A new yarn ~ Jeanette Sloan Baby Alpaca DK

This has been a long time in the pipeline , in fact I’d really hoped to have this yarn to launch at Knit Nation last month but circumstances beyond my control meant that didn’t happen. Never mind, despite the delay I’m truly excited that it’s now here. My Baby Alpaca DK yarn is made from the same high quality 100% Superfine Baby Alpaca as the Chunky Baby Alpaca that I currently use in my designs which means of course that it’s as soft as butter to knit. I’ve deliberately kept the range of colours restricted to 5 key colours

Menthe, Chartreuse, Fuchsia, Bitter Choc and Spice

The yarn is really versatile to work with since it knits to a standard DK tension with a metreage of 100 m per 50g ball. There are also 2 new shades available in the Chunky Baby Alpaca, first Sweet…

and Mulberry…

 

I’ve been  doubly busy over the last couple of weeks re-designing the website too. Having built the original ‘Jeanette Sloan Design’ site myself I could see it had many limitations ( I’m NO web wizard ) not least the fact that it wasn’t easy to offer various shipping options for customers outside the UK. Because of this I decided to change to a shopping cart based site and as I type I’m hoping that having changed the DNS settings ( whatever that means )  the new site will be up and running, hitch free and full of new yarns & features in the next couple of hours. So whether you’re in the UK, US, EU or just about anywhere else in the world, the new site should be easier to navigate and use with varied shipping options and better laid out pages describing all the products. I’ve also moved the Free Patterns from the website to here on the blog so that it’s easier for you to download the patterns which I’m hoping to add to in the next few months.

I hope you enjoy using the new look website and would love to hear your feedback either here on the blog or on my Ravelry group page here.

Finally I’d like to say a huge thank you to John & Adrian of Knitglobal / AC Wood Speciality Fibres Ltd for their time, effort & continued support and without whom my yarns wouldn’t exist

What happened there then?

I can’t believe that the past few weeks have gone so quickly. One minute I was about to post about the great time I had at Knit Nation, and the next thing I know it’s been 3 weeks since it finished! I had a brilliant time over the weekend, thanks to Cookie, Alice and everyone else who not only made it possible but so very, very enjoyable. I don’t tend to do shows and so was very nervous about taking part in an event with such a big reputation. BUT it was truly wonderful to meet so many lovely knitters and make new friends or catch up with old ones amongst the other exhibitors. I was joined on the Saturday by my lovely friend, the very talented Georgie Troon who helped me out on Saturday.  I should at this point say particular thank you’s to John and his lovely partner Roy from www.easyknitter.co.uk and Andi from Renaissance Dyer ( thanks for the stories by the way ) who kept an eye on me and made sure that I could sneak out for tea & coffee breaks when necessary.

Since KN I’ve been finishing off another bag design for Knitting magazine and giving the website an overhaul. I’ve steered clear of shopping cart websites up until now but I’ve found the current website doesn’t make it simple or clear enough to order from overseas with regards to adding shipping costs. In addition to this there are now paper versions of some patterns available and I’ll be adding these to the new web shop which will hopefully not only process the orders but also fulfil delivery of the pdf patterns. (Let’s keep our fingers crossed that the technology works). All this should be up and running before the end of the week as there are 2 exciting and very soft additions to ‘Jeanette Sloan’ that after months of anticipation will finally arrive tomorrow by courier ( I’m crossing everything I have here ).

In the meantime the September issue of ‘Knitting’ is on sale and as promised in Ask Jeanette I’ve uploaded a video of the long tail cast on method here