And I have a best seller!

Firstly, I have to say that the ball last night was absolutely brilliant.  In aid of the RSLB, the aim was to raise money to expand the nursery services that they offer to blind and visually impaired children, from just being based near Sevenoaks, Kent, to more of the south east and London.  The work they've done with our friends kids is so fantastic, giving so much hope to kids who would otherwise be left behind by most of society.  Slightly gutted that hubby's attempt to secure us a two night stay in a 5* hotel in London was out-bid in the silent auction, but hope that the very large sum of money we spent last night will help towards the overall goal.

The second thing, is that I sold two of the baby hats as well - the pink, and the large fluffy one.  Very exciting!

Thirdly, I was approached by one of the mums at school who feels that my scarves are not really her style, but would be perfect for her sister-in-law, if I could come up with something in orange.  Handily, I happened to have a ball of yarn in the very autumnal colours of rust red, orange and browns.  I also managed to find the time, amongst all my other tasks, to knit the thing last week, and showed it to her on Friday night.  She loves it, and is happy to buy it!  But she did agree to me taking it home and getting some pictures of it, so that I could add it to the FB page, and the website, (which is still very much a work in progress - will post a link in the hopefully near future!).

Yesterday, I duly took some pictures of the scarf, and finally uploaded them this morning (when the after-effects of last night had dimmed somewhat!).  Through that picture, I have now taken two more orders!!!  Slightly annoying in that I don't have any of that yarn at the moment, but a quick order and they might be in and knitted by Wednesday if I'm lucky, but definitely by the end of the week.  Have also found some more colours that might become popular too.

So, here, I present my new bestseller:

New Things

I'm off to a charity ball tonight!  Very, very excited.  I haven't been to one for a long time - since pre-kids I think.

The event - The Little Heroes Ball - is being held to raise funds for children who are visually impaired or blind.  The people who we are going with have two children who have a rare condition which means they only see in shades of grey, and have been going there for the last 2 years or more.  Their eldest child was the poster boy for this years fundraising campaign.  It's going to be a great night with friends.

Last Wednesday I spoke to the people we're going with to arrange the logistics of the evening.  During the conversation, my friend asked me whether I'd ever knitted a hat for a baby?  Apparently a friend of a friend of hers had her baby 10 weeks early, and the tiny little girl is now just about 4lbs.  The friend saw a blanket that I'd knitted and wondered if I could do a hat for her friends baby (confused yet?)

So, despite getting nervous about my first ever fayre to sell my scarves, for which I'm also the event organiser, next Wednesday, I popped out on Thursday to get some very soft, but still machine washable, yarns, and here is what I've come up with.  Thing is, I'm not entirely sure just how tiny the baby's head is, so have done a few sizes.  What do you think:

Another step . . .

Today, I finally sat down and brought some of the elements of my recent purchases together.

In anticipation of selling something in the not too distant future I've ordered, and received, burgundy tissue paper, brown paper bags, a rubber stamp, and a maroon ink pad.  My arms are now aching from stamping 100 bags!!

Let me know what you think:

Woo Hoo - it begins!

The new yarns to fill the order for yellow scarves arrived yesterday evening.  I took them to a school PTA meeting and started on one of them.  Managed, by dint of us ladies talking for ages, and some committed knitting, to get one of the scarves done during the meeting.  It's a new yarn that I haven't used before - it's got lots of lovely tiny, tiny sequins along the edge that just catch the light in such a lovely sparkly way:

The second scarf was the other loopy one, with a sparkly silver edge:

And, finally, I finished the ruffle version - very soft, with a silver edge:

So excited!! Will be posting one, two or all of them out on Monday, depending on what my friend wants.  Now, I have plenty of other colours to knit up  . . .  busy hands!

I will, at some point, post up the pictures of the other projects that I have going on in the background . . . the amount of UFO's I have hanging around is getting a little scary!

So many things to try!

Another busy day.  Had my quilting course today.  Wow, so many new techniques to try!

This is my second course, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it.  On the first course I did, I learnt how to create a 'monkey wrench' block (I think this block might be known differently elsewhere).  It was all hand stitched, and an absolute pleasure to make :

I gave this to my Mum for her birthday - must say that I'm pretty pleased with it.

On the current course, we're learning how to create a Medallion quilt, with possibly a Christmas theme.  Mine is going to be a snow covered house, on a dark starry night, with golden windows.  Will take some pictures tomorrow, when I get the camera working again.

With regards to my scarves, I've taken a second order today, for the dove grey one.  It is very lovely, with silvery threads running through it, and I'm so glad someone else likes it too:

Things are picking up

Biting the bullet, I've been pushing myself at my FB friends, (almost) shamefully promoting myself.  It feels a bit awkward, but I suppose if I'm ever to get anywhere then I have to start somewhere.

Thing is, it's already had a pretty good result.  One of my friends from nursing college, so many moons ago that I've lost count, got in contact to ask for a scarf for his girlfriend.  Thing is, her favourite colour is yellow, which isn't a colour that I've got.  It's necessitated the buying of another bulk of yarn, but has found me another fab supplier on ebay with some lovely new yarns to knit up into more scrumptious scarves.

It's forcing me to consider things such as how to deal with distance selling (invoicing, payments, postage etc), so my mind is boggling with such things as Paypal Business accounts, and creating a website (scary!).

More pictures to follow tomorrow . . .

I said I would, and so I did!

Finally got round to taking pictures of my scarves, and posting them to my FB page for Pretty Little Needful Things - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Pretty-Little-Needful-Things/440770519296382 (if you have the time and inclination, could you 'like' my page please?  Many Thanks!)

Am going to share some of them here as I think some of these scarves are truly lovely (well, I would, wouldn't I?!)

Let me know what you think of the different styles.  I'm struggling not to wear them all myself!

Getting back to it

Well, it's been a while - kind of took a break during the summer months to concentrate on the kids, and trying to be a good mum.

However, September is long past, and so are any reasons for not getting my backside into gear and starting to push myself a little more.  This is in part inspired by helping a good friend of mine get her FB page set up to promote herself - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sew-Tweet-Crafts/175774085880474

She now has more likes than me!!  However, I've been dragging my heels for no good reason, so tomorrow, hopefully, I shall be taking more attractive pictures of my scarves, and will update the FB page with more scarves - I got some lovely new yarns in and they are knitting up to create some beautiful scarves.  It's hard not to keep them all for myself!

Well, no more new enquiries, but what can I expect - only 9 'Like's' on my page so far. Mind you, am not quite ready to push myself out there yet as I don't have much in the way of stock built up, and with the impending Summer holidays looming, I don't think I'll get much time there either.

However, I have set up a wee little Twitter account - @PretLitNeFuThi  - you never know when you might need such a thing!  

I did sneak some more wool into my shopping bag this morning though - completely different from what I've been using so far - so we'll have to see if I can knock up that scarf and put more pictures on the site soon.  It's cold and damp enough here to be wanting something more substantial than the light and loopy ones I've done so far.

When I get the pictures of the new scarves I'll post an update.

Early Days!!

This is my Facebook page - early days yet, but have completed my first 3 orders and hope to get more orders in soon!!

Pretty Little Needful Things - FB

New beginnings

Since being made redundant last year, apart from spending much more time with my kids, I've also been delving into my creative conciousness, and trying new crafty things out.  It has long been a wish to actually make a little bit of money out of it, but the confidence just hasn't been there so I've made lots of things but not really got anywhere.

This is hopefully about to change!

When not with the kids, I'm frantically knitting scarves at the moment, in the hope that someone will see them and want to buy them.  This is in part inspired from a night out with the girls, where the scarf I was wearing attracted the attention of two lovely ladies who have asked me to knit the exact same one for them.  The order for more yarn had gone out, and I hope to have their scarves knitted by Monday.  Thing is, I've ordered a ridiculous amount of this scarf wool, and just hope I haven't jumped the gun too much.

I will post pics here and on my FB page when I've knitted enough to feel that I have 'stock'!!

It's SO exciting!!