I've had a pretty full-on week with one thing or another. Dear Naomi's funeral on Monday and then I was asked to represent my boys' school at a service at Exeter Cathedral on Wednesday. We left at the crack of dawn, you'll be pleased to hear that I knitted the Beaded Gorgeousness in the minibus on both the way up and down - much to the amusement of our Headmaster, who was driving and we were invited to lunch in the Deanery which was a real treat. I hadn't been to Exeter Cathedral before - usually, of course, we're driving up or down and fly past Exeter or, indeed, stop to fly out of Exeter airport. It is a fantastic building and, if you get the chance, I recommend a stop off there - and they do have a very nice looking cafe if you're not lucky enough to be invited to lunch at the Deanery.
I've spent the last two days in the shop catching up and, of course, the building work has been carrying on all the time. All things considered, it's been remarkably calm. This is how the shop looked:
OK - this includes the builders' van but you get the idea. So, in order to remove the old front and allow us to continue trading they had to build a false wall inside the shop:
Just to add complication we're moving the door from the left to the right - you can see the position of the new door on the right here with half a wooden wall. (That's Tracey, by the way, sorting patterns - she wouldn't be photographed face on but I'll catch her soon). Then they finished the wall and our cave was complete:
It's actually not as dark as you'd imagine and, unless they're cutting stone or drilling or other noisy stuff we keep the door open. So, from the outside it looks like this:
As you can see, it left all my electricity boxes exposed! These are now all boxed in with a padlocked door but will have to be moved once the new front is in. The granite on the left of this picture was covered in really attractive 1960's rough render and, in the plans, was going to be tiled over. However, some of the granite is pretty good so the planners have decided to leave it as exposed granite and the worst bits have been replaced - I'm pleased as granite is how it would have originally looked.
To my amazement the glass came out in one piece - we were all delighted - and underneath in the top of the concrete block they found the date 9/1967 so we know the shop front was changed in September 1967. When they took the shop sign down they discovered that it had previously been a tobacconist as the old sign was on the back of the Knit Wits sign!
At night we have a metal grate across the shop to stop people sleeping on my carpet!
And that's how clean and tidy the guys leave it every night - I'm really impressed. You can see (on the right hand side) the doormat for the old door so you can see where the entry was.
In a spare few minutes I have managed to input some new yarns on to the site - patterns are ready for inputting when I have a few more spare minutes. So, there's a new chunky from King Cole called Dreams which knits into gentle stripes and has nobbles of colours too - very soft and lovely. King Cole are also discontinuing their Homespun range. This is a 20% wool Super chunky yarn (the same tension as Aero) and is now selling for the knockdown price of £1.49 for 100g. It's selling really fast so get some now before it's all gone! There are a few more patterns for this to come but, in the meantime, you can also knit it to all Aero patterns.
I had one new colour in Katia Azteca - the lovely blue shown in a couple of patterns. I'm expecting a delivery from Katia in the next couple of weeks when they've had some more yarn delivered to them.
We've also had a few new colours in Sirdar's Snowflake Chunky - including the popular multi-colour which has been re-launched:
On a quick chicken note, we've realised that the first 3 babes are all girls - which is good for them and us (more eggs!). Some of the last babies are definitely boys as they are starting to crow - we all know what's going to happen to them - the question is when is the optimum time - big enough for a good meal but not so big that they're tough as old boots and, furthermore, we're currently feeding them all so when's the cut off point (if you pardon the phrase). They're all in one house together at night now so the fights that might ensue in there may be the deciding factor - I'm leaving that decision up to the men.
Today is misty, dank and wet so a truly perfect knitting day.
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