Our 2019 in review!

When I start reviewing our calendars and social media posts I’m always surprised to realise just how much we have squeezed in to the previous 12 months! 2019 has definitely been the year of excursions for us! I’ll look at some of these events in this post and I’ll include some personal highlights too. You’ve all shared SO MANY absolutely stunning works in progress and completed projects this year, I’ll share some of our favourites later.

Many of us started 2019 working on our first Sophie’s Universe blankets. Personally I think EVERY year should start with a Sophie’s Universe blanket! It’s an amazing pattern, and if you have no idea what I’m talking about, follow this link for the free pattern, it’s a real beauty! Here are some of the completed Sophie’s and a couple of work in progress pictures.

Our first trip of the year was to Black Sheep Wools. We made two visits here, one in February and again in August. if you’ve never been to Black Sheep Wools before it’s well worth a visit. It’s just off junction 22 of the M6 and is a must for anyone even half as obsessed as I am with yarn! The whole place is filled with so many beautiful yarns, including my favourite Scheepjes! the staff at black Sheep Wools are always so friendly and accommodating. They welcome us by handing out 10% VIP discount cards and at lunch time they invite us into the craft room for tea, coffee and cakes! Nothing is too much trouble for them and we will definitely be returning in 2020.

We spent the next couple of months planning our first ever weekend event at The Tranquil Otter. At the time we had no idea that this was to be the first of two visits to the Otter! And then in May we excitedly packed the car and off we went with no idea whatsoever what to expect! We were welcomed by the staff at The tranquil Otter and given a tour of the Lough House where all our guests would be staying. Our guests arrived and we all had a fantastic time! We we’re almost thrown out of a pub, but that’s a whole other story! (Have you ever heard anything as silly as a knitting club being thrown out of a pub?!). During our weekend event in May we enjoyed seeing new friendships forming and learning more about our lovely guests. We enjoyed it so much that we decided to run a similar event in October! Again we had a great weekend, however many of our guests almost starved to death waiting for cottage pie on the first night. It was touch and go. We are making our next visit to The Tranquil Otter in August. Places are very limited and right now we have a lot of preliminary reservations. We’ll be taking deposits in the new year once we have confirmed our itinerary. It promises to be the best one yet, we’ve learnt so much!

In July we visited our friend Judy and her wonderful herd of Alpacas at Ivy Dene Alpacas! There is little I can say about this event other than to advise that if you get the chance to join us on another event like this you really should. Alpacas have become an obsession of mine since our first visit on 2018 and I am now very fortunate indeed to be a volunteer with Longridge Alpacas!

In September we made our annual trip to Yarndale. A great day was had by all and lots of money was spent. We will be attending Yarndale in 2020. We also visited Harrogate Knitting & Stitching Show in November.

In October we hosted our first workshop since the doomed workshops of 2017 (which weren’t all bad because they eventually led to what we do now!) We invited Claire from Life on Plot 7 to join us and deliver a needle felting workshop. The workshop was an amazing success and has spurred us on to host more workshops in 2020 including yarn dyeing, macramè, sock knitting, drop spindle hand spinning and of course we’ll be welcoming Claire and Life on plot 7 back to deliver her wonderful needle felting workshops!

We more or less took over Lorenzo’s at the end of November and 49 of us had a great meal and a lovely time! During 2020 we’ll be visiting Lorenzo’s in the spring AND in November. more about that soon!

We’ll be finishing 2019 with our first yarn dyeing workshops with Graham and Lindsey from Coastal Colours and will be playing yarn bingo at the last sessions of the year when you are invited to bring something for a VOLUNTARY Jacob’s join. You are by no means obliged to bring anything! The dates of the final sessions of the year are as follows:

Coming up in 2020…..

So here is what we want you to look out for in 2020! We’ll be running beginners, intermediate and freeform macramè workshops with the first beginners workshop being held on February 15th. We’ll be hosting Life on Plot 7 felting workshops on April 18th and again later in the year. We’ll be hosting Yarn dyeing, sock knitting and drop spindle hand spinning workshops with Coastal Colours. We will be spending the weekend at The Tranquil Otter from August 28th to 31st. Yarndale on September 26th and there’ll be a couple of visits to Lorenzo’s. And that ladies and gentleman is the stuff WE KNOW ABOUT. We are always open to suggestions and collaborations, so please do get in touch if you have a suggestion for a workshop or event, or if you are someone who wishes to work with us on a joint venture!

Finally, please note the following dates, we will not be running our social sessions weeks commencing March 30th, June 29th, September 28th, December 21st & December 28th.

To finish off, here are some of our favourite makes from the last 12 months!