Exciting times!

It’s half term here in our part of the world which means lazy mornings and small daughter attempting to eat biscuits for breakfast … but it’s also been a super-exciting few days!

On Sunday, it was the first day of the CHSI Stitches trade show and I headed down to the NEC exhibition centre in Birmingham to join West Yorkshire Spinners on their stand for the launch of the Winwick Mum Collection yarn.  Oh my life!  It sounds crazy but even though I’ve chosen the colours, seen the the yarn being created, designed the patterns and knitted the socks, it wasn’t until I saw them and the balls of yarn on display that it finally hit me that this is really happening!  It’s really happening!!

The West Yorkshire Spinners stand looked amazing – a beacon of rainbow colours in the exhibition hall – and it was amazing to be part of the team for the day.  My yarns (my yarns!) and the sample socks were beautifully displayed and some of them even had pride of place in the centre of the stand.  It was an incredible moment to see them there!  I got to speak to lots of yarn shop owners which is always a lovely thing to do, I got to admire socks (lots of socks in progress in bags, something of which I heartily approve) and there were even a few trouser leg lifts which I think may becoming a Winwick Mum thing.  I got to say “yes, that’s my yarn” more times than I had ever imagined – and it felt great!

I’ll be able to show you more pictures of the stand later – for now, some of the yarns and designs that were displayed are still a secret and were just for the stockists to see so I don’t want to give any secrets away that I shouldn’t do.  You may well have seen pictures of my yarn and the samples on social media and that’s absolutely fine, people did ask first and WYS and I are very happy about that so don’t worry that anybody has shared anything about them before they should have.  I’ll be showing you the samples, the sock patterns and more of the WYS stand in blog posts to come over the next couple of weeks (don’t forget this is a biscuits-f0r-breakfast type of week, I’m really not going to get much writing done when I’ve got to steer my child towards healthy options every time she heads into the kitchen, which seems to be every couple of minutes! 🙂 ).

I can show you this though ….

Squeee! How I managed not to run laps around the stand and not knock things over in my over-excitement I will never know, but I definitely left everything just as it had been positioned and don’t think I’ll be banned from future events with WYS! 🙂

And now comes the part where I want to say a huge THANK YOU to you!  After the show had closed for the evening, we all headed over to a large conference room where the British Craft Awards ceremony was due to take place.  Nobody knows in advance who might have won these awards so there’s always a huge buzz of excitement and anticipation.

My category was the Best Knitting Blog category and as always, there was stiff competition.  I think there were ten blogs in the category and it’s so good to know that people are still writing and posting on blogs on a regular basis; so often the rumour goes around that blogging is on it’s way out as people don’t want to read any more and would rather listen to or watch podcasts and vlogs on the go.  In these busy times I absolutely understand that, but there’s always something about the written word for me that resonates so much more and I will always choose to read a blog rather than listen or watch, which is why awards like this are so important as they remind people that blogging is still alive and well.

My big THANK YOU is because your votes put me into second place and I am so thrilled with that!  The winner was Kate Davies; I am a big admirer of her work and to be mentioned in the same sentence was a prize all on it’s own! 🙂  “Blogging” seems to cover such a wide range of styles these days that I am truly delighted that my knitting and ramblings are considered worthy of the time it takes to cast a vote, and very grateful to you for taking the time.

Cheers!

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13 Responses

  1. Unknown says:

    A great read as ever – I can feel your excitement, it's contagious xx

    • Winwick Mum says:

      Thank you! I'm quite surprised that I've haven't done any damage, I've been so excited by all of this! 🙂 xx

  2. Sonia Christie says:

    Woooohooooo! That’s fabulous news on both counts!

  3. linda says:

    Congratulations Christine you should be so proud, after all your hard work you deserve every bit of your success. I hear what you are saying about blogging, I was unable to blog for a huge part of last year and now that I have returned I'm very saddened to see so may of my favourite bloggers have closed their blogs down and have moved to Instagram, Podcasts and vlogs just don't do it for me. xx

  4. Jeanette Kettlewell says:

    Congratulations, Christine! What a lovely season you are going through of late.

  5. Julie says:

    Very well deserved, huge congratulations on both things.
    I too refer blogs, I don't do any other social media, have been told I'm really missing out on things, not sure what though as I'm quite happy with the little I do.
    Biscuits for breakfast …. good she is eating something for breakfast lol

  6. happy hooker says:

    Congratulations! Obviously raising a trouser leg is now the Winwick Mum "Hello!" A bit like a secret society – only those in the know will know what it means. Although, at the rate you're going, there won't be many people who don't know what it means! You really are taking over the world one (or should that be two?) socks at a time. xx

  7. Congratulations, you so deserve it.
    I love reading your blog, please don't think of stopping LOL
    I've got my fingers crossed that I will be able to buy your beautiful yarn online once its released. Your books have become my bibles when it comes to knitting socks and I can't wait to marry the two together.

  8. Val says:

    Congratulations I am hoping your yarn makes it to Canada!

  9. luluknitts says:

    Massive congrats Christine. Second is as good as first in my opinion. Kate, of course, is amazing and thoroughly deserves her win, but hey, YOU'VE GOT YOUR OWN WYS SOCK YARN!!!!! xxxx (Just sayin'….) x

  10. PixieMum says:

    I’m trying to keep my blog going, it isn’t easy when one lives a quiet, suburban perhaps even boring life. I view my blog as a kind of diary to record events, I’ve learnt to moderate my thoughts so don’t go near politics or religion.

  11. TheAwakenedSoul says:

    Wow! That's fantastic. Congratulations. You deserve it.

  12. pandchintz says:

    Double congratulations!! Can’t wait to see your yarn and patterns!

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