Spring Cleaning - The Start

The sun was shining today and we started our spring cleaning. It’s time to clear out yarn to make room for shipments that are coming over the next few months.

These garments are designed by Georgia Farrell and are available to purchase on Ravelry. They are knit in Rowan Alpaca Classic and we have marked down some colours.

The poncho is called Aldersgate.

This is the Coleman Street Wrap - above in one colour and below in four colours.

With its fine weight and intense colour palette, Alpaca Classic is ideal for Fair Isle patterns and light but warm garments and accessories. Its feathery feel and romantic halo are created by filling delicate cotton mesh with luxurious alpaca fibres, resulting in a light weight yarn with incredible meterage and spectacular texture. Knitted on larger needles, it makes an exciting choice for lace patterns too.

Only certain colours are on sale. We will continue to carry these colours throughout 2021. 

There are many patterns available on Ravelry for Alpaca Classic.

Ambah O’Brien has a MKAL coming soon.

Each week over 5 weeks a new clue will be revealed - what will it be? 
I’ll give you a few hints to help you decide if this is the MKAL for you; 
The project is a top down triangular shawl, symmetrical and easy to wear. Knit with a little under 1200 yd/ 1100 m this will be a medium sized shawl (full dimensions to come). 
We’ll be knitting short rows, simple lace and stranded colourwork and there will be tutorials and tips to help you out along the way and inspire you to try your hand at something new with this beautiful project.

My inspiration for this design is the gorgeous Australian Caladenia also known as the Spider Orchid, of which there are many beautiful variations.

Fingering weight yarn

Choose between 3 or 4 colours for your Caladenia Shawl. 
It is important that C1 contrasts strongly against colours 2 (and 3 if using 4 colours). 
For my version C1 is the lightest colour, C2 is light green, C3 is black Cherry and C4 is Dark green.

4 colours 
C1: 400 yd/366 m 
C2: 200 yd/183 m 
C3: 200 yd/183 m 
C4: 400 yd/366 m

3 colours 
C1: 400 yd/366 m 
C2: 400 yd/366 m  

C3: 400 yd/366 m 

Read more about the MKAL and purchase the pattern on Ravelry.

We are still waiting on the box from Turtlepurl. It is sitting in Mississauga and we have to be patient. Maybe next week.

I’m making progress on my Spark/Spice cardigan. Last night I finished row 38 of 74 rows. I need to run upstairs and wind a skein before I can go any further. I think have an hour of knitting in me tonight.

Portfolio

The Lina Cardigan is a new pattern from Harrisville Designs knit in Highland. You can purchase the pattern on Ravelry.

This Nordic cropped cardigan is knit bottom up, knit in the round, and has one steek for the cardigan opening. 

Lina is knit with Harrisville Designs’ Highland yarn. It’s a super quick knit. Bottom up is the way yoke sweaters were traditionally designed, and one of the advantages of bottom-up knitting is that you knit the body, then you knit the sleeves (one at a time and unattached, so sleeves knit up quickly. Sleeve Island is less daunting, because they are portable and such a quick knit). There are two length options for the sleeves in the pattern. There is a longer version (as pictured) that allows the cuff to either be worn long and cozy, that can cover your hands or be rolled up, or the sleeve may be knit with a more traditional, shorter length. The sleeves are then joined on to the body and then the fun starts. You get to knit the colorwork yoke. This is my favorite part of the knit. This pattern is a pretty simple knit. You will have to occasionally catch floats. The steek is then cut and finally, the stitches for the button bands are knit (buttons are sewn on) and the last step is knitting the neck band. Give your Lina a quick steam block, and your Lina will be keeping you warm in no time. The gauge is 15 stitches over 4 inches, so it’s a very quick knit.

I am knitting with Highland right now and really like the yarn.

The yarn was engineered to wear better and better with every wash. Don’t let the crunch fool you. After 10 years of constant wear, you’ll know why we spun it this way.

Lynn knit her Timber (pattern purchased on Ravelry) with Highland and raves about the yarn. Another shipment should be arriving before the end of the month.

Mr. FedEx made a stop at the store today. The new Portfolios from Della Q are here. Each one comes in a nice box making it easy to wrap if you are giving it as a gift.

The Portfolios are available on the website.

I found Lynn’s list for tosh pashmina.

Boneyard Shawl

Cedar Leaf

Autumn Vine

Mara Shawl

Summer Flies

Wurm Hat

Photo © Melanie Berg

Calligraphy

Drachenfels

My Spark Cardi is growing. I’m halfway through the neck/raglan shaping. I don’t want to say it will be finished this weekend but it should be by the following weekend. Now it’s time to get back to it.

Pashmina

This is Follow Your Arrow by Ysolda Teague (pattern purchase on Ravelry). I knit this awhile ago in Tosh Pashmina (2 skeins) and thought about it today because we have marked Tosh Pashmina down in price. We need room for new yarns.

Madelinetosh Pashmina is a 3-ply yarn with an elegant blend of soft and squishy! This yarn is made up of 75% merino wool, 15% silk and 10% cashmere, a similar fiber blend to the famous woven pashmina scarves. Pashmina knits up to a soft fabric with a great drape making it the perfect option for scarves and shawls alike! 

Pashmina is a sport weight yarn so there are many, many pattern options. Lynn made a list of patterns today but I left it on the front table. 😢 I will share them tomorrow because it was a really good list. I do remember

Honey Cowl

Baby Tea Leaves

Drachenfels

Shaelyn

Here is a link to Ravelry with some suggestions if you want to get yarn before it’s gone. You can also type ‘Pashmina’ under ‘Yarn’ and it will show you the amazing projects that have been knit with Pashmina. There are over 22,000 projects. Someone knit Andrea Mowry’s shift with Pashmina. That’s a great idea. There are mittens, socks, hats, shawls, sweaters and cardigans.

This shawl was a lot of fun to knit. It was originally a Mystery KAL. For the first clue you had 2 options - A or B. Then there were 2 options for each of the next 4 clues. Five people could knit the shawl together and all of them would be different.

There are five clues, and every clue will come with two options either of which builds perfectly from whichever you choose previously. The result is 32 possible combinations – a really mysterious adventure. In addition, it has been designed to work equally well in a solid colour or in stripes of two colours and instructions for both options are included.

I found this picture from a past shipment of Pashmina

Copper Pink

Translation

Pebble

Calligraphy

The yarn has a beautiful shine to it.

A shawl that would look amazing in Pashmina is Derecho (pattern purchased on Ravelry). The shawl looks hard but the pattern is well written and easy to follow. You need to know knit, pick up stitches, increasing and slipping stitches.

A triangular shawl knit modularly in two directions to produce a pattern of interconnected stripes. Two circular needles are used to knit on one side at a time while keeping the other side’s stitches live.

We also discounted some skeins of Tosh Vintage - these are discontinued colours or odd skeins.

PRETEND TRIP

I totally forgot to share the new Party of Five kits coming from Sweetgeorgia. These should be in the store in the next couple of weeks.

Song & Lyrics

Bloom & Blossom

There are new colours of Tough Love Sock coming as well.

While writing I’ve been thinking about knitting with one or two or more Party of Five kits. A shawl that has always been on my radar is Ambah O’Brien’s Adventurous Wrap (pattern purchased on Ravelry)

The Adventurous Wrap was designed with a Yarn Advent Calendar in mind, to make the most of daily mini skein gifts that appear. There are so many possibilities - add colours in randomly, arrange your minis in a gradient fade, or use a main colour and alternate with mini skeins. This is also a perfect way to use up all those leftover yarns hiding in your stash. Simple garter stitch keeps this a mindless knit; some fun shaping and the regular colour changes will keep you wanting to knit on. What adventure will you take with your Adventurous Wrap?

Take a look at some of the finished shawls on Ravelry. I will be playing with mini skeins when the kits arrive.

Coming in March

My sleeves are joined to the body and I’m working my way through the raglan and neck shaping. I’m 1/4 of the way through and my rows are getting shorter. I know that top down sweaters are really popular but working from the bottom up has some advantages. Both sleeves are finished - when I am knitting top down I am bored of my sweater when I get to the sleeves. A lot of top down patterns have colourwork in the top and then the body and sleeves are plain. Rows and rows of knitting with no interest. Also, my rows are going faster because I am decreasing at the raglan edges and at the neck.

Once the knitting is finished I will block my cardigan and then do the neck edging before cutting the front open.

I keep saying that I am knitting the Spark Cardi because I followed the colourwork charts for it but I am doing the front bands with buttons like Spice. I’m not really a belt kind of girl.

Photos © Andrea Mowry

PRETEND TRIP

I was so exhausted from my day of playing with yarn yesterday that I couldn’t bring myself to sit and blog. Here are some pictures from the day.

There was one common theme at the show - every supplier is having a hard time getting yarn. The mills have been slowed down (some are even closed) due to COVID. Everyone is working hard to get yarn to us so I must be patient.

The Rowan booth was as beautiful as ever - except for the lighting. I have a glare on some of my pictures. Rowan Magazine #69 will be launching on March 1.

There are new products coming from Lykke in March.

This show stopper was in the Freia Fibers booth. Tina knit the dress and it is amazing.

The minikins are so cute and the colours call to you.

Kits for the Sidestep Cowl should be arriving sometime in March.

This cozy cowl is made with two-color brioche in alternating gradient yarns and a stepped columnar pattern.

Tomorrow we are going golfing. I can’t wait.