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!!!