Blood everywhere...

These are the blood drops I made and sent off for the NHS knitted blood drops appeal. I managed eleven with the oddments of red wool I had and very satisfyingly mindless knitting it was too. Sometimes you just need a dose of mindlessness, y'know? Forgot to wait for the labels I was meant to attach, but they didn't seem to mind too much. Wonder what's going to happen to all these blood drops...seems to be shrouded in mystery.

And we have up to thirty little heart bags, made by the Thursday knit group, to send off to Ruth and Belinda's Heartsease project, supporting disadvantaged children and young people. If you fancy using up some scrap yarn to make simple little heart-shaped bags, the appeal runs till St Valentine's Day, so you've plenty of time.

It's amazing we can find these really, never mind summon the energy to actually send them anywhere...half the shop's still in boxes, the electricity meter still needs registering and I realised latish on that when the first few customers arrived we still had masking tape around the architraving. Anyway, we're in the new premises - The Old Bank, Silver Street, HX1 1HS, if you're looking for us. It'd be lovely to welcome you to our new location.

Cleaning and painting and packing and unpacking

And feeling very, very tired. That was our Christmas this year. We worked right through trying to knock the new place into some sort of order, but now we're here! It's not perfect, but it's a palace compared with how it was. Old building, been empty a few years...you can imagine. Come and look!

Anyway, when I said we worked through, I exaggerated - we had Christmas Day and Boxing Day off. And I got some lovely yarny presents this year. Here they are:

Yes, those are hand carders - for carding my fleecey fluff which is now approximately clean -  very approximately - but not at all smooth and spinnable. And I got what looks like a fab fiction book of short pieces by writers on knitting. Looking forward to that. And the other book is called Wool,  so I've included it, but it's actually a sci-fi book, so I'll enjoy that too - it has chapters titles like Casting Off...interesting.

Hope you got lots of lovely yarny stuff too.

New address, in case you're looking for us, The Old Bank, 2 Silver Street, Halifax, HX1 1HS. It's the big, grand, old building which looks down Crown Street

The last post...

Well, not exactly, but the last one from our Piece Hall home, so we thought for a change we'd have a look back at an old Piece Hall Christmas booklet. Do you want to try and guess the year? And see how many you remember?

Okay, here's just a selection of the shops which were in residence...

Tara
Friendly Dragon
Mermaid
Replicar
Epona AD
Bubbles
Blush
Cappuccino cafe
Red Patch
Blooming Ecke

And, it wasn't in the Piece Hall this particular year, but does anyone else remember a shop called CBGB's? I think they were somewhere near where the Greenwood Tree Gallery has been more recently. I know I bought a wooly cardigan from there which I'm still wearing so they could've been gone for anything between ten and thirty years...

Have a lovely Christmas everyone, and we'll see you from the 7th Jan in our new home at The Old Bank, Silver Street.

Small projects

Seems like everyone's knitting small projects at the moment - especially me. After decades of knitting jumpers and cardigans, I'm realising how satisfying it is to make something that's ready to wear in a week or maybe even just a night or two. So, here's one lovely pattern - and it's free! - from the Simply Knitting Magazine website, a pretty lacy cowl using four balls of Artesano Alpaca 4ply.

(Photo credit: Simply Knitting)    

Adriafil Mistero

New in stock today: gorgeous, soft and practical Adriafil Mistero chunky, which boasts 47% wool content and comes in a range of multi-tonal colourways. I knew we had to have this as soon as I started knitting with it. Think Debbie Bliss Riva, but with a bit less wool. Wonderful for scarves and hats, altho' Adriafil estimate you'd need 8 balls for an average woman's jumper, so it's not too pricey at £3.45 a ball for those larger items too.

It's a sign of how exceedingly tickled I am by these buttons that I'm putting them on both facebook and the blog. For £4.75 you get six little buttons which you can use to personalise your gift/card/tag/whatever you like. Clever or what? I know I'm easily impressed, but I hope you'll agree they're a good idea.

In the shop now; on the website as soon as Mike photographs them. Because my photos just aren't mustard-cutting website quality.

(Lots of other new button designs in the shop too...)

Backwards and forwards

It's a weekend for looking back and looking forward. Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the day Mike and I first went out, so on Friday evening we tripped off to Heckmondwike for a drink in the pub we walked to that first evening. The customers seem to have deserted it, maybe because the decor's still strangely seventies-oriented, but the barmaid offered Mike a taster of the beer he was considering and that always sets the tone for a good pub-related experience. And in the morning Mike presented me with a bag containing 40 presents!! Looking forward, can we see another 40 years together? - well, we'll be doing our best...

And also yesterday was the final lights switch-on at the Piece Hall, till after the refurb anyway. The 'final' anything always has an inbuilt tinge of wistfulness, but that was allayed to some extent by the added fireworks from the roof of the Orange Box. If anything it was even fabbier than ever. Huge crowd, some great entertainment and a feelgood atmosphere. Hope it's just as good in a couple of years time and that the whole place won't be yuppified out of recognition. Think positive!

Today, on the other hand, is the 18th birthday celebration of the middle daughter of a lovely friend who used to childmind for us, so that's very much a prelude to the future. Wishing Sophie a happy, sparkly future.

As to the shop's future...many, many people are asking about when and where we'll be moving. The brief answer is we're going into what was the TSB bank opposite the top of Crown Street but, as to when, 'around Christmas' is the most accurate we can be until we know whether the floor needs boarding, when the carpets can be fitted etc. I suspect Boxing Day might be spent painting... The best place for info is the shop facebook page which you can reach most easily via www.threebagsfulluk.com. There's also a cheap and lovely Christmas gift idea on there at present, even for the slowest of knitters.