December 2013

Happy Christmas lunch for sheep and hubris

Sue Blacker's picture
25 December, 2013 - 22:01 | Sue Blacker

Ah! I started this right after doing part of a Facebook post about our own Christmas meal and intend(ed) to post a link to this post in it - to show how the sheep had their Christmas meal.  But some kind person brought a glass of red wine to help inspire me, and with my first creative gesture I tipped it all over my keyboard - so half a roll of kitchen towel later (the edges soak up wine quite well between the keys) and with some rather sticky keys, I am back in business.

The Yarn Whisperer by Clara Parkes

Sue Blacker's picture
11 December, 2013 - 11:59 | Sue Blacker

This is a lovely and thoughtful little (160 pages) book.  I was at first a little unwilling to suspend disbelief and link knitting to life as much as the cover and other commentaries had said would happen.  But in practice, Clara is a very readable writer, and has a light but serious touch.  I very much enjoyed reading from cover to cover in less than a week (which is good going for me, as I currently have a pile of part-read books which is looking askance at me).  Apart from knitting and yarns, there are gardening, family history and cookery involved ...

Richard Madeley helping with the marketing

Sue Blacker's picture
11 December, 2013 - 11:43 | Sue Blacker

Polperro is a lovely small port in south east Cornwall, where the active local community gets together to raise funds to support their annual festival.  This year, Richard Madeley, who lives at nearby Talland Bay was the auctioneer for an amazing collection of donated art, crafts, events, etc. held at the British Legion.  Interestingly, the auction lots started with the lowest prices and went to the highest (lunch with Richard!) but the third highest was an year's parking in the village! 

Thoughts on our De-stash Sale

Sue Blacker's picture
3 December, 2013 - 18:44 | Sue Blacker

Here is a picture of some of the yarn we were selling at our de-stash sale, which went very well.  Why do we de-stash you may ask?

Well there are various reasons:

- we make yarns as part of preparing for organic processing, called a purge run, which cannot be classified as organic, though they are made with organic wool.  We can then use them as dye make-weight in all sorts of batches - unless the dye-tank is properly filled the yarns can go patching while dyeing so we have to make batches of more than we need sometimes, for some customers.

Blacker Yarns

enquiries@blackeryarns.co.uk | +44 (0) 1566 777 635

 

The Natural Fibre Company

enquiries@thenaturalfibre.co.uk | +44 (0) 1566 777 635