whoops

oh dear - i haven't been here for a while, have i?  sorry about that.
partly it's because things have been going along mostly as normal - i haven't felt that i've had anything particularly interesting to write about, so i just haven't bothered.  i'm still knitting, dyeing, and training for my fast-approaching event of ridiculosity.
& partly, it's because the few interesting things that i have been working on are things that are currently Top Secret, so i can't write about them yet!  knitting-wise, it's all about the Top Secret wedding shawl.  it's still very much in progress, but is gradually getting bigger, and the rows are gradually getting shorter (i'm down from 860 stitches per round to 540 stitches per round, yay!).  i'm having a tiny panic about it as the bride gleefully announced at our tuesday knit night that in exactly three weeks she'd be on her honeymoon - which means i now only have two weeks from today in which to finish the shawl!  dyeing-wise, i've been working on a few new colourways, which are also Top Secret as i may use them for next year's collection.  in a rare fit of organisation & inspiration, i actually have a theme in mind already, as well as two or three colourways planned for the theme - there's still more experimenting needed, but that's yet another thing that i can't share here!  & as for the training, i'm slowly healing from a bout of tendonitis in my foot, and working my way back up to a reasonable fitness level.  there's nothing Top Secret about that, but it's so boring (even to me, and i'm doing it!) that i just can't make you suffer through blog posts about it.
i do want to get back into the blogging habit, though - so i'll just have to work hard to find interesting things that i'm allowed to talk about, & i hope i'll be back on here with a proper post quite soon!

pretty damn lucky

i woke up in the worst mood today - things here have been pretty stressful lately.  our house situation isn't great, and there's no immediate prospect of being able to move out of it.  i have tendonitis in my foot, & haven't been able to run or go to the gym for weeks.  the studio refurb, which should have been simple, just seemed to be dragging on forever.  i didn't sleep well last night, & woke up with a splitting headache.  then i banged my leg off the bath with such force that i gave myself a 6-inch bruise down my shin.  i had to be at the studio early so i could make sure i was in for a courier delivery - and early mornings are, dare i say it, not me at my best.  the dog was being a nuisance, it was threatening to rain, and we ran out of loo roll.
there just wasn't enough coffee in the world to fix this morning.
and then, this happened:

and i realised something. no matter what worries i have, what annoyances plague me, or what petty things i decide to focus on - i'm pretty damn lucky, actually.  as soon as i start working, everything else just fades into the background.  sure, i'm still a little stressed - i've been away from the studio for so long, stock is ridiculously low, and i have a ton of work to catch up on.  but still, i get to spend the day doing something i love - and because of all of you, my amazing customers, i even get to earn a living at it.  i get to create lovely things, and pass them on to other crafty folk, who use them to create some amazing & beautiful work (if you don't believe me, check out the OMA group gallery on Ravelry!). so in a way, i'm not just making yarn - i'm making the possibility of something even better.
so, thank you all for supporting me - because of you, i got to spend my afternoon piling up little bundles of possibility, ready to head off to become something fantastic:

pretty damn lucky.

a quarter of....

now that the preview club is officially over, i can finally unveil the new collection of colourways for 2012! inspired by traditional british sweets, these colourways will now start to become available in the web shop for all customers (i'm uploading some new stock right now!!). to learn more about the colourways in the collection & their inspiration, you can go here.

phew!

well, i think that's it - the web shop has now been updated with everything necessary to enable VAT! 
currently, the web shop is displaying the prices before VAT; international customers will pay the price that they see on their screen, while UK/EU customers will have VAT added to their order total at checkout.  my shopping cart software is also being upgraded; after that's finished, it should display the prices with/without VAT automatically based on your location.
a few of the yarn prices have stayed the same, but i've dropped almost all of the yarn prices by as much as i can afford, which will hopefully help soften the blow of that extra 20% tax!  this new pricing structure may not last forever - i'll have to give it a few months & make sure that everything is going to work ok (i really want to give you all a great deal, but i do still need to pay all my bills!).  but i wanted to make the effort to keep everything as affordable as i can for my lovely customers. i really appreciate everyone who has stuck with me for so long, and am happy to see so many new customers as well!  i'm really sad about suddenly having to charge this tax, but unfortunately there just isn't any way around it - i'm just crossing my fingers & hoping that it won't have too much of an effect on your future yarn orders  ;)

something significant

today, i started working on Something Significant - one of my very best friends is getting married this summer, & i offered to knit her a wedding shawl.

part of the impetus behind this huge project is because my friend is a caring, kind, intelligent, endearingly neurotic, wonderful person who i'm lucky to know, and i wanted a way to mark this important event in her life - so, as a knitter, a wedding shawl was the obvious answer.  but partly, it was for slightly selfish reasons - i've always wanted to knit a traditional shetland wedding shawl, and was just waiting for a good reason.
& as i started this Very Important Project, i started thinking about this "good reason".  because in my mind, a wedding shawl needs a wedding.  & although i knitted myself a shawl years ago for my civil partnership ceremony, i didn't knit a wedding shawl, because i wasn't getting married.  to make a long story short: since 2004, same-sex couples in the UK can register for a civil "partnership", while opposite-sex couples have a civil "marriage". 
since last fall, the UK government has been consulting on extending "marriage" to same-sex couples as well, conceding that the current policy of "separate-but-equal" is discriminatory. & although the government has been careful to state that no religious institution will be compelled to offer same-sex marriage ceremonies, there was an immediate and quite horrible backlash from various senior religious figures.
as someone in a civil partnership, of course i'm taking these kinds of comments personally - it's hard not to, when your relationship is being described as a “grotesque subversion” (thanks a bunch, Cardinal O'Brien!).  & although i've never really been a big-white-wedding kind of girl, it would be nice to think that my relationship was recognised as having the same importance as that of my brother & his wife, or my friend & her soon-to-be husband. 
i don't mean this in any way to take away from the Very Important Event of my friend's wedding - i'm so excited & happy for her, and am so honoured that i get to be a little part of the Very Important Event, and show how much i care about her life, by knitting her a wedding shawl. 
but, someday, it might be nice to be knitting a wedding shawl for myself too.