Festival KAL

This is the Lamina Wrap from Ambah O’Brien. She has reknit the wrap and added it to her Festival KAL. 

Join us in December 2021 for the 5th year of Ambah’s Festive KAL (formerly known as AMBAH X ADVENT KAL), full details here. Choose any of Ambah’s current 12 yarn Advent/Festive kit inspired designs and the 5 (or so) new designs coming in 2021, and join us over in the Ambah’s Festive KAL 2021 for festivities, fine company, lovely prizes and and general joy. 

Let Lamina be a strata formation of all your oddment end balls in your stash, revealing the past in the form of projects knit and loved. Also perfect for mini skeins, holiday sets and unicorn tails. Alternately Lamina can also be worked in a single colour, gradient or full skeins of your favourite colour and contrast – so many possibilities. Enjoy the updated version of the Lamina Wrap pattern with inclusion of the new Lamina Cowl option; choose between a short or long cowl and have fun creating with colour. 

Lamina includes both written and charted instructions for the lace. 

Original Wrap version also available in French and Italian.

You can purchase the pattern on Ravelry or on Ambah’s website.

Photos © Ambah O’Brien

Fingering weight 

Lamina Wrap alternates between Garter sections and Lace panels.  

You may choose to use a different colour each time the pattern alternates, use a single colour for the whole project, or work with a MC and CC. For simplicity, the pattern will indicate MC for the garter band and CC for the lace panels.

 

What a great way to use up all your leftovers. If you have knitting friends you could swap leftovers to add more colours to your shawl. You could also split mini skein kits.

Boscoe has loved sitting on the stairs since he was a puppy. Beth kept saying that he would get too big but he still does it. Jackson on the other hand won’t be able to do it for much longer.

They sit on the stairs or at the door around dinner time every night waiting for dad and Lucy. The dogs are going to be excited on Monday night. Dad and Lucy are driving home from Myrtle Beach tomorrow.

Welcome September

Joji released a new pattern today - Some Me Time. 

Photos © Joji Locatelli

From Joji

This is the type of project that brings me the greatest pleasure: soothing, repetitive and meditative. It’s what I most love to knit during my ‘me’ time. 
Designs like these truly let me enjoy and make the most of this craft’s soul healing properties. They feel like a scented candle, or a warm cup of freshly brewed coffee. 
Relax, let go of all the worries. 

I love to have a project that I can look at and know exactly at which point I left it, without having to check what’s next. Simple repetitions that produce a beautiful complex fabric with minimal effort.  

I love a project that can grow organically, without me making lots of plans before-hand. 
I often start these projects saying ‘This one is just for me. I don’t need to write this pattern, it’s just for my own enjoyment’, but here you are, reading about it.  

I create patterns for self-love, so this one too had to go out to the world and be shared, but don’t worry, the pattern writing process was just as enjoyable as the knitting. This really is a simple design to make the most of our self-loving time, both for you, the knitter and for me, the designer.

You can knit the shawl in sport weight or DK weight yarn so you have many, many options.

You can purchase the pattern on Ravelry or on Joji’s website.

I think that MadTosh Wool + Cotton would be beautiful for this shawl.

When we arrived at the store this morning we found a big box from Mr. Canada Post. New Opal sock yarn. It’s hard to believe that Opal is celebrating their 25th anniversary.

All the colours are available on the website.

I’m into the second ball of both colours. The scarf is a fun knit. You have to pay attention because the rows are all different.

Beth left Jackson with us while she ran some errands. Lynn did absolutely no work - she just played.

He found a water bottle when he got home. I let him have it for pictures and then took it away. He is full of energy tonight.

Beth got out the wrestling mat. They lay on it and make funny noises and beat up on each other. It really tires Jackson out.

I forgot how much energy puppies have. 

Swimming

Jackson went swimming yesterday. He is getting ready for the cottage - we are going up north in September. The cottage is booked for a week - I’m going for a few days.

Jade is growing. I am almost finished the first ball of rust. I have decided that I am not going to try and line up the colours. My ball is going to end with rust so if I want to keep the colour sequence I need to start the next ball with the dark wine/purple. That means winding off parts of balls and I don’t want to waste yarn. I will try and find a ball that will roughly continue the sequence but that’s as far as I’m willing to go. 

Here are the 8 colours of Felted Tweed Colour. Lynda and Diana are going to be knitting projects in it so we will have more store samples later this fall.

The Blue Earth Cowl from Blue Sky Fibers is knit with 4 skeins of American Scenic. We found this yarn when we were cleaning and it is beautiful. You can download the pattern for free on Ravelry.

The Long Island Cowl is knit with 2 skeins. The pattern is free on Ravelry.

A wonderful blend of alpaca, merino and silk, this limited edition Made in the U.S.A. yarn is a delight to knit. Offered in four heathered color options, this cowl is comfy and soft.

The yarn has been added to our Clearance section.

A few more rows then bed. Who am I kidding? A few rows means an hour.

Meet Jackson Brown

Vacation Butterfly is the newest pattern from Marin Melchior. 

Photos © Marin Melchior

You can purchase the pattern on Ravelry.

This is a variation of the popular Butterfly-Papillon Shawl. It is similar but has some changes to help with a few things in the pattern that could be tweaked for this version. These include but are not limited to a 3 sts garter border, a different ending section of short rows, & a different bottom edge. I named it Vacation Butterfly. You have a few places at the start to pay attention (Packing), but then LOTS of middle that is garter with repetitious increases on the right side and nothing on the wrong side (Travel). Then, the end has most of the effort and pop, with short rows and a special finish (Returning Home, aka BACK TO WORK … goodness, I cannot believe I came BACK home!).

I made up kits yesterday afternoon. Marin used yarn from Urth Yarns - Uneek Fingering and Monokram and that’s what I used for the kits.

Meet Jackson Brown. Beth’s flight was a bit late leaving but she was comfortable. I gave her the flight for her birthday. She flew business class with a lie down bed. Thank you Aeroplan. (Now Beth, mom and dad have all flown with a lie down bed - I haven’t.) She landed, got her car and drove to meet Jackson.

There is a couple from Toronto picking up their puppy this week as well - he is the little black guy. They drove from the airport with Beth because they couldn’t get a rental car. Thankfully Beth rented hers the minute she knew she was flying out.

Beth is back at her hotel and will pick up Jackson in the morning. Boscoe misses his mom but I have a feeling he isn’t going to be happy with his mom tomorrow night when she gets home with a puppy.