My Attic got plastered!

Squeeeee - I'm so excited.  ALL my stash and equipment is going to be stored in orderly and shipshape fashion in the new workshop/studio up in the attic - and it got plastered yesterday!  Now, all it needs are some cupboards, the electrics and light fittings and a carpet - then I'm all set to decorate and move in the furniture!  Really, this is SO exciting.  My dream of becoming a fully fledged knitting designer and teacher is underway.

The plaster only takes 4 days to dry and then it can be painted -which is amazingly quick.  The attic space isn't huge - but it will be MINE, all MINE - and how many folk are lucky enough to be able to have their own workshop?  DH is just pleased that all my stash can be squirrelled away from downstairs and he can stand a chance of keeping it tidy.  He always was a better housewife than me.

I'm also running a few workshops in the next couple months:

In the village - at my good friend Ruth's glorious house up Mapstone Hill - kitchen a la Provence, scrubbed wooden tables, cats curled up in front of (if not IN) the Aga, dresser piled high with eclectic china and OODLES of room - KNITTING 101 - an introduction to the basics.  Starts Wednesday April 17th 10-12am, and runs for 6 weeks.  Very reasonable at £36 per person, minimum of 3 to run, and maximum of 8.  Refreshments provided - bring your own yarn/needles.

At the HUB in Ipplepen - two Saturday courses:  the first is on March 23rd 10-1pm and will be all about the magical moebius cast on - the second is on April 20th 10-4pm and will be all about FairIsle/stranded knitting and working with colour.  Refreshments available from the cafe - £16 for the half day, £26 for the full day.

Currently working on several Lopi designs but also turning this handspun -  Louet fibre from the P/Hop swop in York last January - into a ruffled, cabled, smoochy 'short row shuffle' shawl.  I had planned to abbreviate all that to 'shoofly' but I discovered on Ravelry that there already IS  a shoofly out there so I'll have to put my thinking cap on for a new name.  The yarn was spun from a pencil roving that had two inch stripes in bright purple/blue/gold all along its length - hard to believe, ay?  It's turned out buttery soft and about DK weight which I'm knitting up on 5mm needles and the pattern is scrumptious and just what it wanted to be.

The Phoenix and 'For the Love of Lopi'.

I retired from full time work as a midwife last November - several reasons, but chief among them was a wish to follow my heart and embrace my woolly obsession.  I want to spin, and knit, and dye and design and teach and spread the word.
Besides that, I could no longer face the on-calls at work - after a night up, it would take me going on three days to recover - and the hospital management expect team midwives to do an 'on call' at least once a week!  Imagine trying to recover from jet lag every single week.  I also noticed many colleagues getting ill - with breast cancer or fatigue syndromes or similar.  Several people I know of have died suddenly - and not just those people who smoke or abuse their health!  Time to live the dream methinks.

Time also to resurrect this blog.

I've got far too many projects on the go - but 'For the Love of Lopi' is currently winning.  Jamie wanted a jumper.  This wish coincided with me doing a Craftsy Course making a top down cardigan in Lett Lopi.  Lopi is an Icelandic wool which is sticky in the same way as Shetland wool, but thick and water repellant and very very warm - ideal for colour work.  This project so inspired me that I felt the need to knit several more.  I've finished a jumper for young honorary grandson Rafe and am half way down the body of the jumper for Jamie (Rafe's father).  I will follow this with a jumper for Charlie, Rafe's mother and Seth, my big handsome son.  A whole family of Lopi jumpers!   By then I might well have had my fill of Lopi.