Here is our current window at the shop, shot in 3 goes because it’s that much bigger now!

Here we have the amazing Clothkits!  A real hark back to the 70’s and 80’s and now resurrected. We are one of the only retailers in the country to be lucky enough to stock them. In the window we have the Peekaboo Birdie dress and the hat and bag set. Please phone or call in for details. Pat has also made this cute skirt for my daughter with some of our Amy Butler fabric. And you can see one of Amy’s ready made bags there too!

Rowan Milk Cotton Tabitha Coat, Amy Butler Betty Shopper bag and half a Madison bag.

More lovely things from the Milk Cotton book.

The website is now up to date with virtually all of the new Autumn/Winter yarns and patterns. The current favourites are the Rowan Milk Cotton which is what the coat in the window is knitted with. For adults, the Rowan Cocoon is flying out of the shop. The Cocoon collection book will be on the website asap as we had run out when we came to do this update! It is in the shop though so you can always give us a ring. I’ve just started knitting Cheri, the lace tank,and I’ve seen Tyra knitted and it looks fab. The yarn is lovely to knit.

Cheri and Tyra

My next project is definitely the British Breeds yarn, one of the only yarns we stock that is truly British, from British Sheep and spun in Yorkshire. I was planning to knit a jumper for the Webmaster which I thought would be a great christmas present jumper for you to knit for the man in your life (forget the curse of the boyfriend jumper - it’s an urban myth!)  for the shop window but that idea has been superseded by Bainbridge. I don’t want to call it a poncho because that doesn’t do it justice. It’s so much more than that and I think it will be fab for those bright winter mornings on the walk to school.

Lovely (but cable intensive) Bainbridge

and superseded (but still great) jumper.

Another amazing new yarn is the Sublime Organic merino. Fantastically soft and will be on the website next week. You know what to do in the meantime if you can’t wait!

Happy winter knitting!

Our Amy Butler evening was brilliant! I didn’t really know beforehand what she was going to talk about but I thought it would be really interesting because her work is so great. Anyway, she talked about how she started out, her family, her home and her garden; all the things that inspire her. We had lots of people who came commenting on how much they enjoyed it and how nice Amy was. There was a raffle and Amy did some book signing. She is sending us some signed book plates to put in the books we have in the shop because they didn’t arrive from our supplier in time for the talk.

Amy and me

As you might know, I didn’t think I would be in Malvern for the talk because it clashed with our Cornwall holiday. So I planned to go and see Amy talk at Cowslip Workshops in Launceston. So on the Saturday I prettied myself up as best I could given I was on a muddy campsite and was just about to leave when the heavens opened. I was dubious about whether I’d get the car over the field before that so I knew that was it, I couldn’t go. Then the Webmaster said he didn’t want to me to go and that a journey over Bodmin Moor or wherever in that weather would basically finish me off and was it really worth it.

Lovely muddy campsite

So we sat in the tent and played Old Maid with the kids and then heard water rushing. What was a ditch behind the tent with no visible water had turned into a raging torrent of a river and had risen at least 5 feet in about half an hour. We packed up all our essentials and put them in the car and just watched the river rise and then, thankfully, fall again once it stopped raining. We were lucky our groundsheet is spectacularly waterproof so we were dry but other people were sweeping water out of their tents and wringing their clothes out. Nightmare. So I was quite glad I hadn’t gone in the end because even if I’d got out before that I don’t think I’d have got back!

We took advantage of the only break in the weather to pack up the tent while it was dry the next day and came home 3 days early. Every cloud has a silver lining because then I made to Amy’s talk and I wouldn’t have wanted to miss it.

Well, it’s lucky that we moved to a bigger shop because otherwise customers would have been clambering over mountains of yarn to get through the door!

5 big boxes arrived from Rowan today with everything from the new season range. It is all completely gorgeous. The smell of the purelife British Breeds wool is to die for. The colours of the new Cocoon are exquisite and everything else is just amazing too. We think it is the best season yet.

We collected a new Rowan stand this week which was great timing as we had no room left for the new yarns. Now it looks great - you can see all the colours and yarns easily.

If there’s anyone who hasn’t managed to visit our new shop yet, please do!  Feel free to pop in and knit for a while, we have a lovely table, window seat and chairs, you can try out the new yarns, browse through the new patterns, it is a knitter’s paradise. We have new things arriving all the time.

Please bear with us with our website. It has been a little neglected over the past month or so in favour of getting the workshop finished! Anyhow, we are on the case again and so aim to have all new items up by 20th August. In the meantime, you know you can always ring us to order.

Last Thursday we hosted our first Rowan workshop, Professional Finishing with Emma King. I think it is safe to say that everyone had a great time and learned loads of useful tips to make their knitting even better. In fact, the first tip that Emma gave (I shan’t give it away!) I was really impressed with and didn’t know; at that point I had wished I was sitting in on the course instead of working!

There is still space on the remaining workshops although Emma’s bag workshop and Debbie Abraham’s Professional Finishing are almost full.

By the way, the new season Rowan is now in!! We will have it all up on the website by 20th August we hope. In the meantime if you are after anything in particular please either call or e-mail the shop. We have pretty much everything that is new for the winter. I am about to cast on a pattern from the new Cocoon book in a beautiful plum colour of Cocoon. Mmmm.

Well, don’t forget to vote for us in the Let’s Knit awards, you have until the 8th August. Remember, you can win some excellent prizes if you do!

Let’s Knit magazine are having an awards thing where you can vote for your favourite thinks in the world of knitting and by doing so you could win some fab prizes!

So, please, please vote for us. Just go to www.letsknit.co.uk and click on ‘win fabulous prizes’ on the right hand side. We would be really grateful! We are eligible for the best LYS and the best internet /mail order service.You don’t need to register to enter your vote. Thanks!

You have probably seen on our front page about the talk we have booked with Amy Butler. We are very lucky as she is only in the UK for a week. As far as I know our talk is going to be the same as the one at the Festival of Quilts so as that is £17 , ours is a bargain at a fiver! We still have tickets left but there is a limit on numbers so if you would like a ticket, call into the shop or ring us to buy one. Don’t miss it!

Other exciting news… the new Rowan is in on 3rd August. Hurray! Lovely new things arriving like the Kaffe Fasset Colourscape yarn and Purelife Organic wool as well as old favourites in new colours.

I have decided on my holiday knitting based on the fact I want to use my Knitlite needles, 4.5mm. I think they will come into their own in a dark tent. I am doing the poncho from the Kim Hargreaves Heartfelt book. Yes, I know ponchos are technically ‘out’ but I think this one is an exception and will set me ‘on trend’ for the season ahead. Don’t you just love Gok!

It was our first day of being open at number 12 today. The weekend was hard work for everyone but we finished at a quite civilised 8pm on Sunday night. The webmaster was already in bed when I got home to give you some idea of the general level of weariness! It looks great, just how we imagined. The fabric room will benefit when the new Amy Butler fabrics arrive (should be any day) but we are certainly not short of wool. Even in a shop twice the size we are finding it challenging to find homes for everything. We tried to put out of our minds all the new stock that is arriving on 1st August while we were stacking - we’ll be starting from scratch to fit the new stuff in!

Anyway, Bucks Fizz was the order of the day and turned out to be a useful stressbuster after I left the filing cabinet keys at home, so we had no shade cards for most of the morning, then when I went to get the key realised I had locked myself out of my house. So I went to Dad’s for the spare key but it was the wrong one then when I went back he’d gone out. So I went to the in-laws who (what are the odds) also gave me the wrong key. So I gave up and then drank lots of bucks fizz when I got back to the shop!

So here it is in pictures:

The pic of me by the counter is taken from where Pat is in her picture and vice versa.

We have loads of bargains because we had a great clearout while we were moving. We have 3 £1 bins, 2 £2.50 bins and a third off some bits of Rowan, Araucania and Noro. Come and visit! There’s plenty of room to browse and relax and enjoy your yarn shopping. I will try to remember to take some pics of the pattern room and fabric room to show you.

Happy knitting!!

Well we ‘ve been working hard on the new shop - not us so much as the Webmaster and my Dad. Mary and Mike escaped on holiday for a week or so but they did some pretty heroic diy with the rest of us before they went.

The kids loved the painting, luckily we had to get rid of the carpet anyway…

There’s still a lot of work to do to get the workshop ready but that’s well underway. we’re so thrilled with how the shop has turned out and we can’t wait to move everything this weekend. It will be great fun - I hope!

So the big day is monday 30th June! There will be lovely Bucks Fizz (and other things which I haven’t had time to think about yet - probably cakes of some sort) and better yet, some special opening offers like double loyalty card stamps during the first week. I know that only benefits you locals, but we’ll think of something for our web shoppers too!

Tickets are starting to sell well for our Amy Butler event. Check out her website if you’re not familiar with her stuff. It is beautiful and I’m sure it will be great hearing Amy speak about her work. Unfortunately I’m on holiday in Cornwall so I can’t make it. Very bad planning. But it turns out that Amy is also speaking in Cornwall so I am booking onto that instead! Give us a ring at the shop on 01684 892079 if you’d like a ticket for our event.

Anyway, come and see us when you can. It is going to be so lovely!! And so much bigger!

Yes, the Knitting Parlour is on the move! We are moving 2 doors down from where we are now to number 12. It’s a bigger, squarer shop with a lovely big basement where we will hold our workshops. It’s very exciting, we’re planning to open on Monday 30th June after 4 weeks of major painting and hauling kilos of yarn a few metres along the road. I was going to post a link to the article in the local paper because there is a pic of Pat outside the new shop but unfortunately the article is there but not the picture (Pat will be glad about that).

For those of you that visit us once in a while (or a lot), we will be closed on Saturday 28th June but come and visit us on 30th or soon after, we will be having some opening offers and things like that. We will post more details when we know them.

Happy knitting!

Malvern showtime has arrived again.  First the RHS Spring Show and then the Quilt Show.  We seem to have a full house for each event.  It is great to see everyone and to catch up.  Knitting wise I have finished a chunky aran type cardi in Debbie Bliss Chunky Tweed and I am hoping to find just the right buttons for it at the Quilt Show

I have also knitted a pair of socks with the Kureyon Sock yarn,  The colours are wonderful but I agree withVicki that it would probably be better knitted in a pattern as the stripes are quite wide.

the weather has been absolutely fantastic and I have actually spent some time sitting in the garden getting through some of my huge backlog of hand quilting.  Who knows if the summer is fine I may have a new quilt on my bed in the Autumn that matches the decorating we did last Autumn!