Lucky Edinburgh

There was a time in the not too distant past that Edinburgh was short of places to buy yarn. For the itchy fingered knitter the choices were restricted to John Lewis, Jenners ( where I cut my teeth as a Rowan design consultant) and the slightly bizarre Daintyland in Causewayside. Fast forward around 13 years and the city is very lucky to have a new yarn shop on Broughton Street.

Kathy’s Knits, which is owned by my friend  Cathy Robb and her husband Leslie, opened it’s doors just a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately I missed the shop’s grand opening but as I was up in Edinburgh for a wedding a couple of weekends ago I popped in for a nosey.

Popping into Kathy’s Knits to say Hi

The shop is below street level in what used to be the Thread Bare vintage dress shop (on the left hand side as you come down the street from the back of the St James Centre) and Cathy and Leslie have created a beautifully light, modern space with loads of daylight – perfect for browsing through the selection on the shelves. And what of the yarns? Well I’m very, very pleased that Cathy is stocking all three yarns from my own yarn range and tells me there have been many coos of delight when knitters squish at the balls and discover how soft they all are. (For those of you after yarns with a truly Scottish flavour Kathy’s Knits have their own exclusive brand of Hebridean Mohair and Pure Wool Laceweight as well as yarns from JC Rennie and New Lanark). The shop has a website and although there isn’t currently an online shop, I’m sure there’s one in the pipeline.

For more details of exactly where to find the shop and opening times click here

Blogging Mojo – Lost?

It’s been quite some time since I posted anything on this blog, not because I haven’t been doing anything – there are some exciting things planned for the next few months – but the unimaginable has happened……I’ve lost my blogging mojo.

As a designer I often doubt my work with  thoughts of ‘will anyone like this’ or ‘is this any good’ which my lovely Sam finds hugely frustrating and so the thought of posting something here which you’ll find mind numbingly boring or trivial stops me from posting anything at all. BUT this beautiful sunny morning I decided to pop over to a few creative blogs for a little inspiration.

First stop was the lovely Jen Arnall Culliford. I got to know about Jen  when my Bleeding Heart Sock design was published in The Knitter and  she was the tech editor charged with sorting out my rambling pattern thoughts. Although we exchanged lots of emails and phone calls we didn’t actually meet until Knit Nation last year and I can honestly say she’s one of the happiest (not to mention hard working) people I’ve ever met . I also have to admit to being more than a little jealous of the haul of fruit of veg she’s had from her garden so far this year. I was hoping we’d have a glut of juicy apples from our tree now that we’re finally settled Southerners but the deluge of rain we’ve had this year ( and perhaps lopping off a huge bough) and ‘too little too late’ sunshine has meant there aren’t many apples to be had that are worth eating. Never mind, I’ve got cherry tomatoes and given that I’m trying to lose weight at least I won’t be tempted to make crumble.

Next I popped over to  Kyoko Nakayoshi’s blog http://cottonandcloud.com/blog/. I also met Kyoko very briefly at Knit Nation last year and both her blog and website are just like her – pretty, cute and stylish.

Lastly I had to have a quick look ( I’ve got a sock design to finish for Knitting magazine) over at Perri Lewis’ blog http://makeanddowithperri.wordpress.com/. I love the way the Perri posts, punchy, funny and always telling you the latest.

Mmm, I may just have remembered where that darn blogging mojo went…..

J x