New Shawl Patterns

I need to get out my crochet hooks. I love this shawl from Blue Sky Fibers.

This reversible shawl mimics the night sky as evening falls and the stars start to come out. It’s perfect for wrapping around your shoulders as you gaze at the sky to keep the chill away.

The shawl was made with Woolstok Light which we don’t carry but Woolstok Tweed Light will work exactly the same and give a bit of different look.

You can purchase the pattern on Ravelry.

Here are the colours I chose.

5306

5317

5305

5303

5304

5318

5301

5302

5319

5300

Kate Atherley has a new shawl pattern that is knit in fingering weight yarn.

This is my favorite type of shawl for late fall and early winter: large and brightly colored! As the daylight gets shorter, and we all seem to retreat into our dark winter gear – so much black, navy, charcoal and chocolate brown – we need something that ensures we’re easy to see at night, and brings a bit of cheer. 

It’s also my favorite in another way: a not-at-all fussy stitch pattern. Ribbing might seem like an unusual choice for a shawl, but the fabric drapes beautifully when you wrap it around yourself, and you do get into the rhythm of the knitting, I promise – it’s quite meditative. I like these types of shawls for everyday, as sometimes lace can feel a bit too pretty, a bit too precious, a bit too delicate for wearing over my well-worn black puffer jacket when walking the dog. And as the name suggests, a little extra detail at the end of a very simple knit makes for just enough interest to make it feel special. 

I’ve used a speckly variegated yarn in just about the brightest color that exists: go with what brings you joy. This design is very amenable to substitutions of yarn colors and thicknesses: just work until it’s the size you want. Two skeins of fingering-weight yarn make a generous wrap. 

There’s a few interesting technical details: I use a 4-stitch stockinette stitch edging that rolls to look like i-cord, but there’s none of the issue with i-cord pulling vertically or causing the edge to be too tight. And I’ve started it with a stockinette stitch tab, which is a fun variant of the more common garter tab. If you’ve not done one before, don’t worry, there’s full instructions. 

I have also introduced a variant on the useful-but-fiddly pfb increase.

This is a free pattern on Knitty.com - here is the link. There are some great patterns in this issue.

Thank you to everyone who visited today. We had a great day in the store. Lynn came to help me and unpacked the 7 boxes from Rowan. They are on the shelf and the website has been updated. Thank you Lynn!!!! Now it’s almost home time and I’m ready for a nap. 

Mixed Tape Sweater

Wool & Pine has another amazing new sweater pattern.

The next track is here. Mix Tape Sweater and Mix Tape Tee are both 30% off through Monday, November 9. Pick your favorite or make it a double. No code needed, discount applied at checkout.

Mix Tape Sweater is the follow-up you’ve been waiting for. Everything you loved about Mix Tape Tee, now in DK or fingering held double with long sleeves and endless color possibilities. The simple side-to-side construction creates vertical garter and stockinette stripes. Choose striped sleeves to keep the colors going or solid stockinette sleeves worked in the round for an easy finish without seaming.

Approximately 6.5–9.2 grams per body stripe. Perfect for minis, half skeins, advent calendars, and all those leftovers you’ve been saving.

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Design Details

Mix Tape Sweater is all about putting your favorite colors back in rotation. The side-to-side body creates long vertical stripes, while alternating garter and stockinette stitch add subtle texture and keep the knitting relaxing and wonderfully rhythmic.

The sleeves are part of the fun. Choose side-to-side striped sleeves, seamed to create vertical stripes, or solid stockinette sleeves worked in the round without seaming.

Keep the whole sweater colorful, repeat a few favorites, or let solid sleeves frame a body full of leftovers. Your stash creates the vibe.

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Pattern Highlights

• Side-to-side body construction
• Relaxed fit with 6–10” of positive ease
• DK or fingering-weight yarn held double
• Vertical garter and stockinette stripes
• Approximately 6.5–9.2 grams per body stripe
• Two sleeve options: striped or solid
• Customizable body length

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Construction Overview

Mix Tape Sweater is worked side-to-side in simple garter and stockinette stitch, creating its signature vertical stripes.

You’ll begin with the back, worked flat with shoulder and neckline shaping before placing those stitches on hold. Next, you’ll pick up stitches for the front and work it flat with similar shaping. Join the left side with Kitchener stitch, then seam the shoulders using mattress stitch.

Sleeve Options: Choose striped sleeves worked flat, side-to-side, with short-row shaping for the upper arm. Close each sleeve with a three-needle bind-off, then attach it to the body using mattress stitch. For solid sleeves, work in the round in stockinette without seaming.

Video tutorials are included for picking up stitches, Kitchener stitch, and mattress stitch.

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Yarn Notes

Mix Tape Sweater was designed for another look through your stash: mini skeins, leftovers, advent calendars, handspun, speckles, solids, tonals. Bring your DK, pair up your fingering, and mix it up!

Use DK yarn on its own or hold two strands of fingering together. Pair similar shades for a softer mix or combine different colors for a marled effect. Mix dyers, mix bases, repeat favorite colors, or build the whole sweater around that one skein you’ve been waiting to use.

Choose striped sleeves for more color or a solid shade that ties everything together. Every Mix Tape is one-of-a-kind.

You can purchase the pattern on Ravelry. 

The sweater is knit in DK weight yarn or you can use fingering weight and double strand it.

For DK weight you have many, many choices. Here is a link to all our DK weight yarn.

We have some Theme Packs from Emma’s that are DK weight. I’m looking at these to use in a sweater.

Capricorn and Isn’t She Grand are in the store. Virgo will be arriving at the end of the month. 

I ordered a bag of Harbour Simply Spectacular DK for the sleeves. Yes, I want my sweater to look like the sample. Normally I choose my own but I love the look of the sweater. The pattern has been purchased and downloaded.

Aries is another brand new kit coming. The Theme Packs are great for adding to yarn that already have in your stash.

A few more yarn ideas are Rowan Felted Tweed and Hedgehog Merino DK.

Now it’s time to put away some yarn.

Mr. FedEx dropped off 7 boxes from Rowan.

• Felted Tweed
• Kidsilk Haze
• Mohair Tweed
• Fine Tweed Haze

And next week we will have a huge restock of Cascade 220, 220 Heathers and Superwash Merino. The brand new colours of 220 Heathers could be in the box as well.

Spincycle Plump

I borrowed these pictures from Spincycle’s Instagram page.

🍑Plump-A-Long 2026 🍑

We’re thrilled to announce the return of one of our favorite events of the year! Who’s ready for our 4th annual Plump-A-Long?! 🍑 

This time of year, we know many of you are turning to bulky yarns and bigger needles/hooks to get your gift crafting done. We’re here to offer a little extra encouragement: join our Plump-A-Long, whip up some gifts (or personal knits!), and enter for the chance to win some fabulous prizes.

This year’s Spincycle PAL kicks off November 14 and runs through December 26. To enter, simply cast on & complete ANY project using Spincycle Plump and submit your FO to the PAL Google form. As always, you’ll have the chance to show off your projects and cheer each other on in our Plump-A-Long Ravelry Forum and Facebook groups— links will be available on our website soon! 

Yes, all projects, knit or crochet, are welcome! And YES: each individual completed project gets its own entry to win! 🍑🍑🍑

🎉 This year’s Bonus Prize goes to whoever knits the most “Sugar Rush Hats” (pattern by @brienne_moody) between 11/14-12/26! A couple years back, our Bonus Prize winner knit 10 hats in total, so let’s just say, the competition is fierce. 😳

I used 3 skeins of Plump on 8mm needles to make the Sophie Scarf.

Here is the Plumped Up Cowl (pattern purchased on Ravelry) that I knit with Spincycle Plump. 

Here is a link to the Plump that we have in stock.

Here is a link to the many projects using Plump on Ravelry.

November 2026 resembles crunchy leaves on an autumnal forest floor, crisp and colorful. Looks gorgeous with Twilight, Petal, Beach Please, Hundred Ochre Wood, and Foxy Lady.

Ms. UPS brought in our box from Fox & Pine. The Bag Charms are so cute!!

Stitch Stoppers

You can see everything on the website.

I’m early today because I have a last minute dental appointment tonight. A tooth is bothering me (a lot) so I need it looked at before I lose my mind. Wish me luck!!!

My Knitting

Here is my Nightshift so far. The new Dream State is really nice to knit with. It is definitely plumper and squishier than the original Dream State.

The first clue has been released for Joji’s Open Up Mystery KAL. I just looked at projects on Ravelry - WOW. I think I need to cast this on. If you are interested - here is a link to the spoiler page on Ravelry.

Here is a link to the pattern on Ravelry.

CityKidz is getting ready for their Gift of Christmas program. I have talked about CityKidz before and it is a great organization.

We exist to increase resiliency and inspire BIG dreams for Canadian children living in low-income communities by providing inspirational experiences and nurturing personal relationships, one child at a time. 

If you live in the Hamilton area and have the means City Kidz is asking for donations.

The Gift of Christmas program is designed to ensure that every child feels remembered, celebrated, and valued during the holiday season. Through Christmas parties, personal gift selection, and hand-delivered gifts right to our kids’ doorsteps, children experience joy and belonging, while families receive practical support at a time when financial pressures can be especially challenging. 

To help us deliver hope and joy to thousands of Hamilton children, please consider donating to our toy drive. Please refer to the 2026 Hot Items list for this year’s most requested toys. To give our team enough time to sort, wrap, and prepare gifts for delivery, we kindly ask that toy drive donations be dropped off by December 1^st whenever possible.

 

To help our team receive and process donations efficiently, all toy drive drop-offs must be booked in advance. Please use thelink to Book a Drop-Off Time Here

2025 Gift of Christmas Highlights

• 3238 toys were delivered to over 1,000 registered CityKidz participants and their siblings
• 428 children and over 136 youth attended our Christmas parties

You can read more about CityKidz on their website.

As you can see they helped a lot of children and youth last year and the numbers this year are even higher. 

Now it’s time for Survivor and a bit more knitting.

Elves

Talking about gnomes got me thinking about Churchmouse Yarns Jolly Wee Elves.

You still have time to knit some Jolly Wee Elves for the holidays. The pattern is from Churchmouse (you can purchase it on their website). They suggest a fingering weight yarn or a DK weight yarn (like Rowan Felted Tweed).

The new Woolstok Tweed Light is a great choice for the elves. Le Petit Lambswool is another option.

These little handmade pals, created by Jennifer Evans, are perfect on the holiday mantelpiece, tree, or packages. But they’ll celebrate any season cheerfully! Originally designed for fingering-weight yarn, we love them just as much a bit bigger in DK-weight yarn. Once we started knitting them, we just couldn’t stop!

With elves, it's certainly true that the more you make, the merrier! They’ll naturally all turn out a little different, but you can make them even more various: Taller. Shorter. Plumper. Thinner. All green for St. Paddy’s day. All pink for your Valentine. All white for a snowman with a smart black hat and coal buttons. Once you’ve got the hang of it, the only limit is your imagination. Knit up a whole neighborhood of wee elves!

Today was spent running errands, doing housework and writing a newsletter. I will go over it again tomorrow and hopefully it will go out on Thursday.

I also worked on our hours for December. Extra hours have been added for the week before and after Christmas.I will be away the first week of December. Beth and Lynn will look after the store on November 28th and December 5th. 

My Nightshift is growing and I will take it to work tomorrow for pictures. 

Now it’s time for knitting and a movie.

Wee Three Gnomes

It’s almost Gnome time again.

Imagine Landscapes released the information for their holiday gnomes today and I have started making kits.

Join this sweet, simple fun mystery knitalong and knit three sweet gnomes this December! Use code “DecemberFun” to get 30% off until Nov 16. Plus, all previous December mystery gnomes are also 30% off with that same sale code! 

Badges to earn, parties to organize, homework to finish, and the days until Longest Gnight are racing past. Join Gnipper, Gnicely, and Gnudge as they each work to earn their final badge for Forest Troop 17. 

✨NOTE - You will be buying this as an eBook this time. It will not change your experience of the knitalong - it but allows me to better organize the files after the knitalong is over in compliance with Ravelry’s database rules. ebook direct link

OVERVIEW
You’ll get updates from Dec 1-21, but you won’t be told to knit every day. Some days, you’ll open the update to find a clue to knit. The other days will bring part of our charming story, special treats, or a recipe or two for traditional gnomish delights.

The Wee Three Gnomes are beginner-friendly gnomes. If you’ve never knit a gnome before, these are good ones to start with. Each one has a special little something that makes them stand out that might teach you something new, but I’ve focused on simple and fun. 

OPTIONS!
The three gnomes can either stand on their own or dangle from your bag strap, tree, wreath, or wherever you’d like a gnome to hang out. You’ll see these referred to as “Standing” or “Hanging” gnomes.

Also, the gnomes have been designed for both DK and fingering weight. The DK gnomes will be larger, of course. They’ll still be small, but perhaps not quite ‘ornament small’. I guess that’s a matter of taste (or tree size)! There will be no difference in how the gnomes are worked - the instructions are the same, just the finished size varies.

You can pre purchase the pattern on Ravelry. 

The email about the new MKAL came through while I was in the store packing boxes. I brought home many skeins of Emma’s PPS Smalls to make up colourways. I locked the store and then went back in because it dawned on me that tweedy gnomes would be amazing!

I started with Woolstok Tweed Light because it had the least colour combinations and was the quickest to add to the website. 

Here is a link to the kits.

I’ve started to put together kits with Emma’s PPS Smalls and adding them to the website.

We have a large order of PPS Smalls coming later in November. If the kit you want is out of stock please let me know and I will notify you when it is back in stock.

You can make your own kit as well. Here is a link to the website showing all our PPS Smalls.

Now it’s time to get serious about kit making. I wanted to make enough to get them on the website and show pictures here. Keep checking back because once I start putting together combinations I can’t stop.