Tuesday 17 July 2012

A Major Catch up ;0)

Well it's been along time since I posted .Sorry to all my readers and I hope you haven't all desserted me.
Life has been so hectic this year.I've been dyeing up a storm since Christmas getting ready for shows and feeding my Etsy shop.The there's the normal life things like cooking and cleaning , walking Meg , babysitting and on top of all that helping with wedding arrangements for DS3's wedding in August.
But anyway I have at last made a bit of time to bring you all up to scratch with the happenings at Chez Bears.
Right where shall i start ??
Wonderwool I think 
 My Devon Yarn display
The Stall
What can I say about Wonderwool . It was a bit like the Curates Egg .Good in parts .
It was bloody freezing and wet.On the Sunday the temperature plummeted to 3 degrees C.I have never been so cold in all my life . But it didn't stop the customers coming out and we had the best ever Wonderwool as far as takings were concerned and I got my first ever wholesale order . A big downside was that yet again I had some stuff stolen. You don't expect it of the woolly world but that's life I suppose. It hasn't got me down though as there are loads more good people than bad .
A cople of weeks after Wonderwool we decided a bit of R&R was in order and we arranged a few days on Anglesey with Artis-Anne and Tony .They in their camper van and us in the caravan.
I love this photo of me and my dear friend Annie .
We had a lovely few days just chilling. Walking , knitting , nattering and generally catching up. Shortly after Annie had to go into hospital for a big operation from which she is still recovering.We are hoping to be able to go and visit her for a few days very soon.She's had to miss all the shows so we are taking lots of goodies for her.

Now for June
At the begining of June we all got together for DD's birthday and it was one one of the rare days in June when we actually had sunshine.A lovely day was had by all as usual :0)
Then we had Woolfest and again the weather Gods were against us. We had bright sunshine at the start of the week but by Thursday when we went up to Cumbria to set up it rained. It rained all Thurday night and all day Friday and well into the early hours of Saturday morning .And it blew .I was pretty scared as the caravan fairly got a rock on at one stage . But again it didn't stop the customers and we had a great time .
I didn't get round to taking any pics but my friend Claire ,off Ravelry sent me this one of me and Puddytatpurr
I've known Sam for a couple of years now through Ravelry and Twitter and she and Claire always cometo see me . And buy yarn of course lol. As you can see she's very colourful.
Speaking of colourful she wasn't the only one 
I erm aquired this shiner whilst I was at Woolfest.Let this be a waring to you . If you use the bungy cords with the hooks on the end. Make absolutely sure the end is secure before you stretch the cord. I didn't and nearly had my eye taken out :0(
Oh and before I forget Sue from Hamilton, Canada came to see . Hi Sue , see I'm back blogging :0) was nice to see you.

July and no change in the weather :0(
We did our last big show at the weekend and true to form for shows this year it rained.But this time we weren't tucked up in the dry buildings of the other two .We were on a field and in marquees and there was mud . Lots of it. I think we were one of the lucky ones as we had a reasonably dry pitch but in the other two marquees it reasembled the Somme.I didn't enjoy it as we had packed up doing the agricultural shows because of mud. I was on pins the whole time dreading my yarns being dropped. As things turned out nothing was spoilt ad we manged to get packed up without getting mud on everything. I was glad to get home .

The last thing I have to tell you is that I have ventured into the realms of pattern designing.
 Celestine
 Arbon
Garter Stripes
These are my first three offerings . I designed them to showcase my yarns and it seems to have worked. I 've had the printed patterns on sale at the last three shows and people have bought the patterns and the yarn to knit them. I'm hopefully going to design some more things as it does help sell the yarn :0)
Well I think that's about it for catching up . Now that the bid shows are over I may get a bit more time to pop back in here . Though I still have a wedding to help with .:0)