FIBRE ALIVE

Ode to Joy - Beethoven

I haven't seen the film "The Bucket List" yet but I have always liked the idea of having a list of things you want to do (probably something do do with being a former Project Manager!). In my case I made a list of things I wanted to do before I turn 40. One of the things which has been on that list for quite some time has been to open a yarn store of my own. Well nothing unusual about that and I'm sure that it is a dream of many knitters all over the world. This post is going to be all about making one of my dreams come true and what happened last Saturday. This photo will give you a good starting point... a gift bag... with a logo... with the name JOY... and the words JOY OF YARN.... followed by SOCK WOOL BOUTIQUE... followed by my address! You guessed it... last Saturday I opened my very own yarn store!

  What with Ian still 18 months away from completing his nursing degree and the size of our mortgage there is no way that I could give up my job with PSIS and launch forth into the brutal world of yarn retail full time... so one has to do things with baby steps. I've converted a utility room off our garage into my very own yarn store. Keeping things small and manageable (and having crossed over to the dark side of sock knitting) I decided that I needed to be a bit of a niche store hence the idea to become a sock wool boutique. I'm trying to exclusively stock sock yarns and become an enabler to all those people like me who are on the constant search for beautiful sock yarns. So here you have a photo of yours truly with my hands in my pockets trying not to fondle the yarn around me too much (No comments about fondling other things please!) as I look quite pleased with myself.

So welcome to J.O.Y (Joy of Yarn) Greytown's Sock Wool Boutique and my biggest yarn extravagance to date. And to think that I was doing so well with my yarn diet earlier this year... As I said to Ian... the store will either be a success or if not I won't need to purchase any yarn for the next twenty years!

From start to finish it's taken three months from the day I decided to go for it and our opening last Saturday. Anyone who has started a business from scratch will know that it can be one of the most stressful and rewarding things you can do. It's also amazing just how many obstacles there can be let alone how many things can go wrong. Take for example last Tuesday night when the hard drive on the new laptop decided to die... with all my shop data in it! Then on Saturday morning I got up at 6.30 to get ready and Jazz decided to run under my feet while I was on the stairs... I fell down the flight of stairs. At least I had the presence of mind to fall backwards and bounced down on my hip and butt. It's amazing how quickly a bruise can develop, but not what I was thinking I would have to deal with on opening day.

   When it came to setting up the business I already knew what I was going to name it... because I had named it in my mind about ten years ago. JOY... for Joy of Yarn. It links to the fact that knitting is an emotional activity for me and something that I love... it also helps that JOY is my Mother's name and it was she and Dad who taught me to knit 34 years ago. To keep Dad in the picture we opened on his birthday. Calling the store DOUG just wouldn't have worked as well! Mum finds it difficult to take time off work at the best of times so when I sent Mum and Dad an invite to the opening it was just more of a courtesy thing than anything else. I wanted them there but when you live six hours drive away you know these things can't always happen. However my Mother has always been a force to be reckoned with and she secretly got the weekend off work and she and Dad made the trip down totally unbeknown to me, Ian was in on it though. Mum said the look on my face was priceless when I saw her walk into the shop just after opening and since I had named it after her there was no way she was going to miss the opening.

 Despite completely blowing my start up budget I still wanted to make the opening special. A yarn store opening is a rare thing so it needs to be celebrated. So with my thinking cap on I thought about what I would like to see... of course food came to mind and what better to tempt people than a decadent chocolate cake with the business logo emblazoned on top. It looked almost too good to eat! Who am I trying to kid no chocolate cake is ever too good to it... they're made for eating.

 Then I thought it can become thirsty work preparing for a yarn purchase so as the businesss colours are pink and green I went with pink bubbles... Lindauer strawberry fraise and the non-alcohlic offering of pink lemonade. For those who thought pink bubbles a bit girlie we had Mac's Sassy Red bitter. No points for guessing that the cake disappeared faster than the liquid refreshments but then I guess it was still only the morning.

  Due to there being some minor set backs in the lead up to the opening which meant that the opening date was hard to confirm I went quite low key with promoting the event. I didn't advertise in the paper or on the radio but I did pop along to the Lower Hutt Stitch and Bitch the week before and handed out some invites. I also sent out a small number of invites to some friends from work and around Greytown. Just about everyone I invited came on the day and it was wonderful to see everyone. Unfortunately I was so busy with the shop I wasn't able to stop and chat with everyone on a more casual basis. What was remarkable was that my first customers were a group of six Australian women on holiday from Gympie who saw the signs as they were driving past, did a u-turn and rocked on in. They had no idea it was our opening day and were embarrassed that they were gate crashing. Not to worry those Aussie genes  kicked in when they were offered bubbly and they left some lovely comments in the visitors book. Here is my featured yarn of the month... Regia's 4 ply Design Line with colours selected by Kaffe Fassett.

One special friend wasn't able to make it as she was recovering from a particularly nasty bout of the 'flu but she sent her husband along with this beautiful bunch of dafodils and a lovely card wishing me well as saying that she planned on knitting both her grown sons socks for Christmas! Lizzie you need to get well first and I always recommend that people knit socks for themselves first and enjoy first hand the fruits of their labour before they start giving things away.

Something I've also managed to incorporate into the business is a way to give back to the local community. My train knitting is now exclusively for baby socks which I'm selling in the shop. I'm donating $2 from the purchase price of each pair to the Greytown Toy Library. It's a great local cause and they always struggle for funding. My goal is to raise $300 for them over the next twelve months and present them with a cheque at JOY's first birthday celebration. Bad photo I know but you get the idea of what they look like. What you probably can't see are the little sheep pegs I've used to secure them to the line.

These sorts of things don't happen without a lot of help from a lot of people so it's time that I said a lot of thank you's. Two friends have really been an amazing support to me from the moment I said I was going to do this. Susan and Sally, both expert knitters by the way. Susan came over and stayed Friday night to help with all the exciting last minute things like putting stickers on bags, calming me down and taste testing the pink champagne. Sorry I woke you up when I fell down the stairs! And Sally, well the sneaky thing had been busy knitting up a storm and presented me with these cute little sweaters spelling out the name JOY in the business colours and even the same font... now that's dedication and she only had the logo I put on her invite to work from. She also brought a carload of ravellers over from Wellington to enjoy the day and celebrate with me. thank you to all the Ravellers who came out in force Knittemptress, Notjustknitting, grrlshapedthing, littleyellowbee, Whskr, Purl1petal2 and Stokesvegas... and anyone else I may have missed. I may have to set up a Friends of JOY group on Ravelry! Thanks to Simon  for all your help with the logo, signage and printing copy... the next step is to get the website completed! Lamb Peters Print for the great job on the printing and Rick at the Sign Factory for the great signage. Thanks also to my suppliers for their faith in me (for those of you who I haven't paid yet... the cheque's in the mail! They include Morag of Vintage Purls ,  Anna of The Little Wool Company , Lynn at Impact Marketing, Nicola of Ashford , Pam of Supreme Possum Merino and Daphne at The Knittery   

I also have to thank my parents for teaching both their boys to knit and to be proud of it... and despite being all grown up now it's great to have them still support me in everything I do.

The final and most special of all the thanks has to go to Ian who has given me the freedom to follow a dream (and to worry about paying for it later) and is always totally supportive, even through my mood swings, and willing to do anything to help me. I really could not have got JOY off the ground without him.

So everyone...  J.O.Y is now open from 10am - 3pm Saturdays, Sundays and public holiday Mondays and evenings by appointment. We'd love to see you instore!

I'll let you know when the website is up and running at the moment it's only a holding page but you can still check it out at www.joyofyarn.co.nz

What A Difference A Day Makes

And to think that only a week ago I was extolling the virtues of an early Spring and that the worst of Winter was over...

I took these photos this morning at Woodside Railway Station with my cellphone... it was the coldest morning we've had all Winter. It went down to minus 3 and a very heavy frost was the result. It capped off another weekend of weather extremes which saw me driving back from Masterton on Saturday in a sleet shower. There was a healthy dumping of snow on the Eastern Hills and the Rimutaka Hill road was closed cutting us off from Wellington. My fingers were numb on the train this morning but I still managed to make some progress on some baby socks in Opal.

  I was able to start on the baby socks because I had finished my Non-conformist socks during the weekend. I would have worn them to work this morning to keep my tootsies warm except that my uniform is blue and these would have stood out just a little too much. My Blue trans-Atlantic jaywalkers get matched up with my uniform each week instead.

Last Thursday I had the pleasure of having two of my wisdom teeth extracted... well I say pleasure but I'm sure those of you who have had the procedure will know what I mean. I had opted for having an IV sedation to help me get through it but on Wednesday I developed a bit of a cold and when you have a cold the sedation is not an option. I just had to have the local injections and then grin (as much as one can with multiple implements in one's mouth) and bear it. 90 minutes later the Dentist asked me if I wanted to take the remains of the teeth home with me... as I gave up on the tooth fairy years ago (still hanging onto my belief in Santa though) so I told him to put the teeth into the rubbish.

So I spent Friday night at home feeling somewhat sorry for myself... that was until I made my way through half a tub of french vanilla flavoured ice-cream... that made me feel a lot better about life! But I have just one question... if I've lost two of my four wisdom teeth does that now make me a half-wit!!!

Feeling Good - Nina Simone

After the fantastic return to form by the All Blacks in their demolition of the Australian Wallabies in last night's second rugby union test match for the Bledisloe Cup I am definitely feeling good!

The game was so exciting that I could barely concentrate on my knitting! Here is a progress shot of the "non-conformist" socks. I had hoped to finish them last night but we had a friend over watching the game with us and we were all so involved with watching the game and supporting the All Blacks (as only arm chair supporters can!) knitting got put to one side. Perhaps I'll find the time tonight to finish the second sock while watching "Around the World in 80 Gardens" on the Living Channel.

I'm also feeling good because I recently achieved one of my long term fitness goals. Some of you will know that I've had issues with my weight in the past and I've tried several things to remedy the situation with varying levels of success or more commonly failure. About a year ago that all started to change when I took up rowing on the Concept2 rowing machine. I've made steady improvements in my health stats and lost an incredible 18kgs (40+lbs). I now row on average 70km's per week and on my birthday this year I rowed my two millionth metre! The endorphins were really working overtime that day. I over-indulged a bit around my birthday but for the first time in years I really didn't have any concerns about it. I know that the weight will come off if I keep to my rowing program. My next rowing goal is to maintain the 70km's per week distance for the next two years so that I can complete my ten millionth metre in time for my 40th birthday.

 The whole of New Zealand has been hit by a series of three storm fronts over the past week. Luckily for us here in Greytown we've only had to deal with heavy rain and a bit of minor surface flooding but the local rivers are certainly at their highest levels for ages. With more rain forecast for tonight and tomorrow it will be interesting to see what impact that will have. On the bright side there is only one month of Winter left and there are some early signs of Spring popping up. One of our Daphne bushes has burst into bloom and Ian took these cuttings and put them above the kitchen sink. So now when we do the dishes at night we have the lovely scent of the flowers wafting around us. When I said 'we do the dishes' I mean that we still do the dishes by hand, no electric dishwasher for us... it means we have a smaller carbon footprint and we enjoy lower power bills. Don't worry we still enjoy the luxury of a heated towel rail!

21st Century Boy - Sigue Sigue Sputnik

It was my birthday a couple of weeks ago and I chose to celebrate in a somewhat more subdued fashion this year... after all I turned 38... I need to keep something in reserve to make my 40th a night to remember in 2010!

Despite the fact that I didn't advertise it was my birthday quite a few of my knitting friends from around the world remembered and sent me e-mails and gifts. This photo is of the tasty and fibrous treats I received from my Swedish friend Ivar. The chocolate managed to last about 24 hours before Ian and I dealt to it in the appropriate manner :-) but the yarn I'm going to put to one side while I wait for just the perfect project for it. The subtle grey colour will be perfect for a project using a textured stitch.

 

I did decide to treat myself for my birthday... I pushed the boat out and bought a new 17 inch laptop and upgraded our ISP connection to wireless broadband. All I can say is that size really does matter and I feel like I've finally caught up to the 21st century. My old pc was on a dial up connection and ran on windows me... need I say more! Unfortunately the conversion did not go as smoothly as our ISP provider promised it would be hence no blogging. Not to worry that is all behind me now and I hope to be back blogging with a vengence from now on. All of a sudden I've got lots of things about to happen and I want to talk about them all!

Being the ripe old age of 38 does afford one some privileges... I bought myself some of the Regia design line yarn to knit myself a new pair of socks. Everyone knows that I am a big fan of Kaffe Fassett so I was quite excited when this range of yarn finally became available here in New Zealand. I saw some of the colours in London last year and was tempted enough to buy a couple of balls but I have yet to knit those up, a stash is for stashing. When I saw the "earth" colour I knew I had to knit up a pair for myself. Here is the first sock in the pair. It is the mirage style and I've used my basic sock pattern. I wanted a patern which would show off the yarn as opposed to the pattern. This yarn is a gorgeous mixture of chocolate and chestnut browns, purple and turqoise with a muddy green base colour. These are definitely my colours.

The other great thing about being 38 is that I'm starting to get the hang of being slightly non-conformist... I decided to have an odd pair of socks. The earth colourway comes in the mirage style as well as the landscape so I thought seeing as I like the colour palette why not have one of each. So here is a picture of the second sock which I started on the train this morning. The landscape style has more of a stripey effect and has a few extra colours thrown in for good measure. I should have the non-conformist pair finished in time for a rebellious weekend!

And for all of you who think that being past 30 is old age doddage... well being 38 is kinda fun and I'm thinking that 40 is going to be even better. 

Absence of Progress - Homo Iratus

As you've probably guessed from my lack of blogging, I haven't been knitting much lately.
I had started a new vest for myself and had made pretty good progress on the back but then decided that I didn't like the way it was working out. Don't ask me what I didn't like about it because I really don't know. It just wasn't turning out to look like the image I had of it in my mind when I started knitting it. Normally I would just stop knitting and shove it into a bag and put it to one side and come back to it another time. The reality is that the wardrobe in the spare room has become a bit of a dumping ground for unfinished projects.

This time I decided that it would be best to opt for a bit of frogging. Unfinished projects tend to annoy the hang out of me and I didn't want to add to the pile so I became brutal and dealt to the vest in the appropriate manner.

In the process the vest did a very good job of being brutal to me... I guess that's par for the course when you're trying to frog mohair. The fibre proved very reluctant to go back into it's individual strands and it took me about an hour to tame the frizzy mess. After grumbling, moaning and swearing my way through it this is what I was left with and the only frizzy mess remaining was the hair left on my head. Luckily I had the soothing sounds of Lisa Stansfield playing in the background to calm me down. I don't think I'll be frogging anything else in a hurry... mohair or otherwise.

Last month saw my parent's celebrate their 39th wedding anniversary and one of the gifts I sent through was this knitted Golly I bought at the Wairarapa Spinners and Weavers shop in Masterton. Mum collects dolls and has a couple of Golly's which my brother and I played with as children. She was happy to add it to her collection and declared it her favourite present of the day... that surprised me as the chocolate covered almonds I gave her appeared to have a very short but happy existence. I think our mutual attraction to chocolate must be genetic... or by way of osmosis.

Dirty Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap - AC/DC

You'd think that I would be just a little fed up with knitting beanies by now but in the past few days I've been keeping myself busy whipping up a few more for various people. I remember the jokes about the supermodel Linda Evangelista in the 1990's when she said she wouldn't get out of bed for less than $10,000 per day... well luckily for me our resident Supermodel Ian comes considerably cheaper. He happily accepted this beanie in beautiful chocolate tones. He requested the band be twice the normal length to allow him the flexibility to fold it up or down over his ears depending on the weather.


On Saturday morning Ian and I headed into Masterton as we were both in need of a haircut and had a number of small errands to run. On the way back I decided to stop off in Carterton at a great cafe called Wild Oats to pick up a couple of sweet treats for Ian as well. Being fixated on chocolate swirly things I couldn't resist this chocolate roll up which was a diabolically delicious combination of pastry, chocolate paste, fruit paste, sultanas and chocolate chips. What's not to love about that!




As if that wasn't enough Ian was quite taken with the jam smiley face biscuits so I got a couple of those as well. These are made from two plain biscuits with strawberry jam in the centre, eyes and mouth cut out and then dusted with icing sugar. They looked great in the display case but after being put into bags and shoved around a bit on the way home they looked slightly less happy... in fact I think this one looks rather like the promo pictures of Heath Ledger as the Joker in the upcoming Batman movie. Regardless of the look they tasted wonderful and certainly put a smile on our faces for the rest of the afternoon! I'll have to make up for my weekend excesses on the rowing machine at the gym tomorrow....

You Can Leave Your Hat On - Van Morrison

I mentioned earlier in the year that I had decided to support a local charity called the Kids Can Charitable Trust by answering their call for knitters to help out by knitting up beanies for New Zealand children in need. I saw it as a perfect way to use up some of my yarn stash (seeing as I'm sticking to my yarn diet this year) and help a very worthy cause at the same time.

As usual when I commit to something, especially a knitting project, I really commit to it. The Trust had set a goal of 10,000 beanies for the children and to do my bit I set myself a goal of  contributing 50 beanies. It sounded like an easy to achieve goal at the time... famous last words! I dedicated my daily train commute time for the knitting and it created quite a bit of attention with passengers asking me daily how progress was going and how many I still had left to knit up.

I modified the official pattern slightly and managed to make sure that no two beanies were the same. The deadline to get the beanies finished and delivered to a Knit World store is this Saturday and I'm pleased to say that last night I finished my 50th beanie and I hand delivered them all to the Cuba St, Wellington branch of Knit World earlier today. Some look quite wonderful and some look quite hideous but each one will help keep a kiwi kid's head warm this winter.

Just in case you don't believe that each one was different here's the proof!!! :-) .......
(My thanks to our resident in house supermodel Ian)

You're So Vain - Carly Simon

Well here I am back blogging again after a two month hiatus. Things have been a bit hectic at work and at home so I decided that it was time to be a bit selfish and take some time out for myself. I'm amazed that two months have flown by... where does the time go!

As part of being selfish I actually made the time to knit myself something... a vest in Kaffe Fassett's Persian Poppy design. I had fun trawling through my stash and putting together a number of different yarns to create it. I've used about fourteen shades of green and about seventeen shades of brown to get this effect. I've been wearing it constantly since I finished it and it has certainly proven to be quite a conversation starter. People have come up to me on the train and at cafe's to comment on it. I love the ego boost that gives me and If I were a vain person I'd say that it's the best thing I've knitted yet and I look really good wearing it ! :-)


  Instead of keeping the colour work totally random I decided to match the front and back so that there was more of a balance. That proved to be slightly more difficult than I thought it would but the result made it all worthwhile. I'm seriously considering knitting up another one with the same colours but reversing them... meaning I'll use the browns for the background and the greens for the poppies. I know the colours work well together but it will be interesting to see how well they will balance. I think what I like the most is that the colours I chose are perfect for Autumn, my favourite time of the year and what we're in the middle of down here in the Southern hemisphere.

Speaking of which here are some shots of our garden showing off all the colours I love so much... along with an obligatory shot Jazz the cat playing in the fallen leaves.
 









No points for guessing why I named our home Scarlet Oak Cottage.

Beautiful Day - U2

It was indeed a beautiful day on Saturday for my cousin Neville's wedding. As you can see from the photo Serena, his bride looked amazing. Everything pretty much went to plan and despite some strong south-easterly winds blowing in the rain kept away. The only real cause for concern was the celebrant who kept fluffing her lines, even though everything was written down in front of her. No-one felt able to say anything about her though as she was Serena's Aunt.

Here we have it... Neville wearing the kilt hose I knitted for the occasion. I was extremely relieved to see that they fitted him so well and a lot of people commented favourably on them. I was impressed with the lace up brogues he bought to go with them. If ever I do end up getting a kilt of my own I'll also get a pair of those brogues, they looked amazing.

After the ceremony while Neville and Serena were whisked away for the official photo's the guests were kept busy with some traditional Scottish dancing. Everyone was invited to join in and make fool's of themselves. I opted to stand back and preserve my dignity and thought that I had until they announced that the next dance was to be the Gay Gordon and someone who shall remain nameless said that with a name like that for a dance I should be a natural. Keeping with the kilt hose for a minute, apart from Neville only one other kilt wearer on the day was wearing handknit kilt hose and he was the dance instructor. Everyone else was wearing shop bought walk socks.

My parents made the six hour drive down to the wedding, although Mum was driving and Dad said it took a lot less than six hours! I always said my Mother was a fast mover. As you can see from this photo they were enjoying themselves too... perhaps it had something to do with all the wine that kept appearing from nowhere at our table.

Neville has always been a huge U2 fan, I've lost count of the number of U2 concerts he's been to around the world, and so the first dance for Neville and Serena was to U2's Beautiful Day. It was a perfect start to their married life together...

Celebration - Kylie Minogue

This week has certainly been one full of celebrations so far this week and there's still more to come...

Monday started off well with it being St Patrick's Day. What with my Grandfather coming from Northern Ireland it's a given that I celebrate every March 17th. This year Ian and I were invited out for dinner by our friends George and Kate. When I got home from work I went upstairs and got changed putting on the cap I bought in Northern Ireland last year and an Irish t-shirt I was given about eight years ago. It features a quintet of sheep dancing a jig while singing and playing musical instruments. This is the first time I have ever worn it... as I've lost so much weight, although from the photo I can see that I need to do quite a few more sit ups and crunches to work on my tummy.

George is from Boston and had the luck to come from both Irish and Italian stock, Kate comes from Louisiana... so good food is always a given when visiting George and Kate! Keeping with the Irish theme they had prepared Soda bread, boiled cabbage, corned silverside and of course.... potatoes! George and I chose to wash it all down with some Guinness. Thanks George and Kate, it was a wonderful evening... to be true!

On Tuesday I met up with my cousin Neville for lunch and handed over the kilt hose. Nev was delighted with them and I'm looking forward to seeing him wear them at the wedding. The only last minute glitch for the ceremony is that the Piper they booked has broken his arm in a rock climbing accident and they are trying to find a last minute replacement. I'm guessing that piped pipe music wouldn't go down too well!

With the kilt hose out of the way I felt like knitting up something completely different before I get stuck into my knitting for the Knitter's Weekend in May. I remembered that Ian had asked me to knit up a tea cosy for one of the Rest Homes he works at. The residents all get given a cup of tea in the evenings once they have settled into bed and Ian was saying that there had been some complaints that the tea wasn't staying hot for long enough in the tea pot. My only brief was that it had to be colourful... and believe me this one is certainly colourful!

I didn't have a pattern so I just made one up. Two striped squares with stitches picked up to create the ruffles. Those ruffles took longer to knit than I thought they would but they should provide the added insulation required to keep the tea hot. I finished the last ruffle on the train last night and managed to sew it together and sew in all the ends while watching Coronation Street. Sticking true to my yarn diet... the yarn came from odds and ends in my stash.

The celebrations continue this weekend with Easter. I drove in to Wellington this morning to go to the gym (in preparation for all the chocolate and hot cross buns I know I'll end up devouring this weekend) and was pleasantly surprised to see quite a few people attending the Church services. I was not raised in an overtly religious family and I have developed my own views on organised religion, which differ from those of my parents, over the years.  What I do however respect is everyone's right to express their faith in whatever way is meaningful to them. Walking down a road carrying a giant wooden cross, as I saw this morning, doesn't do anything for me but if it makes others feel good about themselves good on them for getting out there and doing it.

The celebrating will continue tomorrow with Nev and Serena's wedding in Palmerston North. I'll be catching up with lots of Uncles, Aunts and cousins not to mention my Mum and Dad who will also be attending.

I hope everyone gets to enjoy this holiday weekend and that you have fun celebrating in your own way.