Kauni

A box of Kauni arrived today-just in time for the Frolic. We received-
EA
ES
EQ
EF
EG
ER

The yarn comes in balls that are 130, 140, 150 or 160 grams.

Dream in Color sent me a rush shipment of Classy so we have the colours to make kits for the Frolic. Last night I started winding the yarn on my new toy-I have an electric ball winder. Just hit start and off it goes. Now I have to figure out how to measure off the yarn correctly as it is winding-that will be tomorrow nights task.

American Idol is about to start so I am going upstairs to sit on the couch. I have all the knitting on my Noro cardigan done and the sewing together has started. Not sure if I will be able to do it tonight. Beth and I just went out for dinner (Turtle Jacks and it was very good) and I had 2 drinks with dinner. Might be a good idea to hold off the sewing until tomorrow. :)

On the go but getting nowhere

Who turned off the heat? We had such a beautiful weekend and now this.

Jane called me at 10:30 this morning that she needed me in the store. There were a group of ladies in from Buffalo who were on a yarn road trip. All was good and the ladies left happy. The rest of my day was running around-post office, bank and Limeridge Mall to get bedding (the bed arrived early this morning for the guest room-if we are going to have visitors then sheets and blankets are a must). I have been out all day but it doesn't seem like anything was accomplished.
A parcel is on it's was to Lynda. She will be making a few scarves for the Frolic. The first is in Pearl from Lorna's Laces and the second is in Silky Alpaca Lace from Classic Elite.



I am now running downstairs to wind yarn. Tulip kits need to be made up for the Frolic. A few colours are missing but getting started is a good idea-it takes a long time to wind the yarns.

Make Notes!!!

I am working away on my Noro cardigan. The first front band is knit and sewn on. The bottom edge is garter stitch and then 10 stitches are put on a stitch holder to be picked up later and worked in garter stitch to go up the front edge. The collar is half done but I forgot to bring yarn home to finish it. There might be a road trip in a couple of minutes. Amazing Race and Celebrity Apprentice tonight. Maybe I can get the collar done.

There were a few speed bumps along the way when knitting my cardigan.

• I didn't know what size needle I used for the bottom bands. The pattern said 3.25mm but there was a 3.75mm in the bag. I worked the border of one sleeve with the 3.75mm only to find out that it was the wrong size. Write down the needles you use-if you are like me and start a project only to put it away and pick up at a later date it will make your life much easier
• Make sure you put enough yarn put away for your project. I did not do that and don't have enough yarn-luckily the yarn is self striping and all I have left is the collar.

Very Cute Slippers

Shirley has been very busy knitting. Last week we saw her finished Log Cabin Afghan and here are two pairs of Elfin slippers knit with Cascade 220. The pattern has infant to ladies sizes.

Lynda is one of my knitters for the store. Earlier in the week I showed you the pink cardigan she knit-this was in the same package but I forgot to take a picture. This is knit in Helen's Lace from Lorna's Laces. The pattern is on the label and is very easy if you want to make your first shawl. All you need to know is how to knit. The shawl is hanging in the store right now and we will have it at the Frolic.

I have finished the last sleeve for my Noro cardigan. Now the front bands and the collar. Basketball is on tonight so hopefully I will get a chunky done.

To do lists

My 'to do' lists for the Frolic have started. I want to make sure we have everything in stock and if not get my suppliers moving to get it here.
Today I made sock kits.

I'm not sure how everything is going to fit in the booth. Currently I have 14 sample garments that I want to take-this will have to be looked at. It's kind of like packing for a trip. You want to make sure you have everything-just in case.

A shipment arrived from Dream on Color late yesterday afternoon. Sock yarn wasn't in the box but we did receive Classy, Groovy and Baby. Included in the Classy were some of the new semi-solid colours. The purple is to die for. Unfortunately a few colours missed the shipment-including the few colours I am missing to make Tulip kits. The wonderful ladies at Dream in Color are shipping them out as we speak. This means I will be winding wool at night for the next few weeks. UGH!!

Is there anyone who can beat Adam on American Idol? He is so far better than anyone else. I think Lil and Danny are solid but Adam is the whole package.

Sorry no pictures today. The computer is at home so I am using my phone. There is a scheduled 'outage' tonight (a cool word for maintenance) and I don't know when it will me up and running again-don't want to miss todays post.

Pretty in Pink

A parcel arrived from Lynda today with this great summer top knit out of Lang yarns Lucia. From Lang's website "A discreet play of color, material and structure along with an opaque-shiny-metallic effect, are the characteristics of this summer yarn."

The big picture is the true colour but I included this picture because of the shawl pin-it is one of Romi's new designs.

Judith emailed me a picture of her first pair of socks. She used one of the many self patterning yarns we sell along with my sock pattern.

Basketball preempted Survivor last week and this week Survivor has been moved to tonight. I am listening while typing as it is a recap show. I hate these-just give me new content!!

Dreams and Twitter

Last night I had some wild dreams. In the first dream I was still in University. That was over 20 years ago but this is a recurring dream. It is the beginning of April and we are going on a week long break. Then there are 3 weeks of classes before exams. I have three classes (French, History and Art) that I have never attended a class for-I wonder why. Now I need to go and get caught up. Unfortunately I don't even know where the class rooms are and I don't have my schedule so I must somehow get a copy of my schedule to go to class. In the second dream we are in Vegas with our parents. Beth, Mom and I are playing a game (not a known casino game or slot machine) something like skee ball. You know-the carnival game where you bowl balls and they jump up into slots that are worth different amounts. We made over $500,000.00 playing that. Unbelievable. Then we let my mom carry around $300,000.00. What were we thinking? My mom was wearing the most amazing jewelry as well. She took a Christmas card that had a wreath on the front and cut out the centre of the wreath. Then she put her chain through the centre so the card was hanging from her chain. Quite the look I must say. Again, this dream took place in April so I made her take it off.

I am chuckling (okay rolling on the floor in laughter) at the second dream. There are two subconscious things going on here. Beth and I didn't take our Christmas tree down until
February-it looked so good and the work to pack everything away was huge. When Beth and I went on our first trip to NZ we took a gift for the owner of Naturally Yarns wife. They took us out to dinner every night and really looked after us. We bought her a Swarovski Christmas tree decoration but she thought it was a pendant-she went and bought a heavy duty chain to wear it around her neck. I don't know how she could stand the weight.

Last night I spent quite a while playing with Twitter and understanding it can be a bit daunting. When I was looking around before I had an account I thought that this "@Jacqueline_Soak National Post-congrats!!" meant that Jacqueline had posted to me saying this but in reality this is my message to her. (This is the same for the Twitter updates on the left side of my blog). If you are following me then you will see what I type to someone but not what they typed to me. Very confusing. After a few hours I am an expert (LOL!!!) though. Now I can decipher what is going on. I was also confused because I have a 'home' page with more on it than you see-things that weren't showing up when I was looking at other peoples page.

Beth's question-how do the people at Twitter make money?

SO your FO

Heather was in the store on Saturday a great scarf. The pattern is "That Little Scarf" by Anne Hanson. She used 2 skeins of Alpaca Silk from Blue Sky Alpacas (more arrived today). You can see more of Heather's work on Ravelry-Greenerknits. Heather was also the first person to sign up for Camp Knit Away.

When I was in Chicago, more than one speaker talked about Social Networking. Big words but what do they mean? Did you know that email is going to be a thing of the past? The thing they told us to look at is Twitter. I can't tell you much about it but I have signed up and my name is NeedleEmporium.

The New York Times calls Twitter "one of the fastest-growing phenomena on the Internet." TIME Magazine says, "Twitter is on its way to becoming the next killer app," and Newsweek noted that "Suddenly, it seems as though all the world's a-twitter." What will you think? Twitter.com

My Chicago Knitting

I did get quite a bit of knitting done while away. OK-not this much knitting. I am working on a design out of Sirdar's Eco wool book 336 and using Silk Garden Lite. Sirdar doesn't have a picture of what I am doing on their website so I can't show you the finished project-this will make me knit quick to get it done and show you the finished project!! I knit one front while away and got some done on the second front.

Shirley just finished her Log Cabin Afghan and emailed me a picture. FABULOUS!! Shirley lives out of town and knits felted bags. I was sending her Kureyon regularly but she didn't tell me what it was for. When she asked for the Cascade 220 in black then I knew she was making the afghan and not bags.

Here is the room that we sit in for the workshops in Chicago. Many people brought their laptops but that would have been one more thing to lug around. I used my phone for emails. Luckily we had free WiFi in the conference room and there was an Apple Store just across the street from my hotel.

One thing the hotel didn't have was pay phones. Have you heard of anything so crazy?
Looking down Michigan Avenue. I should have taken the picture on Tuesday when it was sunny. Wednesday was a bit overcast and dreary.

More about the conference

Many of the great suppliers I deal with had representatives at the conference. These companies donated great items for our goodie bags (that came in Namaste bags) as well as sponsoring meals.

This is Betsy who runs Classic Elite Yarns. Sorry that the picture is a bit fuzzy-damn iPhone. She is wearing a scarf knit in Classic Elite's Silky Alpaca Lace (our stock is arriving tomorrow). The pattern is from the magazine Heron Island (also arriving tomorrow).

This is Stacy Charles. Many of you have read his name and seen his amazing designs in ads while reading Vogue Knitting (who put on the conference for us) and other knitting magazines.

Unfortunately I am at work right now and left all my notes from the conference at home. I will post more tomorrow.

The new bags from Offhand Designs just arrived. I have focused on the colours Rumpelstiltskin and Rosamond.


This weekend is the most exciting weekend of the year for sports enthusiasts. The NCAA basketball tournament is starting. I have my computer on right now watching as I am typing.

Made it home safely

I have got clothes in the wash and can now sit down and post. The trip was well worth it and I have many ideas for the shop.

After 9/11 airline regulations changed and the door to the cockpit of the plane is supposed to always be closed. Here is the view from my seat when I got on the plane. They even took a small boy up to the cockpit to meet the pilots.

Getting up at 4am wasn't pleasant but nothing I couldn't deal with. The trip to the airport and plane ride were uneventful. I landed in Chicago and got off the plane right at the baggage claim area. That never happens.

Before I left I wrote down the name of a limo company to take me to the hotel. Yes, you can take a taxi but depending on the time of day you can be sitting in traffic forever and that can make a taxi ride very expensive. The limo is a fixed rate so I thought it was a smart move. When I called the limo company they didn't know anything about the rate I was quoting (that I found on the Internet) but they honored it. After waiting 20 minutes the limo arrived-they had called the driver at home and made him come in to get me. We weren't ten minutes from the airport when a tire blew on the car. Now I am sitting on the side of the highway for the next half hour while he is changing it.

Finally arrive at the hotel around 10:30am and can't get into my room but they tell me around 1:30. No problem. Stores are calling and I was hungry. Lunch at California Pizza Kitchen, roam around Macy's and a few other stores and it is now 1:00. I walk back to the hotel and they still don't have a room for me. There are now 15 people on the list ahead of me to check in early. I asked why I wasn't on the list at 10:30-the manager had no answer but did tell me that at 3:00 I would have a room. I trudge off to Nordstroms and then onto another Macy's. I get back to the hotel around 3:30. Miss Schilthuis, here are the keys to your room-2012. I get to the room and there is a 'Do Not Disturb' sign on the door. Weird but many other rooms had them so I thought it was something the cleaning staff did to mark the clean rooms. I knock on the door and no answer so I open it. There are people in the room!! What? I pull the door closed and run to the elevator. Back down to the lobby (which isn't even on the level you enter the hotel-it was on the 2nd floor). Now they have to find me another room. Because of my troubles I get upgraded to a King bed. Wow!! Thanks!! Anyways, that was all the headaches I had while in Chicago but I was exhausted by the time we had a welcome reception at 7pm.

We had a workshop on blogging yesterday. Blogs are supposed to be no longer than 5 paragraphs. Because of this, I am saving more stories for tomorrow. This rule helps me right now because my bed is calling and I want to go to sleep.

Tuesday morning from Chicago

I am sitting waiting for this mornings lecture to start. We are in the conference room this morning and then we go on a yarn crawl this afternoon. We will be visiting five different yarn shops in the Chicago area.
I was outside this morning and everyone is wearing green. Then it hit me-St. Patrick's day. That explains something that confused me on Sunday. I was walking between stores and had to cross the river. The water was an awful green colour. Somehow they colour the river green in celebration.

Chicago

I am standing in the Apple store on my lunch. The weather here is great. So far the conference has been infomative. This morning we talked about blogging which made me run over here. I will write a longer post when I get home. There were many adventures yesterday.

Sunny Saturday

Melo is watching Beth as she cleans the yard. Notice the sock on the deck. It doesn't matter how many toys we buy for Melo, a sock will always make him happy.

Roko the angel!! He is waiting for Beth to throw his ball.

The weather today was amazing!! Sarah worked with me today. I got to the store a bit after 10am and she already had the February Lady on. The size is perfect for her. I thought it was in my best interest to stay until closing to make sure she took it off.

I am typing this while doing laundry. I'm being picked up for the airport at 5:30 tomorrow morning-I had better pack soon. The hotel I am staying at should have WiFi so I will try and post if there is time. The schedule for the conference is brutal. Breakfast at 7am. What?? Much too early for me.

She's Done

I finished her this afternoon complete with buttons sewn on and ends sewn in.

Last night in knitting class we had a party. No, Sarah isn't pregnant!! Janice has three grandsons and has been praying for a granddaughter. We knew a baby was on the way but Janice wouldn't share the gender with us. Well Jayen finally arrived last week so we had a small celebration. Now Janice can finally knit in pink.

Sorry for the short post. Beth and I are running out the door to meet up with friends from grade school.

ETA: Beth made me add this before we can go. She has her own blog now. It will be a very interesting read with guests from around the world contributing. Some of these guests are quite famous in the knitting world. Margery is Margery Winter of Berroco and Vogue Knitting Fame. The Rock Star-the name says it all. Check out The Empire Knits Back.

More great FOs

Sorry there wasn't a post yesterday. I left work and had my nails done. On my way I picked up dinner, we ate, watched Lie to Me and I went to bed. The computer was yelling at me but I couldn't keep my eyes open.

Jane just finished Wrapped up in Bows for the store. One skein of Winter Lace (50% wool, 50% silk) from Mountain Colors made this great shawl. The wind was blowing when I took the picture which makes it hard to see the ends of the shawl-there are lengths of I-cord which are tied into bows. This is in the store right now and we will have it on display at the Knitter's Frolic.

Color on the Side is a Fiber Trends pattern that Sandra knit out of Naturally Vero and added her own finishing touch-a bit of fluff around the edges. This jacket is so Sandra!! The shawl pin is one of our Wouldworks pins. I am very jealous-the purple colour is amazing. It should be in my collection!! I don't usually do this but I am going to give Sandra a plug. She custom makes jewellery out of semi-precious stones, Swarovski crystals and freshwater pearls. Notice her fabulous earrings and bracelet. You can see her work in Niagara-on-the-Lake at Optimus. Custom orders are welcome. I can get you in touch with her.

Sunday morning I am flying to Chicago until Wednesday afternoon. Why am I going? There is a conference for yarn shop owners. I attended last year and it was a great source for information and inspiration. Yes I will be visiting Nordstrom's and Macys. Maybe there will be some extra shoes in my suitcase when I come home. :)

February Lady is almost done-maybe tonight. One sleeve is complete and I am half way through the second one. There probably won't be much knitting in class tonight but after class I will be watching Survivor and Hell's Kitchen.

Is Roko really smart?

The body of my February Lady is done. I am now working on sleeve number one. 

The pattern is easy to follow except for one thing. The buttons on the picture and the buttons in the written instructions are on different sides. When I went to work the first row of the lace pattern it said to start on the right side but then it wouldn't look like the picture. I looked at the picture and re read the instructions for 15 minutes but couldn't make it work. I then logged onto Ravelry and read peoples comments. Yes, the picture and instructions are different. I made mine like the instructions.

This isn't something to get overly excited about especially since the pattern was free. Had I paid for the pattern I might have had more issues with this. A comment would have been nice but such is life.

We are restocked on Buddy Cases except for Hollywood Pink which should be available at the end of the month.  I took this picture to show you that the lid of the cases are magnetic.

When I go to sleep at night I leave more door open just a bit.  In the morning Beth leaves for work before I do.  She feeds the dogs and Roko always finishes long before Melo.  His new trick is to push my door open, jump on my bed and cry.  Melo then comes running and Roko heads to the kitchen to finish Melo's breakfast.  We always thought that Roko was the dumb dog but maybe he really is smart.

Lisa has been very busy finished up her UFOs. This pattern can be found in the new Debbie Bliss magazine as well as the Cathay pattern book. Lisa used Cathay (cotton and silk blend) and the new magazine uses Prima (wool/bamboo blend).

I am watching the Y&R while doing paperwork and just have to comment. Ashley is pregnant-how is that possible? How old is she supposed to be? Ashley was in her 20s when I started watching 30 years ago. Victor is the father? Good thing he had his vasectomy reversed!! It is amazing how the characters age on a soap opera. They go from infant to teen in a couple of years and then once they reach 30 they don't age another year. I think I will pretend I am a soap opera character from now on and my age is 35.

Amazing Race last night did not have the outcome I wanted. Amanda and Kris were a great team-I think front runners to win.

Celebrity Apprentice-not sure what I should say about it. Scott Hamilton was a terrible project manager. Clint Black seems like an ass and I thought he was going to be a good guy. Tom Green is annoying but I think we all knew that.

I need to finish paperwork at the other computer now and then work on my knitting. I am almost done the body of February Lady. Just have the last inch of garter stitch on the bottom to finish. Then picking up for the sleeves.

Bowling

I'm going to share a little known fact about myself-I love bowling. My passion started young at the Ancaster Lanes. Dad registered us for 5 pin bowling on Saturday mornings when I was eight. We bowled every week until I was about fifteen. We were both good (I was better and Beth will admit that) and we bowled in many tournaments and won many trophies. Mom and dad still have them on display in their basement. 5 pin bowling died off and 10 pin took over. We started bowling 10 pin in a league which led to buying our own balls and shoes. Many Friday or Saturday nights were spent at the lanes with a group of friends. It was usually the girls against the guys and the girls won. One year a group of us were in Myrtle Beach for a week. We saw something on TV that bowlers on scholarship to US universities bowl at least 75 games a week. Everyone said I couldn't do it but I did. 15 games a day for 5 days straight. Boy my arm was tired after that. We continued to bowl in leagues for a while but then the lanes in Ancaster closed. That was the end of regular bowling. We have gone a few times since but not much. On Friday, John called that he was taking the kids to Rock'n Bowl. They turn the lights down and turn the music up loud. Sure, Beth and I were in. Bad decision. I didn't have my own ball or shoes (yes, the excuses are starting). I was awful. So bad that one of the kids beat me. Beth is afraid I am going to drag her bowling to practice before the next time a group of us goes out. I don't like to lose!!!

What a great day

The weather today was amazing. You couldn't help but be happy. Hopefully spring is here. It was hard getting dressed this morning. Nothing in my closet was exciting me. After much digging I came up with my Summer Tweed sweater.

Sarah came in today with her Felted Clutch with Roses knit out of Cascade 220. You can find the pattern on Ravelry-go to patterns and enter Pipp's Purses.

Survivor last night-great TV. A cross tribe alliance. That is going to be interesting. We didn't get a chance to watch Hell's Kitchen last night. Maybe tomorrow night. After Survivor we had to quickly watch American Idol. When you don't watch all the talking the show goes quickly. What a drama queen Tatiana was. I am so glad that she didn't make it through because I don't think I could watch her every week.

Sorry this is a quick post. Beth and I are going bowling with our kids.

Damn Ravelry

I haven't written about any knitting in a couple of days. I have been working on something in private since Sunday and decided to share it with you now that the pattern is showing up. This is the famous February Lady cardigan-over 4500 projects on Ravelry. Knitters come in the store every week looking for yarn to knit this so I decided I had better join the fun. I am using Vienna from Naturally.

Bev just left and Beth is chomping at the bit to watch Survivor. I told her to hang on for one minute because I had to do a post. Just made it in under the wire.

Keep the pictures coming

Kim sent me some pictures of a few baby cardigans she has knit. These were given at a baby shower last week. The cardigan on the right is knit out of Sirdar Baby Bamboo and the pattern is from the book #336 Baby Bamboo Too. I wasn't given any details about the cardigan on the left.

Debbie Bliss' Eco cotton arrived today. The book arrived a couple of weeks ago but since there was no yarn I didn't talk about it. You can preview the patterns here. The yarn is aran weight with a nice sheen to it.

Bev is coming for a meeting tomorrow afternoon and Beth reminded me that I had better get out the gift she gave me. I think she was a bit embarrassed when her boss was visiting from Italy and I served him an Espresso in a coffee mug. Now I have proper glasses. They are much too small for me-one sip and you are done.

I have Idol taping right now. There is no sense watching tonight's show live-it takes about 3 minutes to see everything you need to know. It is going to be interesting to see who the judges bring back tomorrow night.

Slumdog

One of Annie Adams great shawl pins. 

 

In a previous post I showed her new key chains.  There are two styles-one says KNIT and the other says YARN.

Annie's amazing stitch marker pendant that comes with a silver chain.

Saturday night we watched Slumdog Millionaire.  Great movie!!!  I highly recommend it.  There were a couple of gory parts but they didn't ruin the movie.  Mom and dad saw it the same evening.  When they said they were going to see it we were a bit afraid that they wouldn't like it (they normally go to movies that don't require thinking) but they loved it too.

Did anyone watch The Bachelor last night?  What a jerk!!  First he picks Melissa and then comes on national TV to dump her.  I spent a bit of time reading some blogs online today and there is speculation that this was set up from the beginning for ratings.  Interesting.  It is on again tonight-what are they going to show us?

I've got to run.  Beth has Idol on and she won't wait for me.

Noro Flowers

Noro Flowers, the new spring Noro magazine from Jenny Watson arrived today. We also received new colours of Silk Garden Lite, Taiyo and the new yarn Chirimen.

Jane worked today so I could go to Buffalo and pick up the Annie Adams shawl pins. It was a short drive from Annie's gallery to the Walden Galleria and The Cheesecake Factory.

Sorry, I know this picture is very mean but damn the cheesecake tastes good.

Celebrity Apprentice last night was great. I don't like Andrew Dice Clay and was happy to see him leave.

Kisses

Sirdar brings us great baby yarns and patterns. This is Snuggly Kisses-a dk yarn that changes colour from light to dark. Kisses arrived Friday afternoon but I forgot to write about it.









Leaflet 1835-way too cute. It almost makes me want a little girl. There are eight leaflets in all or you can purchase a magazine with all the designs.

Have you visited your bank and talked about the new tax free savings account? I opened mine on Friday morning. A friend works for a bank and was describing the benefits of the 'account' to me. Because I don't work in the banking industry I don't want to talk too much about it (in case I misspeak) but what I thought the 'account' was and what it actually is are two very different animals. Call your bank and make an appointment!!