I loved it so much - I bought the company!

So I've gone and bought a wool shop. Yep - couldn't get enough of the beautiful yarns at Little Country Wools - so just under a month ago I just bought the entire business!

My darling friend (and former owner of LCW) Polly was brave enough to sell her amazing online yarn store to me - isn't she fabulous?? So now I have all the luxurious yarn I could want - I get to share it with the world AND I have seriously moved into a SABLE* situation.

And of course it's been busy busy busy since then - the first two big jobs were immediate - rebranding to Great Southern Yarns AND heading to Knit August Nights - a HUGE knitters retreat in Napier - to hawk my wares. I decided tight timeframes were best - and gave myself six days to prepare for that lot.

Whew! KAN was wonderful - I met so many fantastic people - knitters, crocheters, yarn store owners, designers, Tweeps, FB friends... it was SO busy, SO exciting and SO tiring - a five and a half hour drive there will do that to a girl. Luckily Polly came along with me - so her sparkly expertise and yarn and knitting knowledge par excellence more than covered for my slightly dazed moments.

Things I learnt:

• Crocheters ARE loved by knitters - (I was very relieved by that one)
• Two wines after a three hour selling frenzy and a four hour drive is ENOUGH
• There is no such thing as 'this is the last skein I'm buying'
• Napier is BEAUTIFUL and we should all move there. Immediately
• Courtesy of the extremely talented, world renowned Margaret Stove - winding a skein from my wrists - life changing - thanks Margaret
• The Skeinz Wool Mill is AMAZING!! Head to my Pinterest Page to see the beauty that is the birth of a ball of wool.
• Watching talented knitters en masse is stunningly inspiring. I know that I've really gotta upgrade the skills from garter stitch scarves (see upcoming blog posts!)

I've tried to get a couple of pics of the beautiful Port Ahuriri beach on this post to show you the gorgeous location of the retreat - but Blogger isn't playing nice. I'll add 'em soon.

Happy yarning!

*SABLE: Stash Above and Beyond Life Expectation

Another crocheter is born

I have a cold today. And yesterday, and the day before too actually. The kind where my joints hurt, interchanging with aching bones. Where I sound like a cross between Captain Jack Sparrow and Stephen Hawking when I wake up. The kind of cold that seems to make me feel blurgh whilst still appearing relatively well on the outside.

Waaaaaahhhhh - I wish I LOOKED sick!!

Thank you dear reader - for listening. I feel better already.

So the fog didn't lift here in our part of Auckland until around 3pm. Topped out at 11 degrees temperature. So what to do but head to Humbug and do the crochet thing with real coffee and proper heating.

Little Poppy came along (The Bee is at rugby camp this week) and amused herself nicely until the moment she uttered these beautiful, beautiful words...

"Mummy, can I try and be a crochet lady?"

And so I grabbed the spare wool, a nice long 6mm hook, cast on a couple of chains for her and to my total astonishment she started to chain like she'd done it all her life. At 5 years 3 months old.

Lovely posture - clearly has better abdominal control than her mother...

Ta Daaah!!!

So I still have the cold, the dubious vocal nuances and the achey joints, but how lucky am I that I got to spend my sick day with my clever girl?!

1000 Facebook Fans Customer Giveaway

Thanks to the final arrival of winter, some kind words of promotion by friends and the love Kiwis (and the rest of the world) have for NZ made handcrafts my Facebook Page is inches away from 1000 fans. Hard to believe 18 months ago I was crocheting badly sized hats, and now here we sit.

So let's give you lovely people something to show the love.

A Poppy&Bee 'favourites' pack is up for grabs for all fans of Poppy&Bee that post here on the blog and state what they bought from Poppy&Bee, and their 'wish list' for their favourite Poppy&Bee product from here, my website or FB page.

In the 'favourites' pack you will find...

 A pair of Boot Toppers

 A classic P&B 'Man Beanie'

A medium round wall frame

An organic cotton washcloth and skin care wipes pack 

Two balls of NZ Wool

A bamboo crochet hook

And, for those of you who remember what it takes to keep me going on those late nights....

- A container of Jarrah French Coffee and a block of Green&Blacks Organic Chocolate.

Total value of the giveaway is $160!!!

Once I reach 1000 likers I'll keep this post open for 10 days - all entries received between now and then will go in the random draw to win this FABULOUS pack.

This competition is ONLY open to the first 1000 likers, past or present customers or students of Poppy&Bee Crochet Handcrafts. Proof of purchase may be required in order to claim the prize. Prize will be delivered by courier at the expense of Poppy&Bee Ltd.  Colours may differ from the images depicted. Prize cannot be exchanged for other items, cash or vouchers.

Come Granny with Me

Whew! So much to tell you and so little ability to be a good blogger!!

Let's start with the workshop. After running a really fun and successful workshop at Lopdell House Gallery I decided to run a few more.

The first one is coming up really soon - check out the deets on the flyer. Would love to see some of you there.

Hopefully I'll be doing a beginners series really soon too - watch this space.

Granny Workshop Flyer

I've been teaching crochet for nearly a year now - and loving every minute of it. Lots and LOTS of people are coming back to handcraft arts, and crochet is one of those very portable crafts that can fit in a handbag, on a bus, can be whipped out at a coffee group or in a cafe.

One of my first students was the lovely Kara McMurray - already a very accomplished knitter Kara wanted to learn to crochet to make hats and wee garments for her baby which was due at the end of the year. She took to crochet like she was born to it - and continued to develop her skills after the series of lessons was finished. Experimentation with yarns, stitch patterns and designers, Kara found a groove in crochet land that is pure perfection. Her work is finely finished with impeccable attention to detail. She selects only the best yarns and the most cutting edge designs (many of which she modifies to make them even more amazing) and has created some lovely pieces.

I was so excited by this that I asked Kara if she would consider making her baby socks for Poppy&Bee - and this is what she came up with.

Pop Baby Socks were born!!

How lovely are they???  I'm so pleased with how they are contoured even at the smallest size to stay on soft roly poly baby feet. They've just been added to my felt store today - so head over to have a look and find out more.



My Sunday Surprise

One of my favourite regular markets is the amazing Crafternoon-Tea in Kingsland. Run by the equally amazing Lisa Madden - not only is it a great place to show off my crochet goodies and meet new customers, it's a great gathering of other crafty people that have become great friends.

I've also taught lots of those crafty people to crochet, and I was soooo surprised and flattered to get home this afternoon to find this great post on the Crafternoon-Tea blog featuring yours truly. She has kindly allowed me to reprint it here for you as my guest blogger. Coz she's good like that :)

Happy Sunday everyone

Wow the sun sure did shine yesterday for us. What a great day it was. I had so much fun looking at all the amazing stall holders. Picking up some lovely treats and just enjoying the crowd of people we had. We had our lucky facebook winner Carley pop in to collect her lovely prize and we also had another competition running if you signed up for our newsletter. Which we will draw tomorrow. Always something exciting happing in Crafternoon Tea land. I look forward to sharing some photos in the next few days taken by Bronwyn from People Puppies of the market.

I just wanted to share with you what I have been up to over the last few months. Now I'm a sewer as most of you know. I run monkeej with my lovely mum who is in Blenheim......Now she has shown me how to crochet in the past but it's very hard to teach if your living in another town. So I've been running Crafternoon Tea for a whole year now. This time last year I had the pleasure of meeting a lovely girl ( I like to say girl because it makes her sound young and beautiful which she is ) at our market called Natalie from Poppy&Bee. Who has infact joined us every month since.

Now I've always rather liked the idea of learning a little more about this whole crochet thing but to be honest with three small children, a few markets and now a store which I run with my lovely husband  ( Love Vintage & Retro ) crochet really was in the back on my mind. So to cut a long story short. I brought a hook about 4 months ago......and finally about a month ago I did some lessons with Natalie.

WOW Natalie is an amazing teacher ( being a teacher helps I guess ). I'm very much a visual person more than a follow the rules person. ( as Natalie was about to find out ) So 4 lessons later and I'm into it.
A huge blanket in the works, 3 hats for my kids and another order or wool just dropped off this morning.....Now I can't stop. I even made a little crochet hat for our new toys.

 Hat by ME!!!

Now don't get me wrong I love my sewing. But crochet you can take anywhere. I think I have a new found love for this skill and I hope keep it up.

Hat by Poppy&Bee

If this is something you have wanted to learn or like the sounds of. I can give Poppy&Bee top marks.
Natalie is a great teacher and I'm so shocked I learnt to make a number of things in just 4 lessons. Including a hat. Which I never thought I could do. I have infact just booked more one on one lessons with her to master a few more things.

You will find Poppy&Bee at Crafternoon Tea so why not have a chat about getting a group together for a lesson. It really was so much fun and it's always nice to learn a new crafty skill : )

Enjoy your Sunday night everyone. Applications will open tomorrow for our May market.

Keep it crafty. x

Lisa

Marnie's Necklace

It was a lazy Sunday for me today. Following a busy market yesterday, dinner out with a couple of friends last night, I was quite happy to enjoy my 10am sleep in this morning. The cats not so much - Rose kept jumping on my head until I clambered out of my shelter and fed her some biscuits.

6am - no manners that cat.

Luckily with the babies away I was able to luxuriate in bed for another four hours - aaaah sleep.

After deciding I needed to avoid the housework on such a yummy day (one can't possibly sleep in and then be domestic - surely?!) I grabbed my WIP bag and headed on down to a local cafe.

(Best Eggs Benny Ever, incidentally. Maybe I'll promo them another day!)

The back story to today's crochet advernture is this.... my darling friend Alice inspired me to make her a wee granny bracelet... and I found a perfect pattern here and this is what I came up with...

So I took along my lolly coloured yarns and teensy hook with me to whip out a few more bracelets. A lovely wee family sat down next to me - and with them was a little girl - who, I noticed from my sneaky eye corner - was watching me whip through the little squares. Her Mummy told her the lady was crocheting (YAY - give the lady a medal - she knows her crochet from her knitting) - so I smiled and we chatted briefly, then went about our crocheting and lunching.

Sneaky peaky little girl was watching me over her juice, so I dropped the mini grannies, whipped up a bigger one - plonked a simple chain length on one corner and whipped her up a necklace there on the spot. Just for fun.

After asking her Daddy for permission to give it to her (watch out for the creepy crochet gifter at a cafe near you...) she gleefully put it on. 

I offered to show her how to make a crochet chain with some organic cotton hiding in the bottom of my bag - and it was just so much fun to teach a wee one after grappling with teaching adults every week! She was so dextrous, and so happy to learn! I suggested she take her new project over to Mummy - and lo - Mummy tackles a chain stitch like a pro. With some very stern tips from the new crocheter at her arm - so cute.

Thank you wee Marnie - for making my Sunday afternoon so full of joy. Wherever you are this evening, I hope you remember the day the crochet lady gave you a hook and some pink cotton. And that you go on to share crochet joy with others for a very long time.

xoxoox

The Crochet Lady.