preparations

Hello! How are these early days of the year going for you? Here, we’ve had some snow . . .

We have the feeders well stocked for our feathered friends . .

. . . and are keeping an eye out for our woolly pals in the field opposite.

This bold brown-fleeced guy is a particular friend of our dogs (yes, really) who, of course, all love the snow . . .

And with the right footwear, I enjoy it too. There are plenty of walkers out and about, including this guy, making an intrepid, snowy ascent of Dumgoyne.

We are also very busy, here, behind the scenes. Sign-ups for Argyll’s Secret Coast closed just yesterday, and there’s now a fair bit of admin to do before the club is able to begin. For example, we need to factor in several days for validation checks on emails and postal addresses (you’d be surprised how often a single mis-keyed letter messes something up!) before building the distribution lists for the club material.

This is a project with a lot of moving parts, and it’s important that we prepare well, to ensure that everything runs smoothly. So, if you’ve signed up for the club, and are more than ready for things to get going, here’s how they are set to pan out over the next week or so: on January 14th, you’ll get a welcome message, together with your discount code and all essential club information; on the 16th, you’ll receive the club’s first essay, introducing the area of Argyll we will be exploring together with the club’s key themes (there will also be a special recipe); and the first pattern will land in your inboxes on the 21st.

We spent much of last week in Argyll, working on some club photography and a short film. These activities have made me rather impatient to show you my first pattern from this collection, shot in a truly extraordinary location. But I can’t say more than that just yet!

We and our friends have been hard at work for several months researching and writing, designing and knitting, walking and kayaking, photographing and cooking, preparing everything to be ready to explore Argyll’s Secret Coast with you. We are thrilled that so many of you are keen to join us (this has proved to be a very popular club!) and we are all really excited for our Argyll journey to begin . . . . . Until then . . .