The Knitted Royal Wedding

Really sorry that it has been sooooo long since we updated our blog but this definitely deserves an entry - The Knitted Royal Wedding! Our Thursday Night Knitting Group have done us proud and knitted up a fantastic display as you can see from the photos! We have had a very funny time knitting them all and there are numerous stories about the characters (well the knitted one's!):- Camilla's peg leg, the Queen's pants and Prince William's tattoo!! Not totally by the book as there have been some artistic licence given to Fiona Gobles fantastic knitting book! Also there have been some great additions to the book including Pippa Middleton the bridesmaid and Mr and Mrs Middleton - the Father and Mother of the bride. This Thursday we are having a bit of a celebration on the eve of the big day and hopefully we may see some hats at the knit night! I will remember to take my camera and hopefully we may post two blogs in a week!!

We've got a great piece in the Ilkley Gazette & Observer with a front cover picture! You can get too the online copy by clicking http://www.gazetteandobserver.co.uk/news/news_local/8987589.Sun_set_to_shine_on_Wharfedale_s_Royal_Wedding_celebrations/

We really have so much going on at Create we really should keep this blog up to date ........ this is just the start!

Emma

Springtime Display

Well at least the weather has changed and it's feeling far more spring like and we have been busy changing our display at Create to celebrate the new season!. Carol has been very busy with the knitting needles to create these extra cute ducks with various spring bonnets. We have got all the spring / summer yarns in which are fantastically bright. There are so many new shades that have arrived as well as some new lines from Sirdar, Sublime, Adriafil to name a few!! We have also just received some toy wool in small balls and very bright colours as we have got quite caught up with knitting some weird and wonderful items - will tell you more about Lyndy's shrimp in another blog!! We have also been painting up some pottery in jazzy colours to match the wool! This blackboard was painted by Emily S.

With the Easter holidays on at the moment it has been pretty busy here at Create. We luckily have got a lot of our existing staff back for the holidays from university (Nick, Rosie, Rose, Charlotte L, Emily R and Ellie). Miranda has managed to slot them all in so they at least have had day or so each working. From what I can gather they have had very busy social lives and now need to earn a bit of money. Anyway its been great having them around and catching up on the news.

Anyway better get that kiln on and firing those beautiful creations from this week!

Emma

Too long since posting!

Can't believe its been so long since we posted a blog. No things haven't gone quiet, quite the opposite we have been really busy! Our new on-line website http://www.createwithwool.co.uk/ is going from strength to strength and we are now getting quite a few orders in. We haven't really advertised it yet as we wanted to make sure things were working ok and our systems were set up properly. We have had a few teething problems which now have been sorted and we are really off and running. We are having a big sale on the website as well as in the shop and things are moving fast which is just great!!

Create (the shop) has been really busy as well and here is the photo of our sewing club receiving their certificates. They have done really well and seem to have massively enjoyed it. Well done Miranda who has taken the whole course! Most are signed up to do the next stage which starts after half term and our waiting list for the first stage is getting longer and longer. My daughter takes her pillow she made on the course to bed with her every night she loves it so much. I am really proud of them - they made some really great items.

Anyway hopefully I am back on track with the blog and it won't be tooo long before posting the next one! There really is so much going on. We have a big group coming in tomorrow to paint -they are on a corporate day out. In the past they have been really successful as everyone finds it quite absorbing and relaxing and even the less artistic people are normally really pleased with what they can achieve. At least we can keep them going with good coffee!

Emma

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