Star spotting in Manchester

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Since we arrived last night we've been literally falling over A-listers! Okay so Johnny Vegas & Simon from the Gadget Show aren't quite A-listers but still, it's left us wondering who's next! I managed a photo of the back of his head.

The stand looks great even if we do say ourselves & people are already booked onto our workshops- can't wait!

Supper was scrummy by the way & we inadvertently celebrated Chinese Luna New Year in China Town, Happy New Year!

Thank goodness for the window!

See and download the full gallery on posterous

We've arrived in Manchester & had a busy afternoon setting up the stand which is looking great, photos to follow. We'll be running intro to knitting, knitted necklace workshops at 11.30am & 2.30pm at our stand B6. Just checked in to the hotel & thank goodness we booked a room with a window (yes, windowless ones are available!) because we would have missed out on this view! Not to mention these masterpieces. Off to China town for supper now, yum!

The final chapter of 2010

Tankfully the Toft Team were kept lovely and warm head to toe in our knitwear through the final tour dates of 2010. November kicked off with Country Living London.

This was our first setup in Islington’s Business Design Centre, and it proved to be quite a chaotic one. Through all five days of trading we were overrun, and had to call in stock deliveries everyday to keep up with the handbag and headband sales.

We had a very busy event and it was great to see so many of our regular online customers.

From there we did a pit stop back at Toft and headed off up to Glasgow with the same event.

This was only our second time across the border with the Toft tradestand, and proved to be an equally successful event.

It was very chilly that far North, and our hats went down a storm.

It was a really long journey back on the Sunday evening, but fuelled with lots of coffee and muffins we made it back to Leamington Spa just after 1am.

After a chaotic Monday swapping all the stock and loading two vehicles and a horse trailer…we set off for Harrogate for The Knitting and Stitching Show.

This year it was a very big and busy event with Gok Wan’s Fashion Fix being filmed on the Friday night. Forget ‘Team Toft’, we were an alpaca army as we setup and manned our two tradestands.

Thousands of you came and said hi at A90, or TG124 and enjoyed a five minute rest bite putting your feet up on our sofas.

We had the usual suspects Kerry and Kate, dragged Carrie out of the shop and office, and were joined for the week by Laura and Lisbee.

It was a touch and go train experience for Kate Laura and Lisbee coming out of London with the snow and the minus seven weather conditions (little did we know then it would set in for Christmas).

Lisbee was thrown in at the deep arriving five minutes before we started trading on the Thursday not knowing one end of an alpaca from another. We are hoping the Bettinson/Stainton Toft anthem will be with us soon *

see their latest musical collaboration and follow them on twitter/myspace.

Dimbleby & Capper and Lisbee Stainton

So we had a phenomenal time in Harrogate despite the very heavy snow and treacherous driving conditions.

It took a rescue mission by Rob and Doug to get us out on the Sunday evening and we all tested our muscles carrying the little remaining stock and sofas across the road and into the trailer.

Then…we were back in Harrogate for another weekend of snow at Simply Christmas- great to see so many Great Yorkshire Show customers, but sadly the weather killed the crowds.

Since then we’ve had all hands to the pump getting thousands of parcels out to you. We have made everything automatic 24hr delivery, the knitters haven’t stopped and we have sold that many knitting kits we have no tote bags left until January!

We have changed the opening hours of the on-farm shop for 2011. We will now be closed on a weekend from February through to October. The website will still be fully open for orders.

Happy New Year.