Boy am I dumb

I might scream. I did it again. The post was started in the store and finished at home. I came to work and reset the post. Oh my goodness. As my mom would say "Boy am I dumb!" The day started out so well. I went to the license bureau and there was no one there. No one. I thought I'd be there for an hour and it was five minutes. I came to work early to get mail orders packed. I found yarn that I couldn't find yesterday. It was going so well. I'm going to try and rewrite my post and then sit down and have a tea. Maybe I can get the day back on track.

Happy Thanksgiving to our friends south of the border. I'm celebrating with you - a turkey sandwich for lunch. The TV is on and I'm watching football and knitting.

I cast on some easy knitting last night. The Ombre Cowl Hood in double strand Kidsilk Haze Stripe. I'm using colour 361. And it's a good thing I had something mindless last night. Survivor was great. The blindsides happening at tribal council this season are awesome. Some seasons the tribal councils are so boring and you know who is going to be voted out. This time you are on the edge of your seat.

New Samples

Diana stopped by last night with a new shawl for the store.

Pattern: Rosa Rosae (purchased on Ravelry)
Yarn: SweetGeorgia Party of Five Tough Love Sock kit

Rosa Rosae is a crescent shawlette worked from the neck down in fingering weight yarn. It can be knit in a variety of sizes making it truly adaptable.

My Ombre Cowl Hood is blocked, dried and ready for the cold weather.

There will be a new book coming next week from Rowan for Big Wool.

Big wool is a very popular yarn with designers and knitters alike. Made from soft 100% wool, Big Wool is easy to knit and produces designs with amazing cabling and stitch structure effects.

More quick to knit projects. The designs are knit on 9mm and 10mm needles.

 

The yard is finished and the temporary fence is up. The dogs are going to have fun running on the new grass tonight.

Golfing in winter?

This was sitting at the back door when I got home tonight. Who needs a putter in the middle of winter?

I'm not sure what happened to yesterday's post. I started it on my laptop and then finished at home on the computer. I didn't close it on my laptop (my bad) and hit something this morning. I think it changed the post from my finished version to the started version. If you saw this picture yesterday, sorry. It's not on yesterday's post now so I'm showing it today.

Lynn has joined the final colour into her Ombre Cowl Hood. I love her colours and can't wait to see it finished. Now I want to do another one. I'm thinking double strand of Kidsilk Haze Stripe.

The guys were at our house very early this morning to start on the yard. They started with an outline of the putting green.

The grass on the putting green is shorter than the regular grass. Just like on the golf course.

You can see how fuzzy the main yard is.

The back yard is being mowed. They take a special machine over it which takes out the fuzziness and makes the grass look like grass. Beth was too busy this afternoon putting to get a picture of it finished. I'll try and remember to get one in the morning.

I'm going to do a few rows on The Doodler before another early night. They are coming at 7:30 tomorrow morning to put up our temporary fence. Then Beth and the dogs can move back home.

Beth and I watched Sunday night's Homeland last night and you shouldn't knit while watching that show. You need to pay attention. After she got back to my parents I sent her a text saying that I messed up my knitting and had to rip out 4 rows. This was her response.

I need to get the cabled section finished and move on quickly or it might go in a bag in the corner because I am sick of ripping out. I'm just joking. Kind of.

Cast off!

My Ombre Cowl Hood was cast off yesterday and I soaked it in Soak last night. Now it's lying out in the sewing room to dry.

What is it: Soak is modern laundry care. Clean up with Soak’s eco-friendly formulation. Developed to be as easy on the environment as it is on your clothes, it’s the no-rinse clean you trust and love.

Soak is perfect for your laciest lingerie, softest sweaters, baby clothes, quilts, swimwear, workout wear and all the laundry you love. love it. wear it. soak it.

How it works: Just Soak and squeeze. No need to rinse. Lay knits flat to dry. Wash sets (like lingerie) together. Test fabric for color-fastness.

made with plant derived and renewable ingredients
biodegradable, phosphate-free, dye-free, sulphate-free
safe for hand or machine washing (including HE)

Fig: Fresh-picked clean. Fig is ripened with sweet fig and lychee and crowned by dandelions.

The artificial grass is supposed to be put down in our backyard tomorrow. Originally it was Friday, then today. It couldn't be put down because they were missing a very important part. We are going to have a mini putting green in one corner. There are going to be two holes but the cups were out of stock.

Gift-A-Long

Do you know about the Indie Gift-A-Long on Ravelry?

What is Gift-A-Long? It’s a multi-designer promotion to help you kick your holiday gift-making into high gear!
The Indie Design Gift-A-Long is a 6 week long KAL/CAL of holiday gifts made from patterns designed by a rather extensive list of independent designers. From Thursday, November 19th at 8:00 pm US EST - Friday, November 27, 2015 at 11:59 pm US EST tons of indie designers will be discounting between 5 - 20 of their patterns 25% for this event. Use coupon code: giftalong2015. You can read all about the details in this post: link coming soon
Once you’ve got your Gift-A-Long patterns, we encourage you to join a relevant KAL/CAL! (For instance, if it is a cowl, please join the cowl KAL/CAL.) To join, simply write a post in the KAL/CAL thread you want to join, including the pattern name you will be knitting and a link to your project page. KAL/CAL participants are eligible for lots of lovely prizes but you gotta post to win!
KAL/CALs will run from Thursday, November 19th at 8pm (US-EST) through our New Years Eve party, Thursday, December 31 at midnight (US-EST), plenty of time to knock out all your holiday knitting and crocheting. We have games, tons of prizes, great conversation, and a lot of fun, so pull up a chair and join us!

Jump over to Ravelry to read more...

To make life a bit easier - here is the list of the designers...

We had a cute little girl in the store yesterday wearing the Baa-Ble Hat (pattern free on Ravelry). She didn't want her picture taken so I snapped this when she wasn't paying attention.

Her mom knit the hat in Cascade 220.

I'm into the last colour of the Ombre Cowl Hood.

I worked on it last night but set it aside this morning and worked on my Doodler. I figured it was better to work on the cables when I was wide awake since I've been making mistakes.

Now I'm on a mission. I want to start the third clue and see how my next colour looks.

Architexture

Cathy dropped by yesterday afternoon with a new shawl. It is amazing!

Pattern: Architexture (purchased on Ravelry)
Yarn: 2 skeins of Mrs. Crosby Train Case

Architexture is a rectangular scarf with pointed ends. Fully reversible, it is a collection of textures that enhance one another ~ made all the more striking because they are knitted on the bias. The frequent changes in stitch pattern keep the project engaging from beginning to end.

Although the pattern calls for fingering-weight yarn, sport and dk-weight yarns would work beautifully too. So choose a lovely solid or semi-solid yarn that will show off the variety of textures, and enjoy yourself as this elegant scarf takes shape in your hands.

I should have gone outside yesterday to take pictures when we had a bit of sun. It was snowing this morning so I was rushing.

I made it to the next colour on my Ombre Hood Cowl. It is really addictive because you want to get to the next colour. I hope to finish the cowl tonight or tomorrow morning so I can get back to my Doodler. I'm on the second clue and for some reason I've made two mistakes which means taking out rows. The clue isn't hard and I'm not paying attention to what I'm doing. I'll be smarter when I get back to it.

Fantastic Knitting Bags

We have another new sample in the store.

Pattern: Guernsey Wrap by Jared Flood (purchased on Ravelry)
Yarn: Rowan Hemp Tweed

My shawl was knit in 9 balls. I wanted it to be longer so we added in more pattern rows. If you knit to the pattern length then you will need 7 balls. 

A blend of 75% wool and 25% hemp, resulting in a modern tweed effect, soft to the touch yarn which is a joy to knit. Wool and hemp create 'breathable' knitted fabrics which are cool to wear in warm weather and warm in colder temperatures. Hemp fibre is resistant to stretching so does not distort with use and naturally softens with wear - hemp does not wear out it wears in!

 

We have these great, colourful, inexpensive knitting bags in the store. They look like laminated paper and are super, super strong. I've been carrying one to work with my laptop, knitting and wallet in it. It is standing up great. Lynn carries one with her knitting and loves the bag.

A large knitting tote with an outside clear pocket- perfect for storing your pattern in! Includes an inside pocket and has a zipper closure. Measures: 36 x 13 x 36cm. $27.

An extra large knitting bag for those ambitious knitting projects! With pockets both inside and out, there is plenty of room to tuck away snacks, notions, your wallet and phone. Zipper closure with handles. Measures: 52 x 23 x 33cm. $35.

This bag is big enough to hold an afghan or sweater quantity of yarn.

A medium sized knitting bag with a clear outside pocket. Includes inside pocket and zipper closure. Measures: 35 x 12 x 28cm

Don't wait too long though. The supplier has limited stock. Once a bag is sold out I don't know if we can get more stock.

Just before I was about to hit Publish we received a shipment of more bags. There is a brand new colour in the large bag.

I'd like to say that it was knitting time but we received lots of Cascade 220 today and then a huge box came from Rowan. It is filled with Felted Tweed and Hemp Tweed. We've got our work cut out for us if the store is going to be in order before we go home.

Ombre Cowl Hood

Lynn and I have a small competition going. Who can knit their Ombre Cowl Hood quicker? (Of course you knew that I would cast on and make one. Rowan Kidsilk Haze worked double strand - I'm always in for that). We had fun picking out colours. Actually it wasn't that easy because Rowan's Kidsilk Haze has so many beautiful colours.

I started with 641 Blackcurrent and now I'm working with 589 Magestic. 671 Peacock will be my last colour. The pictures above are the colour swatches that I took from Rowan's website. The picture below was taken on my dining room table. These are truer colours. There is a small lesson here - the colours online aren't always exactly as they look in real life. We try our best. If you want to order from the store, I am always willing to take a real picture for you and email it to show you how the colour looks.

Now I'm off to knit more. Lynn is upset with me. She was doing errands for her dad today and didn't get to knit. Not my problem :)

Simple Rules

Today is all about the simple. Mr. Canada Post brought in a box from Lynda with three cowls. I can only show two right now. The third is set aside until our next order arrives from Dream in Color.

I started my day at the dentist and called the store when I was finished. Lynn was so excited. She had opened the box from Lynda and freaked over this cowl.

Pattern: Ombre Cowl Hood (the pattern is free on Ravelry)
Yarn: 3 balls of Rowan Kidsilk Haze (we used 605, 642 and 600)
Needles: 5mm, 60cm circular

This is a very simple stockinette-in-the-round pattern. Yarn is held double throughout, and colors are alternated to create ombre stripes.

We're making up kits in the store and now I want to knit one.

Lynda also knit the Coors Cowl.

Pattern: Coors Cowl (free from Classic Elite)
Yarn: 5 skeins of Chateau (70% baby alpaca + 30% bamboo = supersoft and super light)
Needles: 8mm, 80cm

This cowl is simple to knit. Cast on and work in seed stitch (knit 1, purl 1). You work until the first colour is finished and then join in the next. No counting. You don't even worry about the beginning of your row. Just change colours when your yarn runs out.

My easy cowl is finished - Lynn cast it off this morning.
Pattern: The Simple Rules Cowl (pattern free on Ravelry)
Yarn: one skein King Cole Bamboozle 
Needles: 6mm, 40cm circular

What an easy knit and it looks great. As Lynn was casting off I remembered that we have some Bamboo Bloom Handpaints in the store - it's the same yarn. Now there are more colours for the cowl.

At $15.95 a skein, I don't think that the yarn will last very long. 

It's a Noro Day

Look what arrived today. New books from Noro.

The designs are knit in Kureyon, Silk Garden and Silk Garden Solo.

 

 

These designs are knit in Shinryoku.

70% wool
30% silk

We also received a new yarn.

Rainbow Roll from Noro is 100% wool roving dyed in beautiful, self-striping colorways! This roving is great for felting, spinning, and weaving and can also be used as is for knitting and crocheting!

 

We hooked another one - Lynn is finishing her Log Cabin Afghan. She has to join the strips and then work around the whole afghan in black. It was a beautiful day to go outside for pictures. Can it stay like this until January?

The afghan is knit in Noro Kureyon and the pattern is free.