Giveaway Update...

Hey all :)

Just a quick update as you may be wondering why I disappeared off the face of the earth in September.

I've not been well unfortunately - nothing serious, just a cold/flu type bug but it drained my energy so I put the giveaway on hold until I was feeling better able to promote it. To be honest I was a little disappointed with the amount of interest in it too.I will start giveaway promotion again tomorrow so keep your eye out for ways to enter....

I have so far raised £24 for MSF (Doctors Without Borders) and have decided to continue fundraising for them this month too so I can get the total higher. For each skein of yarn you buy from my WharfedaleWoolworks shop or each item you buy from my WoolworksToo shop I will donate 50p out of my profit - come on folks lets bump that donations total up!

I'll leave you with a lovely pair of warm woolly fingerless mitts - perfect for the weather we are apparently going to get by the end of the week....

Question One....

Finally the first question of my giveaway is here!

I first started selling hand dyed yarns in 2009, but whether you've known me for years or reading this giveaway blog post is the first time you've heard of me I'd just like to know how you first heard about  Wharfedale Woolworks. Simply post your answer here on the blog (comments are always moderated) and you will earn one raffle ticket  :)

The total donation to MSF from sales so far this month still stands at £15.50 - for every purchase you make from Wharfedale Woolworks or Woolworks Too during September I will donate 50p

So how can you enter the giveaway?

Ok, as promised a litle more info.

Tomorrow I will post a question here on my blog. Answering by comment on the blog will earn you one raffle ticket to be entered into the draw at the end of the month.

More chances to enter will happen throughout the month on Twitter, Tumblr and on my Facebook page :)

And some lovely news - my donation to MSF is off to a cracking start. £15.50 so far this month!

More Info on my Giveaway & Donations...

You may remember that yesterday I said I would be giving some more info soon about the giveaways I will be running and the charity donations I will be making in the run up to Christmas? Well here it is....

Each month from Setember through to November I will be giving away custom dyed yarn to a value of around £22 to one lucky winner and a pair of hand dyed and hand knit fingerless gloves to another. In December I will hold a Christmas bonanza event where all entrants from the three previous months will be entered into a final draw.

Entrants will be issued with numbered raffle tickets - I will post the numbers on here before the draw takes place. Entry will be through posting answers to questions on this blog, Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr.
Extra raffle tickets can be earned through purchases - 1 ticket for every £5 spent in my Wharfedale Woolworks or Woolworks Too shops.
Extra tickets can also be earned by fellow Etsy sellers who feature my items in treasuries ;)

More info on this tomorrow....

Also, for each item sold in my shops I will be donating 50 pence out of my profit to a chosen charity each month from September to November. September's charity will be MSF (Doctors Without Borders) due to the work they have been doing in very difficult conditions in Syria. I am happy to take nominations for charities to donate to in October & November - I have been thinking along the lines of a mental health charity and a UK homeless charity.

Hope this makes sense - I will add further info tomorrow :)

In case you haven't seen my fingerless gloves before here is a pair I made earlier...

I'm Back...

Wonder if anyone actually noticed I had gone? Or why?

Basically, the last couple of years have been very difficult for me. I don't want to go into details here, some of you will know what has been going on in my family anyway. Suffice to say I'd rather not dwell on  it. I have finally managed to draw a line under it all and I'm moving onwards and upwards :)

Things are looking good at the moment. I have a new part time job which I am enjoying very much and I've just reached 1000 sales on Etsy!

As I feel so blessed I'd like to give a little something back, so between now and Christmas I will be running a  monthly giveaway. Plus there will be a charitable donation made for each item sold from my shops during September, October and November. More details to follow tomorrow....

And in case you don't believe I'm happy at last, here's proof...

Thank Folksy it's Friday!

Not done one of these for a while, mainly due to being in the office from hell on Fridays.

Here is a selection of gorgeous spring/summer knitwear :)

Apologies.

Some of you may have noticed that I haven't been all that chatty recently - on here, on Twitter, Facebook or Folksy. Unfortunately my depression has reared its ugly head again and so I have been quite withdrawn. It's a battle I've been fighting since my teens but it became worse when I had my breakdown a couple of years ago. I think my office job, although it's only 2 days a week, makes it worse as I really don't like being there. Unfortunately my dyeing does not make enough money to cover my part of the bills yet so I have to struggle on unless I'm made redundant. My doctor has upped my anti-depressants and I'm feeling a little better now so hopefully I'll be more sociable over the coming weeks. I must be feeling better as I've finally got round to having my hair done!






















One of the positives that has come out of the last few weeks is that I've been experimenting with some new dyeing techniques and base yarns. The first of these is my Merino Tweed Sock. It is made up of two strands of ordinary merino yarn plied with one superwash strand. The superwash strand takes dyes more intensely resulting in a yarn that knits up with a tweedy effect. This does actually feel a little bit like cheating - like the magic painting books we had as kids where the colours magically appeared as the wet brush passed over them. I've decided to do some of this yarn as self-striping - this takes a lot more time and work than normal dyeing as the skeins have to be wound off and then re-wound for dyeing in different colours. It's easy to get things in a tangle, so it can't be rushed. For this reason the self-striping will be more expensive than the variegated version. Here is a photo of the first few rows of a sock in Watermelon self-stripe...






















Coming soon I will have Merino/Tencel Sock and Lace, Bluefaced Leicester/Silk Sock and Sparkle Sock in both gold and silver versions. All of these would make lovely shawls or wraps for cool summer evenings.

Before I go just a quick reminder - I currently have a sale on in my Zibbet shop - 15% off everything!!!

Happy New Year!!!

I know it's a bit late, but it had to be said :)

Can't believe my last blog post was back in October!

Things at the end of last year all seemed to disappear into a blur - first there was the flu, which it took me until the middle of November to get over fully and then there was the chaos that is the build up to Christmas.

Somewhere in the midst of all that I managed to open my Etsy shop. Coriandr and Misi simply weren't working for me so I have closed those shops now. I also now have a second Folksy shop, Woolworks Too, for knits. This has been a little neglected recently though I plan to add more to it in the near future.

I have also started to add spinning fibres to my shops, with an emphasis on British Breed fibres. See the examples below:
















Top: (L) Masham, (R) Dorset Horn
Bottom: (L) Merino & Soybean, (R) Black Welsh & Tussah Silk

I will also be carding vegan batts including fibres such as banana, bamboo, tencel, cotton, soybean and seacell.

As if that wasn't enough I have somewhat stupidly agreed to take part in a year long KAL on Ravelry. The UK Sock Knitters group is doing an A-Z 26 pairs in a year challenge. Here is the cast on of my first sock:












Unbelievably it's the first time I have ever done toe-up socks - I'm really enjoying it :)

Still Ill!

As a Smiths fan I could not resist the title Still Ill for this blog post.

Yes you guessed it, I still haven't managed to get over this horrendous flu type thing that I've now been fighting off since the end of September. I had to call the doctor to the house at one point as I didn't feel well enough to get dressed and get in a taxi to go to the surgery. He confirmed my worst fears - it was flu. That was 2 weeks ago and I'm still croaky voiced and now have sinusitis and a chesty cough.

I've been planning to do a giveaway for weeks and haven't had the energy to arrange it yet - hopefully it will be announced over the weekend. I haven't even been able to do much knitting or spinning as my eyes hurt and I get stabbing pains in my face when I look down. It has also aggravated my fibromyalgia pain over my hips, shoulders and back so getting comfortable is very difficult.

There have been a couple of good moments through all of this though - as many of you will know I often spend quite a lot of time on Twitter and as a result of my tweeting about not feeling well the lovely people at Interflora sent me these lovely flowers to cheer me up :)


















Then a few days later a lovely customer and friend Amanda, otherwise known as @knittingmummy, sent me a lovely project bag as a surprise gift as she knew I'd been feeling really fed up. It really made my day :)

Thank Folksy It's Friday!

Its National Wool Week! In celebration I have done a woolly Folksy Friday selection today, hope you like it :)

Thank Folksy It's Friday!

Having missed doing a Folksy Friday for the last couple of weeks I was determined to get one done today. I actually prepared most of this on Wednesday so I wouldn't have a mad rush on Thursday evening or Friday morning.

Then I ended up being off work ill today anyway - I had a heavy cold last weekend and couldn't go to Silverstone for my birthday and yesterday I left work early as I couldn't stay warm even wrapped up in a heavy duty fleece jacket in an office which has an average temperature of 78 degrees! Thought it was just a Fibromyalgia flare up at first as I was achy all over but now I suspect it's a mild flu I'm fighting off. Going to miss out on going to the Alpaca Farm tomorrow now too :(

My Folksy Friday for this week is a celebration of the lovely bath goodies available on Folksy. For some reason I didn't get any smellies for my birthday this year - that must be a first! Hopefully some of my family will see this and be inspired to treat me at Christmas ;)

Thank Folksy it's Friday!

It's good to be back!!!

I had a fantastic week in Cornwall, staying in a house in Hayle and enjoying travelling round the area, which is so beautiful. I managed to get to the Eden Project and Lizard Point, both of which will no doubt inspire yarns soon. But more of my hols (including snaps) over the next couple of days.

When I returned from my hols to the north I was struck by the industrial beauty that is all around me. People often stop to appreciate the fields, rivers and trees in the area where I live without giving the mill buildings and factories a second glance. This week's Folksy Friday pays homage to industrial beauty in its many and varied forms...

Changes!!!

I have decided to make some changes to my shops, so my Coriandr and Misi shops are closed until further notice. My Folksy shop is temporarily closed until I return from my holidays, at which point I will be adding some new yarns, including this lovely Superwash Merino Laceweight :)






















That is, if the housesitter doesn't snaffle it all first ;)

At the moment I am considering putting all my knitted items and custom knit slots in my Coriandr shop, as I cannot separate everything effectively on Folksy until their long awaited shop sections are available. Knitted items will include longies and soakers as before (I am a Sheepy Time cottage licence holder), plus hats for adults and children knitted from patterns by the hugely talented Woolly Wormhead
(I have her permission to do this) as well as some scarves, mittens and bootees of my own design.

Here is a recently completed set - Tubey hat by Woolly Wormhead and mittens and bootees which reflect the hat design :)






















My Misi shop may well end up stocking stitch markers and earrings, like these I made recently...

Thank Folksy it's Friday!

For once I'm not stuck in the office on a Friday and boy does it feel good!!!

This means I get the chance to do my Folksy Friday during the day at my leisure rather than squeezing it into the evening. My theme for this week is Beach Huts, due to the fact that I set off on my hols at midnight for a much needed break in Cornwall :)

As usual, if you click on the piccies you should be magically transported to the shop in question.....

Thank Folksy it's Friday!

Here at last is the fourth of my elements themed Folksy Fridays - air. All of these lovely items from talented Folksy sellers have a link to the air or it's movement....

Thank Folksy it's Friday!

As I have already done the elements water and fire and have recently acquired an allotment, earth seemed like a good theme for this week's picks...