New Website Launch

Well what a roller coaster of a couple of weeks we have had here at Easyknits.co.uk HQ.

We’ve been so busy cataloguing and counting and photographing and updating that we’ve had little time for anything else.

But I hope you will all agree it has been well worth it in the end? Last Friday we hit the switch and launched our new website, but what is different? Well LOTS!

On the new site we have:

• stock control
• shopping cart
• postage calculation
• discount codes
• new product images
• search functionality
• order tracking

… and that is to name but a few of the new functions our new ‘ecomms’ website has allowed us.

We’re still very much in the learning stage with the new site, but each day we’re finding new and exciting things that it will enable us to offer you. Hopefully within a month everyone will be as familiar and at home on the new site than they were on the old one.

Why not head on over there now and have a mooch? It’s really clean and crisp and super easy to navigate your way around the shop.

One of my most favourite functions has to be the search field, if you type a colour or a fibre content, every skein of yarn available for purchase that relates to those colours or criteria will pop up in front of you… fabulous eh? Perfect for browsing for yarn for that certain project.

Also if you’re looking for a pattern for a particular garment, simply type the garment type in and a list of all of our patterns available will pop up for you, but as you all know me well enough by now, that will mainly be socks/shawls or scarfs 🙂

We hope you enjoy the new shop and of course we welcome your feedback on every detail of the site, there are a few ranges we’ve had to remove from stock for now, but most of these will be returning with a re-vamp in coming weeks, so keep checking back for news on those.

To celebrate the launch we’re offering a 10% discount on orders placed before Sunday 2nd Oct, simple quote the discount code ‘easynewlaunch’ at check out to apply your 10% discount.

In print – Again!

Well, I know I’ve been a little quiet for a couple of weeks, but I’ll hope you’ll have noticed why?

Yep – that’s right the new website has gone live!

After a whole month of work and preparation the website went live yesterday, and it was as smooth a transition as I could have hoped for and feedback so far has been great! Pop
over and have a browse if you’ve not already had a look and see what you think!

Anyway – back to the reason for this post! Ive had another pattern published, this time in ‘Simply Knitting’ magazine issue 85 – October 2011.

The design is a snugly and squishy, winter warming theme, a mans sweater knit in a roving style ‘slubby’ yarn, it’s a super quick knit with a interesting but not overly difficult pattern to keep you interested, consisting of twisting cables and lovely textured moss stitch.

Perfect for the man in your life – or if you’re me…. Yourself 😉

We recommend using our cloud yarn for this knit, and if you want to order enough for the knit in 1 shade, contact us directly and we’ll offer you a batch deal on the price when you quote ‘Diamond Geezer Sweater’

Deeply Wicked dilemma

So, with the twinkle DK cowl off the needles and waiting to be modelled at the weekend I’m left with a tough decision in front of me of what to cast on next?

I have gone through things I’d like to knit for myself this year, there is a particular need for me to design a huge cuddly cable sweater for myself, but the yarn hasn’t been dyed for that yet – maybe next month.

I’m already working on several club designs at the moment, and not forgetting the X-Factor mystery KAL designs too ( have been thinking about the next garment idea a lot this week ).

So what does it leave me for my ‘unwinding’ for myself type knitting – nothing at the moment! Believe me, even though I dye yarn and knit every day, there are still days when I want to knit for me, several of my designs started life as a ‘for me’ project, where I just sat and played with no idea of what I was creating other than ‘shawl’ or ‘sock’.

So here is my dilemma – I have an idea of colourwork scarf/shawl design in my head – but I cannot choose between 3 colour combinations of Deeply Wicked yarn…. yarns I have sneakily kept for myself from updates in previous weeks (hey, a Yarnie has to have his perks of the job, eh?)

So help me out if you can? What do you think of any of these combinations? Comments and suggestions are welcome

“bigger on the inside blue & time vortex gold”

“kingfisher blue & banoffee yellow”

“deep forest earth & link green”

Twinkle DK Cable Cowl

Here I am, a Sunday afternoon in front of the tv (the weather has been too changeable to do anything more constructive today), so I decided to play with some Twinkle DK. The colour is one of my favourite semi-solid tones ‘swamp thing’, I love the foresty greens with hints of brown and lime flashing through it, all the time a hint of sparkle showing through.

I wanted to come up with a design that would allow a knitter to create a pretty garment in just a few hours, not too complex, and using only 1 skein… A cowl seemed like the perfect option, especially with the weather changing so rapidly – it’ll be the perfect temperature to wear one of these beauties soon enough.

What do you think? As you all know I’m in love with cables, and these rather elegant examples of a braid and a ‘wave’ as I call them in my head are made to ‘pop’ when knit in the gorgeous 75% extrafine merino 20% silk and of course not forgetting the 5% stellina – to make it ‘glitter’ in the fading afternoon light!

Not forgetting my love of moss stitch too, another beautiful stitch made to shine with this yummy yarn!

Well that was a bit ‘salesy’ – I didn’t mean it to be, I genuinely love this yarn base and will be planning to work with it a lot more soon! Hopefully I can also finish this knit today making it a very quick knit indeed – will have it up for sale in the pattern store too soon!

Anyway THAT’S what I’ve been doing this wet Sunday afternoon, that and watching Ghostbusters on the tv – yay!

Perfect Sunday 🙂

In print!

It’s been almost 8 days since I posted last – shame on me and this new blog I should be updating minimum of 3 times a week, but forgive, it’s been busy and crazy and fun around here with the dispatch of our latest SSA (Sushi Shawl Along) our 7th to date.

The SSA consists of a unique sushi sock roll, dyed in graduating tones of colour to reflect a ‘theme’ or thought I’ve had, SSA7 was slightly different in that the pattern that accompanied it this time was designed by a guest designer and not myself.

I’ll be updating the blog with a ‘Spoilers post’ and links to the designer later in the week, but not before our UK members have received their packages.

Today let me share some other excitement with you, well it’s exciting for me anyway, it’s one of the things that still makes my heart flutter when I see it, it’s my designs in print. It’s a real treat for me to think that I’ve made it as far as one of the delicious Knitting publications on the market today.

Last month, The Knitter Magazine published one of my designs, YAY! The pattern in question, when submitted to the design team for consideration was in fact a design for a mens garment named ‘Botany’. But the team at the Knitter saw more potential in the design than I had, and asked me if I could recreate a more feminine version of the design in more subtle tones, I thought about it and agreed, that was almost 1 year ago ( seriously guys, from submission to completion and publication can take an eternity ).

Well finally the issue arrived, issue 35 for anyone wanting to grab a copy, and it’s a beautiful issue, full of gorgeous designs, and I am so proud to have ‘Floriana’ included in it. The yarn used in the pattern is Debbie Bliss Rialto, but I am currently dyeing up some of my own yarns into ‘sets’ to try out a more ‘easyknits’ colour explosion version, and I am still planning a gentleman’s version for myself too.

The intarsia motif was originally take from a photograph of a blue poppy, which I sketched and re-drew as an abstract image before charting it to fit a full sized garment, having never worked with intarsia before I have to admit to being totally surprised at how quickly it knit up, and how much fun it was to see the image from the chart grow in the knit.

And that’s it for today folks, back soon with more 😀

Images courtesy of The Knitter Magazine.

X-Factor Knit Along – Part 1

Well who watched it? Come on, you’re amongst friends here, you can admit it? Of course you know that I’m taking about X-Factor 2011, the first episode of this series!

It’s only 1 episode in and already I’m hooked, and there was talent, and tantrums, and just plain awfulness as usual. But I did enjoy it.

Perhaps it was the champagne that did it?

X-Factor 2011 begins - CHEERS!

And for those of you that joined in, and made my first ever mystery sock KAL happen, thank you so much.

Don’t forget you can still join in, there isn’t a deadline each week, but it pays to complete each section each week as people with their completed X-Factor KALS all finished by the finals week will be entered into a prize draw and win some Easyknits.co.uk goodies, perfect in time for christmas presents for yourself. So go here and join in, you can download the first part of the pattern from the X-factor 2011 KAL page on this blog, or go to the Ravelry forum and follow the link to our website to grab it.

So I have completed sock 1 week 1, and will be casting on sock 2 this evening, once done, I will then start work on part 2 of the design, which will include the heel of the sock…. wanna see? Of course you do! Here is our lacy cuff with our first chart, and what else could it be apart from a giant X ? This sock is knit in Easyknits.co.uk Twinkle sock yarn in ‘Glace Cherry’.

X FACTOR 2011 - KAL SOCK PART 1

Delicious Deeply Wicked Deluge

Well it would be rude not to share these on the new blog wouldn’t it now?

Hope you are all enjoying the look and feel of the new blog, it’s slowly taking shape as I learn new tricks and techniques in wordpress that will help make this blog gorgeous as well as easy to read.

Today is Friday, and what does that mean here at Easykntis.co.uk HQ? Deeply Wicked update of course!

For those of you who are new to the world of Easyknits.co.uk and have not yet met a skein of Deeply Wicked yarn, I can of course inform you that the pictures you see here, just do not do them justice.

Deeply Wicked is dyed in a unique and exclusive way here at HQ which gives each skein it’s namesake, the yarn is completely saturated with dye and then ‘set’ in a way which allows each and every fibre/pore in the yarn to be penetrated with rich, vibrant colours.

Each skein is like a snowflake, it is unique in every way, although Deeply Wicked is dyed in 4 skein batches, not 1 of those 4 will be the same, even though from the same ‘bath’, making each skein a work of art, never to be repeated.

It is of no surprise to someone armed with the above information that the average update ( and their are 2 updates on a Friday, one at midday BST and one at 5pm for our friends overseas ) only last on average 30-40mins on the site before all skeins are snapped up.

Also at a recent event where Deeply Wicked had it’s debut, over 250 skeins sold in just 48hrs – Amazing huh? Deeply Wicked is ‘everything’ that Easykntis.co.uk stands for, it is fun, bright, unique, loud, cheerful, and luscious, each skein is 100%  4ply or DK Superwash Merino, offering a generous 400m (4ply) and 260m (DK).

In just 8 weeks since launching Deeply Wicked we have sold over 600 skeins and we’re dyeing more and more everyday.

In addition to the beautiful yarns we have been working hard to bring you 1 skein knits that will make your Deeply Wicked yarn simply ‘pop’ when you knit it up into any of the designs.Our latest creation ‘Shazaam’ will be launching next week ( Friday 26th August) and will be on sale at a special introductory price on our pattern store. Click here to visit our pattern store and see our other designs.

We’ll be back over the weekend with news of our first ever Knit-Along, why not pop over to Ravelry and join in the fun?

Click here to go to our KAL forum on Ravelry.com

Welcome to the new Easyknits.co.uk blog

Orbit Shawl designed by Jon Dunn-Ballam

Hi Gang,

Most of you will know that I used to use the blog page on the easyknits.co.uk website…. not at all as often as I should have, but I DID use it occasionally. Today I decided that I should get a ‘real’ blog, one that was out there for the whole world to read, and not just people on my website.

The Theory behind this is that I will need to blog considerably more often, which of course I have failed spectacularly at doing so in previous attempts. But in my defence, there is now a constant stream of things to blog about, even if just once a week I share the latest creations from my dye pots.

So this is the official welcome to my blog post. The layout and design here may change frequently for a few weeks until I am happy with the layout, look and feel of the thing, but bare with me in this teething stage.

To start us off, the image above is one of my most favourite creations this year to date. Above, you should see, if I linked it in correctly, the shawl designed for Sushi Shawl Along 6.0, the design is named Orbit and is available in my Ravelry.com pattern store here. I hope that many of you will enjoy patterns as I upload them to the store, and will find your way there after reading posts here.

Well that’s it for this first ever post, I’m off to get on with some work, and think hard about my next post coming soon ( really I promise this time ).

Keep knitting x