Jo's knitting badges

I saw these on Woolly Wormhead's blog and I thought it would be a good bit of fun for myself and the girls to show off which badges we've earned and explain why... In no particular order, I will start off








OK, so I've not had a pattern published in Vogue, but I was mentioned in the Spring/Summer one as Knit Camp is this summer's hot ticket, and Knit Camp is referenced in the current issue too. Good enough, me thinks, for me to earn this badge.






Talking about knitting badge. I've got a yarn shop and tell everyone who comes in about Ravelry. Nuff said.







My first cardigan/jacket pattern almost killed me, mathematically. I had to use the Pythagoras Theorum again to grade the front part of the cardigan. I think that earns me the badge.







I've had repetitive strain injury (and an operation) on my left hand thanks to knitting. It still bothers me, which is why I felt with my feet!










Lace knitting. Another enough said!







Used a chopstick as a cable needle for one of my patterns.

Anyone who knows me will know how well I knit when I've had a few glasses of wine.

Knitting with the kids

The Shipston on Stour Wool Festival

Some of the Birmingham knitterati fondling my hand-dyed...

A local resident having a play with my beautiful Kromski Sonata...

Our friends Pam and Tom, with their daughter in law Ann (wearing her latest beautiful creation)

The local bellydancing troupe (not really what I was expecting!)

and me having a fantastic time spinning some absolutely delicious Leicester Longwool, which had come off the sheep about 20 minutes before I started spinning it.

We had a fantastic day. Kate and I consumed too much alcohol (the local cider is ridiculously potent!), we met some fantastic people and we saw a lot of our lovely "cussies" too. I had a lot more photos on my phone too, some of them being quite funny, but they seem to have mysteriously disappeared from my phone at dinner...

Behind the scenes

I thought I would start off the blog with a few photos of the team, myself and family while the shop has come into being. I'm sure Bec and Kate will probably want to shoot me after they are published!

Just so you know, we got the keys to the shop in December, opened in January, had an official opening event at the end of February and have been converting the residents of Earlsdon and beyond to the joys of knitting ever since. As we stock a lot of yarns and patterns which you just can't get anywhere else in the UK, we are finding an increasing number of our customers are travelling to the shop from relatively far away to come and browse our wonderful Schoolhouse Press collection of books and patterns (we have the largest stock in the UK), or to spend hours looking at the yarns. We frequently hear customers say "Ooh, I could make a quick pair of Fetchings out of that" or "I wonder if I could get two Ishbels out of this skein". Many stare in wonder at our wonderful Baby Surprise Jacket blanks too (ingenious pieces of machine-knitted yarn which is then painted and creates the loveliest graduation of colours)

I am extremely proud of my shop and of all the people who make up our community, which is increasingly growing. Most of all, I'm extremely proud of the folks who make it what it is.

Jo