A busy winter

Following on from my last post, it certainly has been onwards and upwards!

January got off to a great start with a very busy St Albans farmers market followed a couple of weeks later by a successful Waltham Abbey Wool show. It's the most local show to me (about 20 minutes' drive!) and it was good to meet several people I knew from Guild and from my general social life as well as customers old and new!

February has been busy too - I was offered a cancellation spot at the Unravel festival in Farnham and was absolutely delighted to be able to go. I had been turned down in my original application back in September, but must have been on the reserve list. It was my first time there and was my best show ever in terms of sales. The venue, organisation and general ambiance get a big thumbs up from me too - the tea trolley going round the stalls and the house cat deserve particular mentions! I did take a picture of my stand, but it is so out of focus that I can't put it up here - you'll just have to take my word for it that it looked good.

I've got about eight weeks dyeing time to get ready for Wonderwool Wales now and then I Knit Fandango is a couple of weeks after that, so no pressure then!

I've got a couple of new colours for spring - Lavender Garden and Seascape (pictured below) - which are going to be featured in Inside Crochet magazine's next issue (no 63) Inside Crochet, but the surprise hit of the season has been Petrol Green, which has sold fantastically well. Bottle green was my school uniform colour, so I've always felt a bit ambivalent towards it! I'm sold out at the moment,  but will put up a picture when I've got a new lot ready. Now to go and get some more yarn ready to dye!

  

2015 - onwards and upwards!

After a bit of a struggle to remember my password, I'm ready to get going in my first blog of the new year! I love this time of year and the feelings of taking stock of the past and looking forward to new opportunities.

I seem to have been very busy last year, but not always as productive as all the activity would warrant, so making the best use of my time is something I'm going to have to keep track of for 2015. To that end, I've decided to have rest from Harpenden Farmers' market this year. Although some individual months were great and it's a pleasure to go there, overall the year's taking don't justify all the work. I'll still be going to St Albans, which has really built up well and it's in the same area, so determined Harpenden customers can still get to me! I'm there on the 11th for my first market of the new year.

A week after, on the 18th, is the first wool show of the year - the Waltham Abbey Wool Show. It's  local to me which is great and was really busy last year, so I'm looking forward to that. I'm a little low on stock, but I've been doing lots of dyeing and hope to have built up to a respectable level over the next couple of weeks.

I've signed up for a new show in May, Fandango, run by Iknit which will be in the Horticultural Halls in central London, again pretty local to me. I'll have to take the car up to load and unload, but will be able to commute by train for the rest of the time - another plus!

I'm hoping to get into Wonderwool Wales in April - the results of the applications should be out any day now, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I didn't get into Unravel, but am hoping for a cancellation, and I'll apply for Yarndale again later in the year.

With my ready-made items, I'm going to look at going to more "country house" type fairs and generally move a bit more into upmarket homewares, but that's all in the planning stage for this year and 2016 will see more action.

That's it for this post - a Happy New Year to all, let's hope it's a prosperous one too!
 

Autumn News

Well, autumn is in full swing now and I'm getting busy. Harpenden was very good last week - plenty of customers and nice weather! I've got a "free" weekend this week and then back to St Albans on the 12th.

I'm making poppies this year, after a suggestion by one of my customers, which are being sold in aid of the British Legion - picture below:

I didn't get into Unravel, which was very disappointing, but I understand competition is fierce. I do hope that I might get a place if there is a cancellation, as it's commutable and I would be able to go at short notice. I was asked to take up a cancellation place for Yarndale, but I just couldn't do it. I wouldn't have had enough stock, plus getting somewhere to stay for the weekend would have been very difficult, I'll still apply there next year though. In any case, I've got Festiwool in a few weeks and then the Waltham Abbey wool show in January, so there's plenty to keep me occupied. I've just applied for Wonderwool Wales 2015 too and am keeping my fingers crossed for that.

I've added an "Events" page to my website, so I can keep a diary running covering the next couple of months' fairs and markets, so it will be easier for people to know where I'm going to be. I've already had a couple of enquiries via the "contact us" form - it's nice to know people are looking!    

Into Autumn

Wow, I've just noticed that I haven't posted here since May. I have been using my Facebook page to give small updates as I dye more yarn or do something interesting and have been keeping this for a longer posts, but always end up thinking that I'll sit at the computer and do it soon, but not right now - hence the long gap!

Anyway, here goes:
The yarn club went well this year. I announced the colour themes in advance, so people could pick which months they wanted to go for, avoiding anything they didn't like. I like the opportunity to experiment a bit and came up with some colours that will be keepers and going into my general rotation, plus a couple, which didn't fit the colour themes I was aiming for, but did happen to be just what I've been trying to dye for general yarn.

Shows: I've signed up for a new show, Festiwool, in November which, like the Waltham Abbey Wool Show, is fairly local to me. This one is in Hitchin, Herts - about 45 minutes' drive from home and timed in early November, so customers will still have time to make their gifts! I wasn't planning to do any more shows this year, but this looked to good to miss. For 2015, I've applied to Unravel in Farnham, my first attempt. The deadline for applications has passed now and I'm in tenterhooks waiting to see if I've been successful.

Markets: After a couple of months' break, I went back to St Alban's Farmers' Market on Sunday. It was fairly busy and several regular customers came up to say Hi and buy stuff! I'm at Harpenden in a couple of weeks time. I've got a new alpaca scarf in the ready-made ranges and am hoping it will be popular. The sample I took with me was stroked a fair bit, so that bodes well. I've applied for a couple of extra craft fairs local(ish) to me too, so I'll be adding them to the "Events" page of my website when I get confirmations. 

and finally, I've moved and updated my website to a 1and1 my website - I found it pretty easy to do and I like that I can update it myself, the old one relied on a webmaster to do everything and it just wasn't satisfactory.

This post is quite long enough now, so that's it for today - I'll write again in the next few weeks,     

Moving forward

Well, Wonderwool was quieter on the sales front than I had hoped, but otherwise a good weekend. Several customers from last year came back to buy more and I found I had given out all the leaflets I had brought with me, so as a publicity exercise it was good - since coming back I've had more likes on my facebook page and my yarn club sign-ups have been going well.

I think I really need to re-vamp my display and range of products, so I'll be working on that for the remainder of the year. I decided not to go to Fibre East this year and got turned down for Yarndale, so there won't be any more shows to do until 2015. I've started by ordering a vinyl banner with the logo very prominently on it - several people said they had been looking for my stand, but hadn't realised until they were right there and speaking to me, that they had found it!

I'll be investing in some gridwall too, so I can display the stock more effectively. I've been working on some designs for the stand too - sadly pilfering of both stock and samples is becoming a problem at shows and I'll factor in some anti-theft elements to the design.

As for the range of yarn, I'll be trying some silk mix yarns and some different weights. I don't want to move away from silk entirely, as I want to have products that are different from others that are on offer and there are already so many beautiful wools on the market.

The first show of 2015 has already been announced - the Waltham Abbey Wool Show, which will be in mid-January and I've already been contacted by the organisers. It was a new show last year and I found it very successful, plus it's held only 20 minutes drive from my home!

Some of the new yarns I'm considering have arrived - a silk-alpaca mix and a merino-silk mix, both lace-weight - and I'll be starting the dyeing over the next few weeks. Pictures to follow!

In the meantime, as summer appears to have arrived, I went for a lovely walk with my husband last week along the canal/river Lea towpath from Hertford to Ware and through the Hertfordshire countyside. Here's a couple of pictures:

Wonderwool

We set off on Friday and I'm almost ready! Just a couple more skeins to wind and then the checklist to work through on Thursday. The weather forecast isn't great, which won't affect me, but my poor husband has to amuse himself during the day and it looks like he won't be able to do much walking or fishing!

As ever, I always wonder if I've dyed enough yarn and is it the right colours. I've run out of undyed yarn now, so I can't do any more for the show! I'm always happy to take orders, so I must remember to tell people if they can't find what they were looking for. When I went to the Waltham Abbey show in January, I came away with some and it seemed to work well.

I'm starting the mini skeins club a bit earlier this year to coincide with Wonderwool - sign-ups open in May and I'll start organising that when I get back.

Thinking of Spring

Time has again gotten away from me once again and I've come here to collect my thoughts and put a bit of an update on screen.

Firstly, it seems to have stopped raining at last - I've had some very wet markets this winter! However, that doesn't seemed to have put off my customers at St Albans farmers' market and it's a big "thank you" to them for their support. Not the same at Harpenden unfortunately, which has been a bit of a disappointment overall this year, but I'm finished for this season there now and won't be back until the autumn. I'll see how it goes for the pre-Christmas trading and then make some decisions.

Otherwise, I've been pretty busy with online sales and now getting ready for Wonderwool Wales in April, which I'm looking forward to very much. This year my husband is going to come with me. I'll be working the stand alone during the day, but it will be nice to have his company in the evenings. We're going upmarket and staying in the Caer Beris hotel for three nights, which will be a nice touch of luxury. I've got a list of all the colours I want to dye, but don't know if I'll get it all done in time. At the Waltham Abbey show in January, I took orders, which worked out well, so I'll do that again.

Before Easter I've got three fairs to go to - I'm at Artisans of Ware on April 6th and the following weekend I've got two events - a fair in Wanstead on Saturday 12th and St Albans farmers market on Sunday 13th.

Finally, we had a nice break a couple of weeks ago, skiing in Levi, Finland and here's a picture of the snowy landscape which I loved.