Needlework!

Liz and I have some super exciting news!!! A couple of Wednesdays ago (November 30th to be precise - yes, I haven't blogged in forever) we presented our business plan for Needlework to the loan review committee at the Canadian Youth Business Foundation. The presentation went well, with lots of good positive and constructive feedback. That afternoon (while I was sitting at the One of a Kind Show) my phone rang and I got the wonderful news that we were approved for the loan!! Amazing! All systems are a go!

We've started placing fabric orders, signed the lease on our new space, bought a couch for the shop, and have cutting tables waiting to be assembled. We just need to set up our website (a work in progress), order a lot more fabric, finalize and order notions, buy some sewing machines, tables, chairs, check out counter, paint the building, get a sign made...and do a gajillion other things!!! Neither Liz or I have any background in business, so this is going to be a fun and interesting learning process. But we're up for it!

Since we had the keys to 174 James Street North (!) in time, we decided to whip something up for the December Art Crawl. We set up a quick window display, and handed out candy canes and coupons for a free 1/2 hour of our sew by the hour studio time. We'll be doing this again at the January Art Crawl. Probably without the candy canes, but maybe with something else!

We're so excited, and hope that you will join us on this adventure! Soon we'll have a Needlework blog (and twitter and facebook accounts!) up and running, and you'll be able to follow our progress there.

FUN!! EXCITING! YAY! HOORAY!

Thanks to friends and family for all your input and help! This is just the beginning.

knit night on the brain: COMPLETED!

This past weekend in Hamilton was amazing. Supercrawl was so so good. The best ever. I was so impressed and thrilled to share such a great Hamilton event with some friends and family who were visiting. And The Beehive completed our giant knit façade of The Brain, which we've been working on since June/July.



We were literally knitting and piecing the installation together as it was going up. And many of us were knitting non-stop in the week leading up to the deadline. Towards the end we pulled out the big guns to speed things up - mega huge knitting needles! Thank goodness for chunky yarn and big needles.



We couldn't have done this without our friends and family. In addition to all the knitters that helped with the actual creation of the piece, we could never have installed it without the tireless help of Gary. THANK YOU GARY! Sky Jack operator extraordinaire. And Kieran and Mike. HEROES. And thank you Heather who patiently let us take over The Brain, inside and out.



Oh, and that amazing knit recreation of The Brain logo? Yeah, that was Courtney. She's the mastermind behind this entire thing. Not only is she speediest knitter I've ever met, she's also a genius when it comes to making up patterns. Three cheers for Courtney!!!



And now it's done. It was only up for 2.5 days, but it was totally worth it. Our first giant Beehive project! If you swing by in the next little while, you can still check out the yellow section with the The Brain sign, which is still up.

Now that  knitting bricks and giant sections of yellow is behind me, it's time to get back to knitting flowers non-stop again. Oh, and school. Yeah, another year of school.