New Workshops for 2010

I am just putting up the list of workshop dates for 2010, we have some great subjects and some more Saturday dates. If there is anyone out there wanting to Learn to Knit (or you know anyone who wants to), our next workshop is just what you need. Tutor Anne Makepeace will take you through all the basics of knitting, and start you off on a pattern for a cushion cover. The one day course is on Thursday 3rd September 09 and the charge of £44 includes materials a yummy lunch and 10% discount on purchases made on the day.

This is another workshop photo from St Julien, the furniture at Kangaroo isn't as posh but the workshops are just as good.

Back to normal life

It seems very strange to go back to cooking for just two! We arrived home from the Chateau on Sunday afternoon and collapsed, but I managed to revive myself enough to see Bruce Springsteen (my all time hero) at Glastonbury and Status Quo who were the first live band I ever saw on Hastings Pier of all places! Monday was spent ploughing through thousands of emails and making updates to the website.
Today is the start of the summer sale. We have 15% off everything for a limited period, just enter the code 15OFF at the checkout. I am still clearing stock before I have to do the annual stock take at the end of the month and of course making room for the gorgeous new winter yarns. Rowan magazine 46 (autumn/winter edition) is due out in just two weeks time, look out for the next newsletter for details.
I am also trying to confirm the tutors and dates for the next workshop in France, this will be on the website and in a newsletter asap!

and even more projects from Exploring Colour

More projects from Exploring Colour

Saturday at the Chateau

We have an outing to Chauvigny for the market today. The first car load sets off at 8 am on the dot, I go on the last trip to get some shopping in the market. Chauvigny is a mediaeval town in two parts, the market is in the newer bit which is built on the river, to visit the old part of the town you can climb up the winding steps to the top of the hill and can visit the beautiful church which has painted friezes that are just perfect for fairisle and intarsia projects. Culli and I wander around the market, one of the first stalls we come to is the haberdashery one and guess who we find - the whole group rummaging through the button box. I love this stall, some of the buttons are just fantastic - you could spend a fortune and some of us did! The market is great with lots of colourful stalls selling everything you could possible want. I Bought some mussels and prawns for tonight's paella and some yummy looking strawberries and raspberries for pavlova (and of course some buttons...). Back to base for lunch followed by the final workshop, which was how to finish off the projects and an introduction to mattress stitch for those that didn't know. At last - show and tell, everyone lays out their projects, a few finished and some not quite. But a fantastic effort from all and apologies to any that I haven't included in the photos, I know I didn't manage to get them all. When asked to sum up the week these were some of the comments - 'Naught Mallory Towers girls go mad knitting in France: yarn, sun, buttons, wine and patisserie' by Yolie, 'this week has been truly inspirational, dedicated, good humoured and generous tutors, first class hospitality and delightful company' Suzanne (see Suzanne and Yolie's blog glittyknittykitty), 'delightful and brilliant' Gloria (Gloria is Connie's mum and comes from Texas and brilliant is her new word for the week), 'Thank you for a glimpse of what heaven might be' Mary Leeson, 'Fantastic in all aspects, when's the next one?' Chris, 'what a wonderful week of knitting, what wonderful women and wonderful creations, the best holiday I have ever had' Natalie. Back to the terrace and more Kir, we have a little prize-giving ceremony. Instead of choosing the four best projects of the week we ask the guests to vote for the person they think most deserves to win a prize and put the names in the hat. Felicity, Toril, Natalie and Chris were the four names drawn. Sarah, Emma and I all received some beautiful gifts and a bottle of whisky and bubbly for Culli - thank you everyone for your generosity and for being such good guests! For the first time in the week I actually managed to sit down and eat with everyone, was a total slut and left most of the clearing up in the kitchen for the next day and carried on chatting until the early hours of the morning sitting outside in candlelight and smothered with Toril's mosquito cream. It was a great week all round, just need to get that date booked for next year! Culli arrived back from the gig at 2.45, I knew that neither of us would feel like doing the clearing up in the morning.

Kangaroo Yarns - Birthday Greetings!

Kangaroo is 28 years old tomorrow!
I started the business when I was 23, with my friend Karen in a tiny shop in Upper North Road, Brighton. We were originally selling knitwear for children, my hand and machine knitted designs, with Karen making matching pinafores and dungarees. 52a North Road was previously a tattooist parlour, so for the first few months we had some interesting customers! We soon outgrew the tiny shop and moved down to the North Laines area of Brighton and had two great years there in blissful chaos, but Karen by this time had two small children and decided to move on to other things. We sold the lease on the shop and I continued the business from home as a mail order company, at the same time following my passion for sailing and running the catering at Brighton Marina yacht club, where I later met my husband Culli an architect and acquired two wonderful step-children. In 1989 the opportunity for a retail outlet came up in Lewes, so Kangaroo was once again on the move and back to being a shop. It was time to diversify, I had always loved yarn shops (and spent a huge amount of money in them), so decided to start stocking a few small ranges of yarn, which I of course could use! The yarn side proved to be popular, I was still living in Brighton with Culli and driving to Lewes every day, but we managed to find a fabulous 400 year old shop on the high street in Lewes, with a flat above complete with higgledy piggledy stairs and sloping floors, so we moved in with my ageing dog Bertie and two even more ancient cats. Then the internet came along and the original Kangaroo website was created. Life was great, the shop was doing well and the website going from strength to strength, we loved our rickety old flat and Lewes life. But then a few sad events changed our lives quite dramatically. Culli’s father died on his 90th birthday, my wonderful mother died unexpectedly the following year and I was diagnosed with possible ovarian cancer. I was rushed into hospital and had everything that could be, removed, I was lucky the biopsy proved to be benign. It was a bit of a shake up though, especially for Culli who being 10 years older than me seemed to think I was immortal. We were both working long hours six or seven days a week and decided that something had to change which was when we decided to move to France. This required a fair amount of planning as we had a shop lease to sell, a house to sell, a house to buy and somewhere to re-locate Kangaroo as a mail order company again. Frances, one of my customers offered to work for me from her premises, handling the post and packing, while I did everything else from the computer in France. We had a few teething problems in the first couple of years and quickly needed more space but finally relocated to the unit in South Chailey where we are now. I have two wonderful staff, Harriet (who originally started working for me ten years ago in Lewes and came back after a break) and Amanda who has been with us for nearly a year and is an inspiration in her energy and enthusiasm. Life in France is great – I had another health scare three years ago when I was diagnosed with early stages of breast cancer, after two lumpectomy’s and six weeks of radiotherapy I am doing fine and now just go for regular check-ups. Our French neighbours are wonderful and very long-suffering of my dreadful abuse of their language (which in spite of being here for five years and a lot of effort on my part doesn’t seem to be getting much better, I blame it on my mum who spoke fluent French and did most of my school homework for me…) Running Kangaroo from France is not always easy and sometimes I wish I was there more. I miss the workshops, and would love to be there for our Thursday knitting group, but try and get back as often as possible. The last six months have been tough as Culli has had no work at all, however he went to survey his first job since November last week, so hopefully things will pick up for him. I think the recession has if anything increased the knitting frenzy, we are selling a lot more patterns, a sign perhaps of everyone using some of their stash mountains? Kangaroo will I hope continue hopping along for some time to come, perhaps not another 28 years, but who knows!
The name Kangaroo (woolly jumpers) by the way, was originally thought of as an appealing logo for kids (we had a giant Kangaroo A-board outside the shop and adopted one at London Zoo), I am not Australian, but my great-grandfather was!
To celebrate the Kangaroo’s birthday we are offering 18% discount on everything at www.kangaroo.uk.com (except workshop bookings in Sussex and France) until midnight on Monday 18th May 2009.