Country Living

Warning, not a post for the squeamish....


Mum is the gardener round here, I dabble, and can wield a spade as well as the next person, but the garden is Mum's domain. Spring is coming round here so there's been lots of digging and planting.
Two days ago she was setting up her Asparagus bed, and had emptied out the compost heap to add in to the soil as they were planted.

Rats and other vermin are a fact of life round here. We live next to the main road, and the rats come out of the drains and up in to our garden. They like to eat the spilt bird food, and live in our compost heaps. We generally know where a current nest is because our dog Gwen sniffs them out.  If we are not to end up with a plague of rats we have to do something about them. The something usually involves traps, and poison bait.

We knew there were rats in this compost bin because Gwen had been trying to dig them out for a couple of weeks. Mum got half way through digging the bin out and found these.

Twelve baby rats... who won't grow up in to adult rats, their Mum would have abandoned them, and their warm nest was destroyed. In the open air they will die of cold very quickly. They went over the hedge and nature took it's course. By now they'll be food for a hungry predator. 

What to do about the rabbit warren that seems to be appearing in the back garden is not quite so simple. At the moment we're blocking off the holes with rocks, but they don't seem to be getting the hint... A more drastic solution may be required :(

Shop Talk

I've been busy carding for the past 3 days. Turning a drum carder to prepare 3 kg of fibre gives you a lot of time to think...
I've been thinking, there's been a few upsets with in the UK fibre world, a couple of yarn shops (bricks and mortar, but with an online presence, have gone out of business), and the giant ACM debacle just keeps rumbling on.
A few more prominent yarn dyers have written a few posts recently that have made me think, this one, by Posh Yarn's Dee, about customer service, and this one, by Natalie of The YarnYard, about targets and resolutions.

Those posts, coupled with a customer service incident regarding something I bought that left me incandescent with rage, have been churning round in my head.

I believe in treating my customers how I would like to be treated.
If someone is not happy about something I have sold them I will do my level best to put it right. I make mistakes, I am human, give me a chance to fix them, and I will. Email works best, but Etsy convo's and Ravelry messages are ok if that's what you'd rather do.

I work hard at this business, I have grown it from nothing in the space of just under a year. I am extraordinarily proud of what I have achieved, but I do have a few rules for myself.
What you see, in the shop, is usually what I have in stock. I don't overcommit myself, this is a one-woman show, and it won't do anyone any good for me to be over stretched.

The same thing applies to the fibre club, there are only 22 spaces, I'm certain it could be bigger if I wanted, but there's only so much of the same sort of fibre I can face prepping in one go. This way, I stay in control, I only have to take a few days out of my regular schedule to get the parcels ready (I do have plans for a different sort of club that has the potential to be bigger though)

I owe it to myself to pay myself a decent wage. Since I started, I have put prices up, some things have got more expensive, others I was massively undercharging for. I will keep looking at prices, doing the sums, and deciding wether I am being fair to myself, and to you. Some things won't need to increase in price, because I can buy more of them, I can get the raw ingredients cheaper. I started the business using my final wage packet from teaching, things have grown a lot since then.

Growing the business is important to me, but I am realistic, there is only so far that I will be able to expand, and acknowledging that is important, a lot of businesses go bump because they grow too fast, and beyond their limits.

In short, the past year has been fantastic, I want to keep having fantastic years, and I hope I'll get to share a few more years with you as my customers.

Packing Assistants

Gwen would like you to know that no parcels are sent out until they've been personally inspected by her. In return all she would like is a tummy tickle!

Meg, on the other hand, just needs 40 more winks, and that this pillow is a rather nice place to have them!

In all seriousness, I have now delegated parcel packing to an assistant (aka my Mum). It was becoming quite a time consuming job, and that time was better spent with me doing jobs that only I can do. She mostly packs the parcels first thing in the morning, before the dogs get walked, so they come and help. 

They're confined to my bed, and keep the wrapped up parcels company, all the loose stuff stays well away from the fluff shedders! 

Little Hats

Regular readers will know that I'm a big supporter of p/hop, I've designed patterns for them, and manned their stall at festivals. Normally everything p/hop does is geared towards raising money, so that cash can be used where it's needed most, at the very moment it's needed. 

We may all like the idea of making something for charity, but often the expense of transporting the item offsets the good it does. MSF usually likes local communities to supply items like this, it helps support the local economy, but Dr Miroslav who runs a neonatal unit in Qetta, Pakistan made a specific request for hats.
He doesn't mind what they're made of, in fact warmth is the main concern, so wool is better than acrylic, and they want hats that will fit premature babies, up to 5 year olds. The very smallest of these hats really are tiny, they'd fit on an orange quite easily, they don't take much wool, or much time to knit. Mum and I went for bright and cheerful, hopefully they'll bring a bit of cheer to a patient and their family in an upsetting time.
If you think you could knit a few hats then you can see the original request on the p/hop blog here, the deadline for the first batch is the end of April, to see some pattern suggestions, and discussions about the project, take a look on the p/hop ravelry group.

Nodding in the sunshine

Summer appears to have arrived a little early this year....

Last year we had our hottest weather in April, this year it's come even earlier and March is being glorious. The garden here had been neglected for many years, but sometime in the past someone had planted loads of daffodils in our garden. They fill the front garden, and are planted all along the fence at the back of the house. 

Some are the very simple classic shape, but some are more frilly, and silly looking. I never really though Daffodils had a scent, but when you have this many in flower all at once they smell glorious.

A few of them are in a vase brightening up my living room, and a few of them were used to make this.

Naturally dyed Shetland/Silk. It's listed in the shop now. 

Playing on the beach

A trip to the beach always blows the cobwebs away. Nothing like a Welsh beach in March to have you reaching for your hat and gloves!
Days like this are exactly why I want some mittens with flap tops, gloves are essential, but picking up a soggy tennis ball while wearing them is a bad idea!

And Meg really does want her tennis ball thrown, lots, and lots, and just one more time, and the next time...

The dogs love playing in the waves, though scaredy cat Meg won't go out f her depth, she loves water, but only when her feet are firmly planted on the bottom.

The dogs enjoy the wide open space, and this time of year we get the beach mostly to ourselves, come summer the place gets busier, but if you pick your days carefully you can still find a quiet spot.

Dark Rainbow

I promised a spinning post, it's taken me a while longer than I anticipated, however, it's not ready to be released in to the wild.
Part of the preparations for Wonderwool involve getting fibres spun up, and knitted. My Mum has helped with a couple of samples, but this one is my handiwork. It's not got further than the spinning stage yet, but the knitting shouldn't take to long. This is Dark Rainbow, which is my Black Welsh Mountain silk blend. It's carded, and then dizzed off in to roving so that it slowly changes colour through the rainbow.
I've actually spun one of these skeins twice, I took them with to York back in January, and only came back with one...

Their next incarnation is to become a pair of flap top mittens, I'm going to use the black yarn (also black welsh mountain and silk) as the cuffs, and then we'll see how far through the rainbow I'll get.