All change

Summertime is here, announcing itself in spectacular style by first chucking in the odd snowstorm up north just for contrast, then blistering us with 18 degrees of unexpected (but long deserved) heat over the weekend down in London Town! Don't get me wrong, I'm a winter girl through and through - Halloween, Bonfire night, Christmas and New Year, all the opportunities to wrap up warm around a fire, drink mulled wine and eat lovely stodgy food - but halfway through April and with only 3 hours of daylight I think everyone is getting a little SAD. And, as much as spring automatically renders pointless about a third of my stock, I'm not sad to see a few blooms and put away the winter threads. For now. Even my chilli plant is squinting optimistically at the straining sun.

Of course, it by no means puts me out of business, all this sunshine and warmth... Beanies and scarves may be on hold for the meantime, but the store has loads of new designs and yummy accessories coming in for the season! As it goes, I've just finished a delicious looking pair of cupcakes, which can have fixings for hairclips, brooches or keyrings. Sneak preview, you say? Well, if you insist:



I'm quite pleased with these - I was tempted to make full 3D versions as ornaments or as pincushions, but there are plenty of those floating about already, so I'll put that idea on ice for now. Might try making some ice cubes for summer though :)

Knitted Duck's online presence is changing too; for those of you who haven't already been bombarded with missives on the subject, the Facebook group has been shut down in favour of a proper page, which can be found here:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/London-United-Kingdom/Knitted-Duck/282583939861

so please become a fan and show your love for the Duck :) And speaking of online presence, I'm hoping soon to have a website proper, which would be v exciting. I say soon, I mean within the next year (probably), but I'm already excited enough about it to mention it! And probably jinx it. Oh well. I'm not superstitious.

Before I sign off, I would like to say a big congrats to Becky - @howsentimental on Twitter, defo worth following - for winning the RT competition which I completely neglected to mention before! She won a commission worth up to £15 and went for a stretchy beanie in burnt orange in a slightly larger than usual size to hold in all her luscious locks, and the finished product looks something like this:




They're so simple to make; K1 P1 on double pointed needles or circular needles, and decrease at the top. Voila! They stretch nice and wide where necessary, and bunch up small when you're done making them really easy to carry around. Glamourous model not included of course (!) - I have asked Becky very nicely if she wouldn't mind sending me a photo of her wearing it so I have a nice pic to go in my portfolio of happy customers. Watch this space!

That's all for now I'm afraid - I am full (FULL) of roast pork belly (NOM), roasties, chantenay carrots and spicy parsnip mash, not to mention the lemon bars I baked earlier ("for the guys at work" - WHATEVER) and I have a glass of wine and more knitting looking disdainly at me from the sofa. For now, my lovely knitties.

Bon soir,
KD x