Kate Middleton's Shawl

There has been a real buz on Ravelry about the shawl worn by The Duchess of Cambridge to go shopping in. I've decided to have a go at designing a similar one.  I suspect the original one has been 'manufactured' so it is not possible to make an exact copy and I wouldn't want to. My shawls so far have all been lace so it will be a challenge to design one in a textured stitch pattern. I've spent the morning charting out the design. I really want to get it cast on but I'm teaching a lace class at a knitting group in Kirkby Lonsdale this evening so I need to prepare for that first. I would love to knit it in a lace weight yarn I have, but for speed I'm doubling up the yarn which should make it about a fingering weight.
I think there are going to be a few copy's of Kate's Shawl appearing on Ravelry.

New Shawl Design

I've been so busy I forgot to blog about my new shawl design. It's called Sandra's Shawl and 50% of sales will be donated to a cancer charity. After only two days of sales I made a donation of £44.00 yesterday to Macmillan Nurses. I'm really thrilled so many people love my shawl enough to buy it. The donations will be ongoing probably each month from now as I'm sure sales will slow down after the initial week. My pattern is up for sale on Ravelry for just £2.00. Lets see if I can do a link.
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/sandras-shawl 

I've edited my post to insert the letter from Macmillan nurses organisation.

Yarnstorming

I've been doing a little bit of yarnstorming around my store. This is all thanks to the Ravelry group I've just joined. It's The Harry Potter Knitting and Crochet House Cup group. It's such fun and completely mad so of course that does appeal to my sense of humour. Anyway during the course of the Spring Term you have classes to attend and assignments to complete. My first class was Muggle studies, the assignment I chose was 'yarnstorming' in a public place, which was pretty easy as I was able to yarnstorm around the outside of my store as it is a very public place. I have two upright stones outside my yarn store who are always complaining they are cold. It's not helped by the fact that they spend most of the day in the shade. For one of them I crochet a scarf and for the other I knit a bonnet. To avoid any squabbling between the two stones I intend to rotate the accessories. I then went on the yarnstorm the two trees. I do hope my professors agree with this and give me a pass. Hope you enjoy the photos. Teehee

The Royal Wedding

DSC00629, a photo by Becksideyarns1 on Flickr.

Bunting in honour of The Royal Wedding
I decided to put up some bunting in honour of The Royal Wedding. I think it looks OK considering I had no ladders. I just tied it in place and hammered some nails in at strategic places.
I hope the weather holds for tomorrow for the party in the village park.
I've had some phone calls asking if I'm going to be open on The Royal Wedding day so I've decided to open as usual. I don't mind if it's quiet as I can get on with my lace shawl design. 

My first blog

I managed to get some photos of the sheep with their lambs

Well I have no idea what I'm doing but it seems blogging is the way to go, so here goes. I will be blogging on and off about  the events which happen in and around the village and my shop. I'm a non stop knitter who also loves to design knitterly things.
I'm the happy owner of Beckside Yarns, seller of fabulous high end knitting yarns and all things connected to the world of knitting. I have a bricks and mortar shop and hope to soon have an e-commerce store. My shop is situated in the beautiful picturesque conservation village of Clapham  in North Yorkshire. The village is a tourist attraction and we get lots of walkers, artists and bikers as well as families just having a nice day out. I get lots of new customers but  I also have lots of really lovely regular customers who are as crazy about knitting as I am. Many of my customers have become really lovely friends. I had my delivery of the new Pony circular interchangeable needles. I'm looking forward to testing them on a lace shawl I need to test knit. Watch this space to see what I think of them.