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!

Well, baby George arrived 2 weeks early so I was up against it with the blanket! I had 2 sides of border to knit and it had to be blocked. I managed to block it before I took the kids to school/pre-school and I put it in the conservatory so it would dry quickly ready to hand over that evening. George loved it but I forgot to take a picture of it before I handed it over! Typical. So next time we see them I will take one. I have it on good authority from George’s Gran that he had it over him when they visited on Saturday. Cool.

Now I’m knitting bunting for our stand at Quilts UK in a couple of weeks. It will be available as a kit at the show and afterwards in the shop and on the website. I am desperate to start something new and exciting. I have been on Ravelry this morning fiddling around and I think I might start O’Mally from Rowan Magazine 38. It’s a crocheted jacket with clasps down the front. I bought the clasps about a year ago and have had the yarn stashed for a couple of years. That would be a good one for the winter.

Yes, I finally did remember to download the pic of the green yarn I nabbed out of the bargain bin. I just love it! I have an unequal amount of each kind though so I have worked out a random pattern that should make sure I use what I have. Actually I had a dream about the pattern - that’s how obsessed I was!