It's Here

I came to work early thinking that I was going to knit. Wrong. Mr. Canada Post followed me up the driveway with three boxes.

The missing Hedgehog has arrived. YAY!!! The new colours of Sock look great. This is our newest Potluck - 1640.

Beach Bunny, Gossip and Sorbet.

Hawk and Deep End Kidsilk Lace.

Spincycle arrived. A restock of Dyed in the Wool and the new Dream State. It is beautiful. Lynn ripped the box from hands to look at it. She is dying (HA HA) to knit with the Dream State.

We've been putting together colour combinations for Dream State and Woolstok. I'm going to send yarn to Lynda today so that she can start a sweater for the Knitters' Fair.

Lynn is going to knit Humulus (picture on the left). She's still playing with colours. Lynda is going to knit Tensho as our store sample (picture on the right). We're going to use Midnight Sea (dark navy/almost black) as our back ground and Mississippi Marsala as the contrast.

Here are some combinations that we put together for Lynn.

Sarah's Comfort Fade Cardi is growing. She's onto the sleeves. The colour is fabulous.

We already have so many pictures today that I'm saving my newest project until tomorrow. Andrea stopped in this afternoon and brought a finished shawl. It's beautiful and will be the star of tomorrow's post. We just finished Big Brother and now we're watching The Great British Baking Show. More knitting time :)

Elvis is back

I started thinking about my mini skeins last night in bed and all of a sudden a light bulb went off. Why not use tosh unicorn tails?

I'm really happy with this combination.

Dad came this morning and we have shelves. All the pretty Hedgehog skeins live together now.

Mr. and Ms. UPS visited this afternoon to deliver a large box from Meadowcroft Dyeworks. The new colours in Rockshelter Sock are amazing.

Blacklight Elvis is back.

Diana used Rockshelter Sock for her Fading Point. All the colours are back in stock.

It finally happened. I picked up the second sleeve. Lynn was snapping pictures and I hope you can see what I was doing. (Take the needle from the purl side to the knit side, pick up the yarn and take it back to the purl side). The Comfort Fade Cardi is knit in Reverse Stocking Stitch. The sleeves are knit on circular needles. If you want the purl side out you need to purl every row. Oh my goodness. That would be so slow. The designer, Andrea Mowry, suggests knitting the sleeves inside out so that you are knitting every row. That's good but you need to make sure that you pick up the stitches back to front to insure that the seam is on the inside of your sleeve.

I have so many more pictures to show but I'm saving them for tomorrow. Sarah finished the body on her Comfort Fade Cardi. I cast on Time Trades. Thank you Lynn for winding my unicorn tails this afternoon. I made up kits using Rockshelter. Now it's bed time. A customer asked today if I was okay. She said 'you look exhausted'. I guess I need a good night's sleep.

Travel Project

Saturday afternoon I am flying to Myrtle Beach for a few days. I need to run a few errands there. That sentence sounds funny. I need to meet with our phone/TV/Internet/security company. It's time to upgrade a few things and I have to be there in person to do it. I need to do some banking as well.

What knitting do I take?

My Comfort Fade Cardi (I'm doing the second sleeve tomorrow) is too big to take.

Fading Point is too large for knitting on the plane. I'm almost finished the second half and will be joining. That means taking two pieces of knitting and four balls of yarn.

I've been looking at Time Trades for a long time.

It is knit with 2 full skeins of fingering weight and a mini skein kit. I'm going to use two colours of Life in the Long Grass. Pressed Flowers and Barefoot. I'm adding a Fino Mini Skein kit in the colour Beatrix.

Today was filled with errands including meeting my dad at the store. We are making some storage shelves in the book area. Everything has been measured and we're finishing in the morning. That means early to the store. Which means heading to bed now.

I've been tracking a lot of boxes today. The box from Meadowcroft Dyeworks is arriving tomorrow. Lots of Rockshelter Sock.

The first box from Hedgehog Fibres is still caught in Canada Customs. The next two boxes have left Heathrow and will be arriving in Canada tomorrow. Fingers crossed they make it through Customs quickly.

Knit kits were released from Customs and we'll see them this week. We have purple and teal arriving.

And the last box for this week. Long Dog should be coming on Friday.

Now I really need to get to sleep.

Fading

Lynn's Comfort Fade Cardi is coming along and it is beautiful.

She is at the cottage for a few days and will be starting the sleeves.

I've been working on Fading Point today. I made it to the lace section of colour 4. After looking at colour 4 and 5 I decided that I was going to keep going with them. No ripping out.

A little happiness from Rowan. The new colours of Felted Tweed. We should have them ready to sell on August 1.

My chore for tomorrow is to work on Knitting Camp.

We added a new class this year. Dying Sock Blanks. 

In a nutshell, a sock blank is a knitted rectangle designed to be unraveled and then knit into socks, scarves, shawls, mittens, or anything you would knit with fingering weight yarn.

They look a little bit like an unfinished scarf with live, loose stitches at each end.  Sock blanks are machine knitted with undyed yarns and then dyed. 

Take a look at this blog post from Felicia at SweetGeorgia Yarns for ideas of what you can make with sock blanks.

We still have room in all the workshops but don't wait too long. There is a limit on the number of people we can have in the dye workshops.

Finished Projects

Linda finished her Fading Point. Oh my goodness. I want!!! Do you know the IKEA commercial where the wife is yelling 'Start the car!'? I wanted to yell that and take off with the shawl.

Her colours are
Uschitita Days Like This - we are out of this colour but Primrose Adelaide Thrash looks good with the other colours
Skinny Singles Dove
Uschitita Vanilla Sky
Skinny Singles Monarch
Fuse 2020 (one of our one of a kind colours)

I had my post almost finished (it's only 11:30 but I've been here since 8:30) and Linda came in. Change of plans. I'm saving today's post for tomorrow.

Then Cathy sent an email from the cottage.

She finished a 3 Color Cashmere Cowl. The yarn is a Party of Five kit from SweetGeorgia. This colourway isn't available yet. It's new for fall and I was able to get a kit at TNNA. We should have the new colours at the end of August.

Here is my second cottage finish. I used the Sweet Georgia kit you gave me. I adjusted some of the pattern sections to accommodate the amount of yarn in each colour but the number of rows are pretty close to the original pattern. 

I have a feeling that Cathy isn't going to get to wear this. Sarah might pack it in her suitcase and take it home. And if Sarah doesn't take it I will.

My post was finished and scheduled when Kathy came in with an amazing shawl.

This is Find Your Fade knit with a special kit from Meadowcroft Dyeworks. The yarn is called Silk Traveler. It is 70% superwash merino and 30% silk. I ordered the kit because I loved the colours. When I blogged about it Kathy came in and grabbed it. I'm glad she did. It would still be in a bag at my house and the yarn is so beautiful it needs to be shown off.

I thought I was finished and Jean came in with her Rainbows in the Gorge. She was unsure about her finishing. She did an amazing job. The back is grafted. From top to bottom and it is perfect!

This is a Cheshire Cat So Fond of Rainbows Kit. The colour Jean used is Spectrum of Moonlight.

Thanks Linda, Cathy, Kathy and Jean for sharing. You made today's post easy. And really pretty!

I thought about saving some pictures for tomorrow but I couldn't wait to show of these beautiful projects.

Dad and Lucy came for a visit. I'm not sure that this looks comfortable but Lucy was happy.

Golf is on the TV in the store. I was texting Beth about it while writing my post and this is what I got back.

I hope the puppy is a little less stubborn than Lucy.

Chunky Knits

Rowan Chunky Knits is another new pattern book coming for fall. This one uses Brushed Fleece and Big Wool. These are great designs knit on big needles.

There are so many amazing patterns coming from Rowan for fall. Choosing is going to be hard.

This sweater looks so cozy. I think I'm going to need it.

The good news first. Our next shipment from Hedgehog Fibres is on the way. All new colours in Sock and Skinny Singles are in the shipment. Canada Customs is still holding one box from our last shipment. Maybe next week. It'll be interesting to see what arrives first.

The bad news is that our order from Meadowcroft Dyeworks (Rockshelter Sock) won't be here until Tuesday. It was mis-sorted and went to Minnesota. I placed many phone calls trying to get them to rush it to us since it was their mistake. No luck. It was shipped Standard Ground so they were going to continue shipping it that way. I could pay more to speed it up. Yup, their mistake which they've admitted. Anyway, it's given us time to rearrange a lot of other yarns and we'll get the box on Tuesday.

In anticipation of the box arriving we moved Rockshelter Sock back into the fingering weight room.

The fingering weight room is looking great. There is so much more room to walk around. It's almost scary. I might need to order more yarn :) The same can't be said for a few other rooms. Next week we tackle the front room.

I still haven't started the second sleeve on my Comfort Fade Cardi. There was no time in the store to sit and knit. Maybe Sunday afternoon. Lynn could have the body of her's finished tonight. I'll get some pictures tomorrow because it is looking so good. So Good!!!