New Colours

This morning I received a very happy email from Hedgehog Fibres. There are new colours. I am going to do an order today so that Hedgehog will have it when they get to work on Monday morning. I would guess that we will see the new colours at the beginning of April.

Here are a few of the colours. I am in love!

Orion - this is a good one! Heavy multi-speckle doused with navy. High contrast stunning skeins!

Danube - clear blues and sharp speckles, this one was inspired by the river that flows through my hometown.

Damsel - faded greens and mauve, layered with speckles. 

Comeback - light purple base with tons of speckles!

Potion - rich and sultry, speckles and layers of colours make these skeins a masterpiece. 

Then another happy email. This one from Life In The Long Grass. We will have new colours coming in March. Here are a few that will be in our order.

Dusky

Lush

Fig

Mythical

I really like the colours for my new Throwback. I'm about to start the big colourwork section. That can lead to 'just one more row before I go to bed because I want to see how the colours look'. And then you look at the clock and it is 2am. When I opened the store there was more than one Friday night that I would knit from the time I closed the store until it was time to open the store on Saturday morning. The things you can do when you are young.

Gloves

Mr. Canada Post brought in a few parcels this morning. The first one that we opened was from Lynda. She finished a new Nightshift for the store. For me. I love the colours. It is knit in Noro Akari colours 13 and 17.

Normally I would stretch the shawl out on the fence to show all the colours. There is a big snowbank there so I laid it out on the table in the store.

The second box was full of Addi needles. We brought in a sampling of Addi Rockets Squared.

Revolutionizing the way in which we knit, these slightly rounded square needles promote positive ergonomics, feature a perfectly tapered point and a special no-slip tip texture, and yield impeccably even stitches every time!  Experience the future of knitting…

I haven't tried the needles but customers have been asking for them. They are available in the store and on the website. If we find that customers like the needles we will start carrying more sizes. We can special order sizes as well.

We had two young men in this morning wearing the amazing gloves that they knit for themselves. Gloves. I'm not knitting gloves. They are a lot of work. And colourwork gloves. They are amazing. Their mom and dad knit and have taught all their children to knit. It's so much fun when the kids come in so we can see what they are working on. They love walking through the store looking at yarn and patterns and discussing knitting. I think I have my next employees when Lynn retires. I think they might work for yarn 😋

The Shift

Diana brought in The Shift and the colours are awesome.

This is the original colourway that Andrea Mowry shows on the pattern. We have kits! It looks great with Lynn's sweater. She says 'Thank You' to Diana for knitting it for her 😋

When you look at a skein of Dyed in the Wool you don't realize how much the yarn is going to stripe.

Once it is rolled into a ball or a cake you can see how big the chunks of colour are.

Doreen stopped in today with a beautiful new sweater. It was too cold to ask her to go outside for pictures. The pattern is called Icefall and it is from Tincan Knits. You can purchase the pattern on Ravelry or in the book Strange Brew.

Floral and pretty, this motif is reminiscent of stained glass. Wear your sweater cropped over a skirt, or long with trousers.

Doreen used Le Petit Lambswool in Dark Blue Black and Dyed in the Wool Mississippi Marsala.

There is optional short row shaping in the back so that the back of the sweater is a bit longer than the front. Doreen was glad that she added the rows. She likes how the back of the sweater sits.

It's Here. Alpaca Boucle from Hedgehog Fibres.

A wonderful alternative to kidsilk/mohair yarns! We hear a lot from our customers that not everyone can tolerate mohair, some due to allergies, and others due to skin sensitivities. However, everyone loves and wants a yarn with a lofty, fluffy texture and look - we developed this beautiful new base with that in mind! 

Our new Alpaca Boucle is 66% Alpaca and 34% Silk, with delicate tiny boucles, which creates a yarn that is a great substitute for any mohair lace, whether used alone or as a carry-along yarn. Sold in approx. 100g skeins/620m. Handwash recommended. 

Similar to Hedgehog Kidsilk Lace, this yarn is fluffy and has a brushed look when knitted, however this one does not shed! 

I'm Boscoe sitting tonight. Beth is having dinner with dad and then they are going to start with Lucy's therapy. Dad and Lucy left the house today. They stopped by the store to bring Lynn and I a tea and they were both looking very happy.

Butterfly

Mr. Canada Post came in with the first box from Hedgehog Fibres. We were so excited and then we were not excited. The new Alpaca Boucle wasn't there. It will be in the box that should be arriving tomorrow.

Jane sent a photo from sunny Florida. She has been talking about knitting Butterfly/Papillon for a long time but was intimidated by the pattern.

Here you are. Some mistakes. Will definitely do it again. Different colours. I knit it on 3.5.  May do it in a 3.25. Haven’t blocked it yet. I’m quite pleased.

Jane used 2 skeins of Uneek Fingering colour 3010 (the colourful yarn) and one skein of fingering (the dark yarn for the veins).

Each skein is a work of art. A truly unique self-striping hand dyed merino collection of vibrant colours. 

From the designer:

This short row shawl looks lovely in either a long transition mutli-colorway or in placed color OR with bits and pieces from your STASH. 

Instructions are expressed in a new and unique method which I developed and that most American knitters are familiar with. The instructions let you know when you are on the right side or wrong side and gives extensive stitch counts. For some, it takes away a lot of the confusion sometimes found in other expressions of short rows. 

There is a lot of counting and this is very important. It is not a great project to knit while only partially focused in the short row sections. But there is also a lot of plain, garter knitting employed. For every short row section, there are rows in between that are more simple to execute. 

This is our store sample. The shawl is stunning. Everyone who walks into the store stops to look at it.

I just came home from dinner with dad. Lucy is doing great. The bruising is almost gone and the swelling is going down. They might go for a drive to job sites tomorrow. Lucy loves the truck and will happily lie in it while dad walks the job. They have had a bit too much time in the house - my dad isn't used to being at home all day long.

It's time for Survivor and The Masked Singer. Beth is chomping at the bit so there is no time to wind yarn. I'll do a few more rows on Hinterland.

My Next Project

Harrisville Highland arrived today and it is happy in it's home. 

This caused Dream State to move.

Which caused Woolstok to move.

I'm not starting tonight but here is what came home with me. It is going to be another Throwback. This time I am going to knit it in the round and steek. More on that later this week because there is knit-a-long forming in my head.

My phone rang this afternoon and it was Atenti calling to tell me that my bags are on the way.

I love my Atenti bags. They are very well made and the fabric choices are amazing!

We also have a package on the way with more pompoms.

Icy Blue has been out of stock for quite some time. I'm happy that they will be in our shipment.

There are three new colours coming.

These should be in the store in about a week.

A small package came today from Hedgehog Fibres. It is goodies for our Food Drive Basket.

I remembered to bring my skein of Le Petit Lambswool home but I'm not in the mood to go upstairs to wind the skein. I'm going to work on Hinterland while we watch Love It or List It from last night. Love It or List It with Hilary Farr who designed the fabric that Atenti used for this bag. It is in our order. Actually, three are in the order.