Day 1 was just great!

Here is Miranda standing proudly behind our stand just before the exhibition opened. We had a great day. Met so many people (the man in the stand across the way even said to me, you sure did a lot of chatting!) not sure my voice is going to hold out for the next 3 days. Thank you to everyone for coming to see us today and for all the lovely comments about the Ba T'at yarn!

The next photo is of Emma Garry's side of our stand. We are all friends from Ilkley and Emma has just set up an on-line fabric store. Her stuff is soooooo lovely so check out her newly launched website (www.emmagarry.com). We have had a lot of laughs today, good thing really considering the size of space we have behind the stand. Also a big thanks to Emma for the fantastic graphics we have on our back wall.

The last photo is of our first customer of the day - Janet Wilshaw. It was pretty much as soon as the exhibition opened and sorry Janet for being slightly over excited but it felt so good to make that first sale and it certainly set us off on a roll!

Anyway better get to bed as hopefully it will be another big day tomorrow.

Emma

Phew - we are ready for the Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Show

Well think we are pretty well set up for the show. It was soooooo LESS stressful than I imagined. It was easy to park, we got a trolley and we even got help bringing the stuff in.

Here are some photos of us setting up. We are sharing the stand with Emma Garry (emmagarry.com) who sells beautiful fabric. Emma designed and sorted out the backing for us and it looks great. Seemed to spend ages trying to load the shelves up with the Ba T'at yarn and get the colours working together. Not really sure these photos do it justice as the colours look great. Bit more stuff to take over tomorrow and then sort out our top display and then we are there! We will be ready at 10.00 - unbelievable. Think that's about it from me though tonight as got to get myself ready for tomorrow and also want to watch Spooks on the TV!

Hopefully see some of you there - STAND C570

Emma

Final Count Down - Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Show

Well its set up day tomorrow for the show and we are just about there!! You can see Sherry in the photo busy labelling the Ba T'at yarn up and then the hands in the other photo belong to Miranda. The Ba T'at production team were all very busy at my house today whilst Lyndy and Charlotte held the fort at Create. We were also lucky to have another 'happy helper' in the form of Vicky. Thank you Vicky for giving up your time to lend us a hand - very much appreciated!

As you can see from the next photo of my sitting room we have covered the house with stuff. Slightly worrying given the amount of space we have at the show! You can just about see our attempt at setting up a little shop just to see how much we could actually fit in our 'small but beautiful' space!' All I can say about that experiment is ................. it should be very interesting tomorrow! And one more thing - no shop, whatever the size, could be without a till and for that we would like to say a huge thank you to Glynn at Parker Shop Equipment Ltd who has lent it to us and also spent yesterday morning programming it. All he asked for in return was a cup of tea! I know our tea is pretty special but not to that extent! I know for some it maybe hard to understand the importance of a till but from experience with Create you just can't beat a proper till - well that's if you make a sale!! So fingers crossed that it sees some action.

Emma

Ba T'at Yarn Twiddling!

Sherry and I made a trip to Bradford and arrived to see piles of our Ba T'at yarn all hanked up! Bless the team at Bradford!! Doesn't it look fab. All that was left for us to do was a bit of twiddling. See below for the famous twiddling stick (new to us too but it worked!) and Sherry demonstrating the twiddling method!
We just have a lot of labelling to do tomorrow - well when we get the labels back from the printers. Looks like its going to be a long day.
Can't believe we only have a couple of days left to get things organised.
Oh just thought of the other things we have to pull together tomorrow. We have quite a few knitting patterns that we have designed between us for one hank projects. Anne Makepeace has also put together a pattern for some great fingerless gloves. Anyway we have to get those all properly sorted out and printed to give out with our yarn at the show. And then we have a long list of all our workshops at Create for the rest of the year and all of 2010 to print so we can give those out as well ........... the list just goes on. Think I may just open the wine!

Emma

Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Show - Part Two

This is the wonderful jug Lyndy painted at Create for us to display some of our knitting needles at the Harrogate show. We are going to be taking Brittany needles which are made out of sustainably harvested birch hardwood. I love knitting with them, the yarn slides easily on them and they don't bend as much as Bamboo. Also they come with a 5 year replacement guarantee! The jug has the Cow and Calf Rocks painted on it - a famous landmark on Ilkley Moor plus lots of sheep including 2 black sheep that you will have to try and spot if you come to the show. Our Ba T'at labels also show the Cow and Calf Rocks. The picture on the labels was drawn by a very talented artist - Miranda's husband Simon. (He does more than just fall of bikes! which is normally why we include him in our blogs - July 2009 & June 2008!) He doesn't draw commercially although I think he should. I am very proud to have his drawing on our labels. Simon is a born and bred Ilkley man so it seems very apt that it's his drawing fronting our Yorkshire brand of yarn.

Emma

The Build Up

Well Sherry and I have been to Bradford today to take stack loads of Ba T'at yarn to be wound into hanks. Up to now Sherry has been doing it all herself but don't think her arm can take much more (she has been using a hand winder) and we have found the perfect guys to help us with the job! So relieved and think Sherry was close to hugging them! We hung it all up there so it can be bone dry to be sorted on Monday (Think some of the yarns Sherry had just lifted from her bath to take along!) We are going to be there on Monday so we can sort them and add the labels as soon as they are done in their hanks. Cutting it all a little bit fine on the timing but can you imagine what it would have been like this weekend putting all this lot into smaller hanks!! Anyway here are some of the hanks of yarn for you to see - I just think they look sooo gorgeous. The guys in Bradford said it was a bit like Christmas having all the colourful yarns decorating the place! The other really interesting thing (well to me but then I just love this whole dying wool process) is how different these colours all look when they are put into small hanks - it kindof mixes all the colours up. Will try and post a before and after photo in one of the next blogs.

Sherry also managed to sneak in a few extra colourways. One of them she has named "Pie and Peas" which is just fantastic and for all of you coming to the Show you will see its first outing. I think it is going to have to be added to my list of favourites.

Well I better get back to labeling the other yarns and sorting through boxes of Brittany Needles.
Emma

Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Show

Things are just mad here as we are preparing for a stall at the Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Show next week (starts on Thursday 19th November through to the Sunday). Sherry is busy dyeing loads of our Ba T'at yarn to take. The picture is of some of it drying in my kitchen as Sherry has run out of space. The colours are so amazing I may just keep it hanging up! We have a tiny little space but hopefully it will be a beautiful little space! We will have our Ba T'at yarns - some not seen before and the latest Louisa Harding yarns plus Brittany Needles. So please please come and see us we are on stall C570. And if you are not already planning to come but want to take a look at http://www.twistedthread.com/ for more details. Anyway will keep you up to date on the build up to the show as it may prove amusing!!

Emma

A Knitted Christmas

Bit of a Robin theme going on here!! Two of the photos are of the mass of Robins that were knitted on Create's 'A Knitted Christmas' with Anne Makepeace on Monday and the other picture is of our lovely Robin that tweets at us in our garden. So realistic are those knitted Robins its hard to tell the difference!!!! I unfortunately had to sit in the office catching up on paper work as Miranda oversaw the course. All I could hear was a lot of laughter. I had to go down and see at one point and think it had a lot to do with how 12 people could all knit with the same yarns from the same pattern and come out with very different and individual (did I say weird - no!) looking Robins. Anne loaded everyone down with masses of patterns for Christmas projects and the feedback was that everyone had had a really fun day. We have another course booked for the 30th November and by then we will have loaded the Christmas songs onto the i-pod, got the Christmas tree and sparkling lights out and may even put Anne in a knitted Santa hat!! So get on that phone and book a place and you could go home with a Robin like these!!

Emma

Sewing Club Launched

We had the first session of our children's sewing club tonight. Ten eager children were very busy threading needles, tying knots, sewing in straight lines. It is the first of a 10 week session. Miranda (who is very proficient with her sewing needles) armed with all the Sewing Club material (a tried and tested children's sewing course from http://www.stitchclub.com/) taught the course and if my daughter is anything to go on they had a great time. Next week they are cutting out simple patterns and making little animals. We already have some on our reserve list so if you know of anyone who would like to join the next session (starting after Easter half term) then let us know. I have a feeling this is going to be very popular.

We had such a busy half term last week with sooooooo many pots painted we can't fit them all in the cupboards. Thank you for coming to see us - there really was some great stuff painted. We now have all the christmas stock out - baubles, christmas plates, bowls, santas, penguins and more is arriving on Tuesday. We have already had quite a few people in painting those very special christmas presents. It really does make a unique and special gift. We are going to have some late openings on a Wednesday so please give us a call if you fancy coming in one evening (Create Number: 01943 817788).

On the Christmas theme we have got the lovely Anne Makepeace coming in on Monday to take our Knitting Christmas course. This was so over booked that we have sloted in another one on the 30th November. If you fancy coming along then there are a few spaces left so please give us a ring.

There is quite a lot more to tell you but will leave it there for tonight ..............

Emma