As long as the orders will fit in one bag (about 6 skeins) I'll send a voucher for additional postage which can be used the next time you visit.

Now, someone just gave me a recipe for iced coffee and it sounds just the thing...

n x

Woolfest Part 1

This is the part without the photos!
We got back on Sunday afternoon and I have been having a wee rest since then. The preparation for the event meant that I was working pretty much flat out for a couple of weeks beforehand. So yesterday I didn't do dyeing nor posting nor nuffink energetic. Instead I redesigned the newsletter and copied all the email addresses into a new place on the mac so that it's easier to send the newsletter out. It has a new look and forms the bridge between the website and the blog (because not everyone has time to read a blog).
If you think you are on the list and you didn't get a copy of the "test transmission" yesterday then please send an email using the link on the left and I'll add you to the list. As far as I know only two people out of almost 500 have received a scrambled code-type message instead of the pretty one they were supposed to get, and I am trying to work out why that's happened.

So, Woolfest.
Well it was hot. And it was very, very busy. In previous years there has been a chance to go for a little wander and meet other stallholders but this year it was pretty much full-on all the time. It was wonderful to meet so many people I have emailed or met in The Shed on ravelry. I will download the photos later today and write a pictorial blog post as well.

The shop is still offline and I'll be adding yarns and fibres this afternoon so there will be lots of yummy stuff to fondle later today. If you are in any of the Clubs look out for emails later too.

n x

No more twist!

I feel like the mouse in the Tailor of Gloucester.
No time to do anything put all the boxes in the car and head off to Cumbria.
If you are coming to Woolfest I'll see you there on G143.
And if you aren't able to make it then I'll see you here when I get back. Only a megalomanic would imagine they will sell everything, and I'm definitely not in that camp so I am sure there will be lots in the shop next week.
This is the only major show I "do", so if you are coming and you want to add some Yarn Yard to your stash by choosing in person, this is your only chance, I won't be stall-holding at iKnit or Harrogate or any of the other shows.
No time to take photos I'm afraid.

One last thing, Jane has designed a new, pattern for all of you again this year, and you can see it on her blog.
If you are coming to Woolfest, make sure you sign up for the Newsletter and then I can tell you how to get it.
It will be available in July.

Time to go...

n x

PS. If I look blank when you tell me your name it's just because there is one of me and about 400 of you!

PPS. There is a special Woolfest colourway which I will put out first thing in the morning. Ten skeins and ten braids on each day. If you want to see it before it sells out, I'm afraid you'll need to put your blinkers on and rush past all the other stalls, not looking to right or left!

PPPS. I am next to p/hop. Lots of free patterns... well, free in return for a donation to Medecins Sans Frontieres.

Shop

I've taken the shop offline. There are three days to Woolfest and I'm taking all the stock with me, so it's all going into boxes from which I can't retreive it to post parcels.

See you there!

n

Stormy weather.

Yesterday was my younger son's 18th birthday.

To celebrate he went out for a long walk with Fegrig and the dogs (amongst other things).
And then, from nothing it seemed, there was a huge thunderclap, the power went off in the house for a couple of minutes and it began to rain.

And it rained.

And it rained.

And it rained.

And it rained.

And it rained.

And there were hailstones, lots of hailstones.

The signals at the station failed which brings down the barriers and they wouldn't go back up (safety thing).
The drains were so full the manhole covers got pushed up by the force of the water and lay askew on the road.

They eventually reappeared, grinning and a little damp.

And what did I do?

I took terrible, out of focus pictures of a heap of cashmere.

We had planned to go out for dinner with sons and grandparents, but the restaurant had to close because their circuitboard got flooded. So we went here instead.

A good time was had by all.

n

Yarn

So.

Where did I put my sunglasses?

Woolfest is nearly here.

n x

Silence

Sorry about the Blog Silence. I am in the throws of Woolfest Preparations (and yes, the Capital Letters are well deserved) and just haven't had the inspiration for blogging.

Questions first.
Faith and Hope are doing well.

These are Hope's new feathers.

And this is what she looked like six weeks ago.

She has developed a serious urge to escape from the run at every opportunity and since both the new girls are positively skinny she makes short work of any gap in the fencing.

And this was Faith. The scraggiest most woebegone chicken you could wish to meet.

And these are her new feathers, she was much more bald than Hope so I'm delighted that she has grown such ladylike feathers.

One of them (and we aren't sure which one it is) has a tendency to lay soft shell eggs. Not many, most of them are fine, but there is the occasional "interesting" egg in the nest box.
They look a bit like this... although one egg resembled the clocks in Dali's Persistence of Memory.

Ruth asked about my favourite yarn. Difficult. It's quite often the one I have most recently dyed. I'm partial to semi-solid yarns at the moment so I would probably have to say that I like that yarn "style" rather than any particular colourway. I am a colour tart, I admit it.

The Norwegian Knitting is coming along nicely. I'm knitting a Baktus Scarf.
I love the whole idea of how this is knitted.
Take one 100g skein (or two 50g skeins), and start to knit. It's a simple 4 row pattern.

As you knit, keep an eye on the weight of the yarn you are using by weighing what's left.

This is 1 T (toddy)
As you can see, I'm skein knitting again.

And when you have used a little less than half the skein, start decreasing.

I'm about 36g into the first section and it's the ideal waiting-around-in-a-car-park project.

There are lots of these on blogs like this. And this. And this.
They can be knitted in almost anything, semi solid for a more elegant look, variegated, bright, subtle, stripey, just make sure the needles are big enough to make the fabric drape.
I'm using 3.75mm, US 5's.

I'm off to do a few more rows now.

n

Not just mittens.

I am knitting something Norwegian.

n