Tuesday 22 June 2010

Sunny Perranuthnoe



It is such a beautiful morning here in Perranuthnoe, already warm with a hazy sunshine making the leaves on the trees shimmer - Lovely!


It is an early start today as the launching of our website draws ever nearer, for weeks I have been saying that it will only be another 2 or 3 weeks before 'lift off' but I don't think I ever realised just how much work there is to getting everything on to the website. So many photos and lots of text to compose but we really are getting there and soon you will be able to experience the Cornish Wools online shop with its amazing selection of knitting wool, accessories, spinning and weaving equipment and our chosen selection of Cornish crafts.




New into the Cornish Wools shop this week, especially for spinners and straight from the Mill I have some wonderfully soft pencil roving and bags of tops blended with local Leicester Longwool - it's exciting because this is my first venture in to into the world of roving and tops! And soon we will be working in our dye workshop to give you some of this wool naturally dyed which will be available in the Perranuthnoe shop and also online.

We are also eagerly awaiting our order of the amazingly vibrant and exciting to knit Schoppel Wolle and a new range of buttons to compliment your knitting projects - so watch this space and I will let you all know when the new products arrive in the shop, online and in the knitting gallery at Village Crafts.

Monday 7 June 2010

It's that time of the year again!



Summer is on its way and its time for the sheep to be sheared once again. They must be really happy to be rid of all that thick fleece, it just has to be so hot, its like wearing your winter coat in Summer.

Here we are on Trewince Farm, the shearer is expertly taking off the fleece and the girls are removing the grotty daggy bits and then rolling it up and bagging it so that it can go off to Cornish Wools for sorting etc. It's quite a process, all in all but we get there.




So this year we will be producing an even larger selection of fleece into knitting wool. Lleyn and Jacob from the Roseland Peninsula, Manx Loughton, Leicester Longwool and Portland from the Lizard and possibly Texel from Nancledra and Crossbreed Southdown from Troon. Not to mention more of the Merino from Yvonne Hoskins in Gloucestershire (at the moment I just cannot find any Merino in Cornwall).

On the website front - we are really winning and it's beginning to look something like! Our online shop is filling up with lots of wonderful balls of wool and accessories together with knitting needles and patterns. I have also so decided to include a few local craft items which you might like to see and perhaps buy!

It's now down to tidying up the whole thing making sure the photos are the best we can do and getting lots of helpful information on there to ensure you have everything you need.

New in the Knit Gallery at Cornish Wools this week is Bergere de France Coton Fifty a beautifully soft 4ply knitting and crochet cotton yarn in some really beautiful shades, from traditional cream through to vibrant aquamarine blue and hot pink. Yummy!!

Finally I am so happy to tell you that we are now producing our very own hand painted and dyed yarn. This will be for sale in the Knit Gallery in Perranuthnoe an also on the website. Cornish Artisan will be the brand name and already we have produced some really stunning colour mixes together with subtle solid colours and then zingy hot shades for the more adventurous knitter. We have set up our very own Dye Workshop in the Piggery behind our craft shop Village Crafts and the Knit Gallery at Cornish Wools, to be found at Lynfield Craft Centre, Perranuthnoe near Penzance. We are producing naturally dyed yarns with very subtle colours and also hand painted yarns with muted colour variations. Currently we are using a 100% Lleyn DK for the dyed yarns but next on the list is some of the Merino 4ply sock wool which has 10% nylon added for strength.

So just watch this space - this is only just the beginning.......