Hump Day

This week’s deal is for Rockshelter Sock. Cathy and I knit Free your Fade with 3 skeins - 1 each of 3 different colours. 

The yarn is one of the nicest that I have knit with. Super soft and drapes beautifully. It is called Sock but there is no nylon. If you are making socks with this yarn then you will want to add something to the heels or toes or make them for special occasion socks. 

You can purchase the pattern for Free Your Fade on Andrea Mowry’s website. From Andrea

This shawl was created to be your favorite shawl pattern! Really relaxing garter stitch with engaging eyelet rows and endless color possibilities. It would be gorgeous knit up in one color, but you can just as easily use 20! I’ve extended the color melt sections for an even more cohesive fade, with easy instructions to add as many fade sections as you would like! The shawl is light weight and perfect year round when knit up in fingering weight yarn, but don’t let that stop you from knitting it up in any yarn weight you prefer to the size of your choosing!

Cathy used Sage, Claude Monet and Pisgah National Forest

I used Old Lace, Gifting and Opium Den

Here are a few colour suggestions.

Slate Green, Some Dark Holler, Pisgash National Forest

Old Lace, Gifting, Opium Den - my combination but the middle colour is less rust - I love the new combination

Foliose Lichen, Limpopo River,  Slate Green

Dead Pharaohs, Wild Mushroom, Scrubgrass

My Find Your Fade in Rockshelter Sock. You can purchase the pattern on Andrea’s website. 

From Andrea

Starting at a single point and growing, shifting and fading into a piece that begs to be wrapped up in. is asymmetrical triangle shawl uses some clever increasing and decreasing, combined with relaxing garter stitch and simple lace so that you have a fun-to-knit canvas to play with mixing colors on! is shawl is all about making it your own. Let your creativity shine!!

These sets are for Find Your Fade.

This is the combination that I used to make my shawl.

Shop Sock

Shop Find Your Fade kits

Rockshelter Sock is on sale for $30 a skein from now until Friday November 13th at noon. You can order online for curbside pick up or mail order.

Rockshelter Find Your Fade kits are on sale for $210 from now until Friday November 13th at noon.

All sales final. No returns.

New Homes

Karen sent me pictures last night of her finished shawl that she knit for the Joji KAL.

I am very pleased to let you know that I finished my Odyssey Shawl. It is quite lovely! 

I used Life in the Longgrass DK Twist Harbour, Soulskin and Amethyst.

Karen chose amazing colours!! I keep looking at the yarn on the shelf and now I want to knit with it.

I knit Time Trades (pattern purchased on Ravelry) designed by Caitlin Hunter (boylandknitworks). Lynn and I are knitting her Guthrie right now.

Hurry to her Instagram page - she is having a pattern sale until midnight August 28.

Mr. UPS showed up this morning with four huge boxes. One was from Spincycle Yarns. Meet the new colours of Dyed in the Wool.

Ghost Ranch

Castaway

Cold Comfort

The hooks arrived and Rockshelter from Meadowcroft Dyeworks has been relocated.

This wall was going to be the home for tosh merino (it is in the worsted weight room) but I switched it up and we hung sock yarn from LITLG, Long Dog and Urth.

I borrowed this picture from the Spincycle Instagram feed.

I sent an email the minute I saw this picture and asked if there was any way we could have this colour - Castaway. I might need to put a few skeins away for myself.

From Rachel who knit this beautiful sweater..

I used Castaway to knit one of my all time favorite sweaters, and that’s saying a lot if you’ve seen my sweater stack. It’s the Carlina Pullover by Whitney Hayward! Clearly I’m crazy about this shape

I'm tired (and I am sure Lynn is too) from all our moving around today. The problem is that we started a chain reaction. Now we are moving yarns that were never on our radar to relocate. By the end of the week we should have everything back in order.

Thank You UPS

I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend. I had every intention to write last night but I was so tired that I was in bed by 9:30. I couldn't even watch the Golden Knights play.

Our latest order from Atenti cleared customs late Thursday evening. We should have it in the store tomorrow afternoon - just in time for the Frolic. We will have three new colourways of the Backsac.

I spent some time in the store because I knew that boxes were coming from UPS. I have to give huge props to UPS today. When UPS knows that a business is closed on a certain day they don't try to deliver. I didn't know that. I was sitting in the store patiently waiting and no big brown truck. I finally called the depot in Brantford (you don't get anywhere with the 800 number) and they explained to me that I would be getting my boxes tomorrow. The amazing Holly called the driver and the driver deviated from her route to bring me my boxes. Lots of boxes. Thank you UPS. We could have waited until tomorrow afternoon but now Lynn and I can start on kits in the morning.

One of the boxes was full of Rockshelter Sock.

I used Rockshelter Sock for my second Find Your Fade. I love this yarn. It is slightly thicker than a fingering weight like Hedgehog Sock. Just slightly so you can use it for the same patterns.

Box two was from Spincycle. Now we can make up kits for the Nightshift for the Frolic. There are a few colours of Dyed in the Wool and Dream State that I added to the website. I also put a few Nightshift kits on the website for those who can't make it to the Frolic.

Lynn and I are going to be running tomorrow. We left the store in a bit of mess on Saturday afternoon. We were both tired and decided to leave everything until we opened again. I looked the other way and did paperwork while I was waiting for UPS.

Our house is back in order. Here are a few pictures from our gathering.

We set the room up for TV viewing. Rows of chairs - we had 25 people in the house watching the game.

When the game was finished we pushed the couch against the TV and set up tables. The great thing about an open concept house is that everyone is together when we eat.

Lucy was amazing. This was before everyone arrived. When the noise started she found a quiet corner.

It is a beautiful day and someone came out to play. He's been in the garage all winter and was happy to be in the sun.

My garden is loving the warm weather too.

It's time to get dinner in the oven and then I need to finish my Throwback. I hope to get the second band cast off tonight. Okay, I need to get it picked up first. There was no knitting on Saturday or Sunday. Once the band is finished I need to sew the seams on the sleeves and then start on my ends. I have a feeling that Lynn might be sewing in ends on Friday evening.

Showing Off Finished Projects

Cathy finished Free Your Fade in beautiful spring colours. She used Rockshelter Sock - one of my favourite yarns in Sage, Claude Monet and Pisgah National Forest.

I bought new mannequins for the store this week. We used to have mannequins like this but the legs were broken during many trips to shows. Dad and Beth aren't always kind to my friends.

Now I can get better pictures of our finished garments.

More colours of Rockshelter Sock are on the way and we could see them by the end of next week.

I took my new friend outside for a picture.

Rita and Sara visited this morning. Rita was wearing her Comfort Fade Cardi. Rita loves blacks and greys so we put together a great combination for her in tosh dk.

This afternoon Zorica and her daughter Sonja visited. Sonja had on her The Weekender that Zorica knit for her. It is knit in Woolstok and Sonja loves it so much that her mom is making her another one in grey.

I love seeing your finished projects. Please wear them in and show them off!

Mauvelous

Did you know that our friends at Meadowcroft Dyeworks are a father and son team? Dave (the father) just finished two beautiful shawls.

The pattern is Mauvelous (purchased on Ravelry). Dave used three different colours of Rockshelter Sock.

For the purple version Dave used
Harold's Crayon
Treachery
Laurel Caverns

For this version Dave used
Opium Den
Calming Down
I don't have the exact orange he used but Einstein on the Beach or Roasting Marshmellows would work.

Choose 3 colors of fingering or light fingering weight yarn for the textural shawl of your dreams! Mauvelous is a large, symmetrical triangle shawl with stripes of color and geometric patterns, knit using a combination of garter stitch medallions and two-color brioche zig zags. 

Skill level: Beginner brioche - Intermediate. Basic brioche skills are not required, but are recommended. Techniques used: knit, purl, simple lace knitting increases and decreases, brioche knit (brk), brioche purl (brp), simple brioche increases and decreases (no br4st dec!!), traditional triangle shawl shaping. I wrote this pattern to be very approachable to brioche beginners who want to dive deeper into brioche lace!! 

Construction Notes: This symmetrical triangle shawl is knit from the top down, with increases in the center as well as along the edges. The shawl begins with a simple garter stitch setup using Color A, then Diamond Medallions are created using garter stitch lace. To bring in Color B, a two-color brioche zig zag section begins to really blend your colors well. These are alternated again continuing with Color B, and then bringing in Color C for a bold finish. I wear this shawl with the top edge wrapped warmly around my neck or shoulders, and the bottom point of the triangle facing down.

I received an email from Anke at GarnStories this morning and new colours are on the way including

Bloomsbury Circle

Echo

Gloaming

Momento

Soul Sister

Woodstock

Alex just finished the Sturgill Cowl (pattern purchased on Ravelry). She was a bit late getting to work because she was casting off.

There is a sweater (Sturgill Sweater) to go with the cowl. She knit the cowl first as her tension swatch and to make sure that she liked the colours. The main colour is tosh dk and the contrast colours are Hedgehog Merino DK. The colours look great and she is casting on the sweater tonight.

Sturgill is a top-down yoke sweater knit seamlessly in the round with an optional matching cowl for a removable turtleneck. I personally love turtlenecks, but find them too warm most of the time, so rarely wear them although I love the way they look. This design solves that “problem” by featuring a removeable matching cowl that can be worn as needed, or left off entirely. 

The cowl pattern is available in a separate PDF - you can get the pattern free with the purchase of the sweater (no code needed), or you may purchase the cowl separately if sweaters just aren’t your thing! ;) 

This design features short row shaping at the back neck, stranded colorwork and bobbles. Please note that there are several rounds that require 3 colors of yarn to be worked at once. I try to limit the number of these rounds, so just know that there won’t be too many of them and the 3 color effect will be worth those challenging rounds! I love adding little challenges into my patterns while still keeping the design approachable for adventurous beginners.

Survivor is starting and Beth is yelling so it's time to knit.