Saturday, December 30, 2023

Westknits Sale

Stephen West sent out a newsletter today and here are the highlights.

He will be doing another year of socks. There is early bird pricing until January 1st.
As we approach the new year, don't miss out on the last chance to enjoy a 23% discount on my 2023 patterns and workshops! Until the end of Monday, January 1st, use code 'WESTKNITS23' when you checkout on my website or Ravelry to save on my 2023 designs!

Here is a link to all Stephen’s workshops. 

Stephen released many great patterns in 2023. See them all on Ravelry.

I’m almost done my Traveler Shawl.

Will I knit this again? Definitely. I have two different colours in the car.


One of the colours that I might be using for my next shawl is Bomboloni. It arrived yesterday but I haven’t had time to get it online. That will be Tuesday’s job. 

Happy New Year. Thank you to everyone for your support during 2023. This week has been crazy in a good way. Lots of returning customers and many new faces. I’m taking the next few days to relax and knit. I might not sit down and write again until Tuesday. 

Friday, December 29, 2023

A fun KAL

Are you looking for a project to start in the new year? The Pelargonium Advent KAL is a fun knit. I’ve started the shawl and will finish it for the KAL. The pattern is free on Hedgehog’s website.

Join us in knitting Pelargonium (pattern is free, available on hedgehogfibres.com or #ravelry) using your 2023 HHF Advent Calendars or your stash!

Beginning Jan 2 and ending March 1st, with prizes for participants.

You can use anything from your stash but to be eligible for prizes, knitters must use Hedgehog Fibres yarn.

KAL is open to Instagram (Tag #pelargoniumscarf) and Ravelry knitters - join our Ravelry group, link in profile for the chats and friendly help ☺️

Use the hashtag #pelargoniumscarf to follow each other’s progress and make new friends! You can even follow the hashtag so you don’t miss any posts.

Yarn requirements; 400g of Hedgehog Fibres Sock Yarn Minis (90% Merino wool, 10% nylon, 20g/80m) in a variety of colours or scraps, the pattern uses colours from @hedgehogfibres 2023 Advent Calendar. Yarn held double throughout the project.

No sign up needed, join anytime during the KAL period.

If you aren’t worried about prizes this shawl is an amazing stash busting project. Or maybe you have a good amount of Hedgehog in your stash. You can change colours whenever you want or whenever you run out of yarn. The shawl can be knit with five or six colours or thirty colours. Have fun stash diving!!

Andrea Mowry’s Winters Beach Cardi (pattern purchased on Ravelry) is knit with Hedgehog Tweedy.

When it comes to tweed yarn, I immediately begin dreaming of cables. I wanted to create a cozy cardigan with a no-fuss style. Winters Beach is worn open and is the perfect layering sweater - complete with pockets, of course. This sweater is knit from bottom up to the shoulders, then sleeves are picked up around the armholes and knit down. Pockets are placed while knitting the body of the sweater and finished at the end.

Photo © Andrea Mowry
Hedgehog Tweed is one of the yarns marked down for our Boxing Week sale. It is 10% off. If your cart is over $100 you will receive another 10% off OR if your cart is over $250 you will receive an additional 15% off.

I’m going to work on my Traveler Shawl tonight. It’s so close to being finished. Tomorrow night I will get back to my Advent Shawl - I’m on colour 22.

Thursday, December 28, 2023

Game Changer

This is Beth’s favourite hat. It’s called the Squish Me Cap (pattern purchased on Ravelry). Beth is going to reknit it with Malabrigo Washted.

She started last night and knit while watching a movie. I was sleeping and she didn’t wake me to fix stitches so that’s a good thing. 😀 This morning she told me that it is going to be too small and she needs to knit on one size bigger needle. She’s ripped it out and is starting again.

I received an SOS call. Somehow the ball ended up a mess after she ripped out. She was going to try and get the mess sorted but it defeated her. Dad brought Lynn and I lunch and then he took a new skein of Washted to Beth. I would get mad at her but she worked Tuesday and yesterday packing boxes for me so I’ll give her another skein of yarn.

We’ve been packing boxes - thank you to everyone who has ordered. This was yesterday afternoons pick up. Mr. UPS came twice because we had so many.

This was part of today’s pick up. We love packing boxes so please keep ordering 😜.

A few customers have taken advantage of our Boxing Week sale by purchasing Dream State to knit Andrea Mowry’s Traveler Shawl (Pattern purchased on Ravelry). You will need 7 skeins and with the discounts you will save over $60 this week.

Here is mine in Dyed in the Wool. Dream State will make the shawl a bit heavier and squishier and a bit bigger. Lynn and I restocked the Dream State wall and there are so many colours that I want to knit with. I totally forgot to take a picture of the wall. 

Just before I hit Publish I checked Ravelry to see if there were any new patterns. While looking I saw mention of another game changing technique. 
Oh My Gosh!!!! No more underarm holes. I wish I had seen this before I knit the sleeves on my Alpine Bloom. 

No one in my house wants to cook so it’s Swiss Chalet and then an evening of knitting.

Tuesday, December 26, 2023

Lots of Boxes

It was a busy day. Dad and Fred came for breakfast - toasted tomato and Gouda cheese sandwiches. Then we took my green mustang to dad’s so it can live in his garage for the winter. The dogs stayed with dad and Beth came with me to the store to start packing.

This is just part of the pile of boxes going out tomorrow. Lynn and I will work on more boxes tomorrow before we open. 

Beth was looking at the blog last night and commented that I forgot to share some pictures. These are the Christmas cookies that dad and Beth made for their office cookie exchange. They tasted really good! 

When we start getting dinner ready Fred moves to my chair and sits like this until he gets his dinner. 

Now it’s time for a bit of knitting then bed. I’m tired and we have a few busy days ahead of us. 

Monday, December 25, 2023

Merry Christmas

I hope you and your family had a great Christmas Day. It was very relaxing at my house. We didn’t host which meant lots of knitting time (while watching football) yesterday and today.
I have no clue why my mannequin is on an angle - I haven’t been drinking. I made it to day 19. The shawl didn’t get finished today but I’ll make it for New Years.

There were times that I questioned the colours but as I near the end I love how the colours are playing out.


Don’t forget about our Boxing Week Sale. I think I’ll be in the store tomorrow afternoon packing orders.

Now back to my shawl. I should make it to day 20 and I could get to 21 tonight.


Saturday, December 23, 2023

The night before Christmas Eve

Yesterday afternoon Mr. UPS brought a box from Madelinetosh with new colours of Woolcycle Sport.

They are hanging nicely in the store but they aren’t on the website yet. That will be a job for next week. I’ll have fun making new kits for the Alpine Bloom hat. There are newish colours of Dyed in the Wool that I haven’t used yet.



I know that I need get back to my Advent shawls but I can’t stop knitting this. It is very mindless and I love seeing the colours change. Tomorrow I’m going back to my Emma’s kit.
I want to remind you about our Boxing Week sale.

From Monday December 25th at 8pm EST until Sunday December 31st at 4pm EST all orders will be eligible for the following promotions


Purchase over $100 and receive 10% off the entire cart


OR


Purchase over $250 and receive 15% off the entire cart


Purchase amount is before shipping and taxes. The discount is valid for sale and regular priced items and is applied automatically at checkout. This promotion is for online shopping and in the store!


You will collect points during Boxing Week but please don’t use your points. Points and the discount can not be combined - it is one or the other. Save your points for a future purchase and take advantage of the discount.


————————————-


Here is a link to the website. There will be discounts on these products that goes live Monday at 8pm EST. You could get an additional 10% or 15% off the discounted prices depending on how much you spend.

Friday, December 22, 2023

We have a winner

I finished the first half of the shawl and picked up the second part this afternoon. At the end of the first half there were 295 stitches on my needle. For this part I started with 104 stitches and am decreasing. The rows are going very fast.

I quickly took pictures because Beth is waiting to watch Reacher. If I don’t hurry she’s going to start without me.
Boscoe was very interested in the shawl - he loves Spincycle.

I will not win any awards for my art. I used Andrea’s schematic diagram to show some different ideas for using colours.




I was about to hit Publish when I looked at my art again. I had the stripes wrong on the first 4 shawls. This shawl diagram has the stripes going in the proper direction. Please use your imagination for the first 4.

Jackson had a long day at work.

My post was done when I realized that I forgot to include the winner of the Rowan Felted Tweed.
The random number generator picked comment 63. Congratulations to Adrienne H from Ancaster.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to enter. We’ll have another draw sometime in January. 

Thursday, December 21, 2023

Washted

We received more colours of Malabrigo Washted.

English Rose
Arco Baleno
Candombe
Arapey

A superwash version of the classic Worsted Merino base. While remaining true to the original softness of worsted, we ‘washed it’ so you can too, allowing more freedom and ease of care. Having the same weight as Worsted, it can be used interchangeably for any projects you may have planned for Worsted. Like all our yarns, it is kettle-dyed in small batches by our artisan dyers and is full of subtle variation and beauty. 

Diana is going to knit the Traveler Shawl in Arco Iris. The skeins are slightly different but that adds to the beauty of Malabrigo Yarns. I could spend all day unwinding every skein we have and I will never find 5 that match so I grabbed 5 skeins from the shelf and that’s what we’re going with.

When we dye our yarns, the same formula is used each time but every batch of yarn may vary. The differences from one dye lot to another can be very subtle, or extremely noticeable, specially on variegated yarns 
Diana will be knitting the shawl on 4.5mm needles and it will work out to be the larger size.

Photos © Andrea Mowry
I’m casting off the first half of my shawl - the left side of the shawl that Andrea is holding. Then I need to pick up stitches and knit the second half. 

I highly recommend the pattern. It’s a fun knit. Take a look at some of the shawls on Ravelry. You can knit each half in different colours or stripe yarns that you have in your stash. You can knit the shawl in a solid colour. Get creative and have fun.

Now back to the cast off.

Wednesday, December 20, 2023

Back to Work

I enjoyed working on my shawl. I just started the 3rd skein and have three more pattern repeats to go.
My quick getaway is over and I’m back to work. I flew home on the red eye and went straight to the store to pack orders. Everyone’s boxes went out by UPS. Thanks to Lynn for helping me today. She put away the knitting needles and Malabrigo yarns that arrived today. I’ll update the website tomorrow. I’m way too tired to work tonight.

Meet Bomboloni - the newest colour of Dyed in the Wool coming next week.




It’s Survivor finale night. I should get a few more rows knit if I can keep my eyes open.