Welcome, Fyberspates Blog Tourists!

Hello there, and welcome to the next stop on the Fyberspates Blog Tour. How's your trip been so far? Good? Good.


My name is Ashley, and, well, I do the numbers*. Right now, I'm trying to think of a way I can "sex up" my days spent on Excel and Word, typing in stitch counts and measurements and formulae and watching my cat groom herself, but I'm failing. Just be assured that I'm the one there poking the designers, prodding the words, and making sure every pattern in our collection is as clear and error free as possible (and our wonderful designers make this a pretty easy task!).

Behind the scenes. My spreadsheet anecdotes can go on for days.

Right. So, that done, how about I talk about Lyme Regis instead?

Jeni rocking the Rock Lea Scarf. Photograph (C) 2014 Jesse Wild

How beautiful is Lyme Regis? Jeni (Queen of Fyberspates) and I are both lucky to live in a stunning little part of England where photo opportunities abound, but when Jen AC mentioned that we were going to be heading down to the south coast (a place I'd never been - and, to my American, west-coast-east-coast-oriented mind, still sounded impossible. Never mind, you know, the Gulf Coast) to photograph the collection, I may have gotten a little excited.**

Lerryn Mittens (Photograph (C) 2014 Jesse Wild)

After spending a very cozy night at the kind AC house with Jen's cat as a neck-scarf, Nic (our fearless layout magician) bundled me, our photographer, one lovely model, the samples, and a lot of photographic equipment in her van. Hours later, having successfully staved off car-sickness on the windy Dorset roads, we finally made it...to the sea.

It was my first proper English seaside trip, so I got to do all of the things that the usual English seaside visitor gets to do in February: buy and eat too many chips from the only open chippy on the beach. Try to not get attacked by seagulls.Huddle in a beach hut or do star jumps and try to keep myself warm.

Kenwyn Hat and Cowl (Photograph (C) 2014 Jesse Wild)

But I'm usually on the technical side of things, so getting to see the photoshoot take place, keep our photographer's special photography umbrella-y thing from flying away in the seaside gales, and watch our lovely models work their magic was quite a treat. I also got to spend a lot of quality time with our samples, and wishing I was wearing all of them at once.

Larigan was starting to look pret-ty cozy. (Photograph (C) 2014 Jesse Wild)

Now if you'll pardon me, I'll go back to my word processor and Excel document and point you in the direction of the next stops on our Blog Tour. Take care!

*I'm the technical editor for the Fyberspates Collection Book 3!
** Estatic that I was getting the opportunity to work outside the house. Also a little terrified of having the opportunity to work outside the house.

Fyberspates Collection 3 is now available.

Price:   (print and digital) £12.00, $26

Distributors:

Fyberspates ltd

Ravelry download

Retailers: The Scrumptious yarn and pattern range is widely available from shops and online retailers around the world. For an up-to-date list of where to find our products, please click through to: www.tinyurl.com/fyberspatesretailers

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Chicken Dreams

I live in an odd place, a sort of honey-colored dreamworld that I'm not always keen on leaving. If you asked me ten years ago if I thought I would end up in the Cotswolds, I would have said "What's the Cotswolds?" and then carried on worrying about where I was going to go for college.

2013 was a good year in the Wonk household. My husband landed his dream teaching job and is well on his way to becoming the Best Teacher Ever (if  his Christmas gifts from students are to be believed). I wrote a new book and landed my dream agent (hi, Molly!), and am so excited to see where my career is going to take me. I went to New Zealand. I became a UK citizen. We got chickens, sort of.

They're actually my landlords', but Dora's destroyed my flowerbeds, so I think I get some claim..

Where will 2014 lead? Who knows! Hopefully wonderful places. Hopefully to more chickens, and more books, and a garden that doesn't get overrun in cabbage worm (RIP cauliflower). It's had an excellent foundation.

Bye, 2013. It's been real.