Spice

Sarah is going to town on John’s Spice Cardigan.

The sleeves are finished and it’s time to start the body. Sarah said that it is the most addictive pattern she has ever knit. You can’t stop because you need to see what colour comes next.

This cozy cardigan is knit from the bottom up, in the round, with all-over colorwork and then steeked. Finished off with a garter stitch shawl collar and pockets, Spice is the cardigan you will be reaching for from early Fall to the last cool nights of Spring!

We have a brand new colour of Practically Perfect Sock. This is Poolside.

Now that I’m home we are starting to work on LYS Day. I can confirm that Casapinka will have a free shawl pattern. I can’t share pictures yet but we will definitely be making kits. The shawl is two colours and I will put these up on the website as soon as Casapinka gives us the go ahead.

I forgot to mention 2 shipments that arrived on Thursday. One from Emma’s Yarns and another from Malabrigo. We are well stocked in black - Rios, Sock and Ultimate Sock. Black is the hardest colour to get so I bought lots.

Now it’s cleaning time. Beth and I are hosting Easter dinner tomorrow. This year we’re doing a BBQ. It’s Masters Sunday so everyone (maybe not everyone but at least 1/2 the people coming) will want to watch. We wanted an easy meal with easy clean up.

Happy Easter. Happy Passover. 

Roadblock

Dad and Beth left at 7:30 this morning for a meeting in Peterborough. Lucy was upset being on the jobsite 😀. She loves visiting all the guys. She walks around and talks to everyone and then plops down for a rest wherever it suits her. We lovingly call her Roadblock.

Our flight was delayed an hour which gave me more knitting time. The Kilim Cowl was perfect plane knitting. The only problem I had was that my pen ran out. I printed the charts and cross off each row. Then there is no confusion if I put it down for a bit.

I really like Madelinetosh’s Woolcycle. The yarn is very soft. It almost feels like a wool/cotton blend.

Our trip home was good until we needed to find the truck in the parking garage. I’m ashamed to say that we went to 4 levels before we found it. 👿. Normally we’re not stupid people. I guess we were excited when we got to the airport.

Stephen West has a new sock pattern - the Painting Honeycomb Socks.

These socks are perfect for using mini skeins or leftover bits of sock yarn. The pattern features one main color combined with five contrast color pops. You can use as many contrast colors as you like to customize the honeycomb color pops. The pattern is knit top-down in the round, so you can easily customize the length of the ankle or foot by knitting more or fewer honeycomb stripes. Slip stitches form the playful honeycomb motif, so you only work with one color at a time. Dive into your stash and knit yourself some cozy Westknits socks or gift them to a friend!

You can purchase the pattern on Ravelry.

Photos © Stephen West

It’s time to do a bit of laundry and then rest. Maybe a few rows before bed.

M&Ms and Southern Food

This is how far the cowl is. There hasn’t been any knitting while we’ve been here.

This morning we headed to the M&M store.

The walk was beautiful and the sun was shining. It wasn’t terribly warm but we were happy to be outside.

As someone who loves colour the stacks of M&Ms were very appealing. I’m eating some purple ones while I’m writing. 

Beth was a little tired of pictures by this point.

After we finished we went into the MGM Grand and had lunch at Nellie’s Southern Kitchen. This is the Jonas Brothers restaurant. I highly recommend it. The food was awesome. The restaurant is beautiful.

Tomorrow is a busy day. We need to leave the hotel by 9am and should be landing in Toronto around 7pm. Hopefully customs is fast and we’ll be home by 8:30ish. There won’t be a post tomorrow - I’ll write on Thursday.

Hello from Vegas

I’m going to start with knitting content. This was my cowl after the first pattern repeat was finished. There was more knitting on the plane. I’ll try and get pictures tomorrow during the day. We don’t have the best lighting in our room so I need to open the curtains and let some sunshine in.

Floops Stitch Markers and Flox Tools were ordered this morning. We won’t see these until the summer but I’m glad that the order is completed. We have been out of Flox Tools for quite a while.

Our trip was uneventful. We had a great flight. We were both tired and laid down early. I think I was asleep before 9. That means getting up early. We were downstairs at 4:30. Beth will probably be up at 4:30 tomorrow morning because she had good casino luck.

After breakfast we went to see Circa - a new casino downtown that Beth hadn’t seen yet. Then a bit of shopping at the outlet mall. Actually it was looking. We didn’t purchase anything.

This afternoon we went to see the Conservatory at the Bellagio. It was beautiful as always.

Now it’s time for dinner. Beth is waiting downstairs so I’d better go. I hope everyone enjoyed the weather at home. It was colder today in Vegas than in Ancaster. And we had 50 mph winds. Thank goodness we didn’t bring the golf clubs.

LYS Day

It’s coming soon. Saturday April 29th.

We are holding a sale in the parking lot starting at 8am and running until 11am. The store will not be open until 11am.

There will be discontinued yarn, odd balls and yarns that we are clearing out.

50 gram balls - $5

100 gram balls - $10

Hand dyed yarns - $20

There will be lots of baby yarn and we will have some self-striping sock yarns. We will have something for everyone!

You will also find some bags that we are clearing.

Details

1. No points will be earned on the sale yarn and points can not be used to purchase yarn
2. Please bring your own bag. We will not be supplying bags
3. Cash, Visa, M/C and Debit will be accepted
4. There is parking in the empty lot beside the store - our parking lot will be closed off. If this is full there is a parking lot down the street past the Tim Horton’s. You will be passing Caniche Bakery and probably want to stop. They open at 8am.
5. If the weather is bad we will be postponing the outdoor sale until another Saturday
6. Times can change - please check back closer to the date

Then at 11am the store will open. We will have LYS Day kits. There will be draws. More details to come.

It’s Sunday and we’re travelling to Vegas. I don’t think I’ll get a post in today so I wrote this before we left.

Wish my dad luck. This will be the first time he’ll have all three dogs by himself for 3 days. Beth wants to weigh ours before they go to dad’s. There will be a lot of treats.

Packing

Here is the start of my Kilim Cowl. I don’t have enough for a good picture but this gives you an idea. The ugly brown on the left is the provisional cast on. You want to start with a colour totally different than your project to make it easy to see when putting the stitches back on the needle.

Here is the April 2023 Crazy Beautiful Club colour from Emma’s. Our box will be arriving Thursday when I get back. 

There are going to be a lot of boxes when I get back. There is a box coming from Malabrigo with lots of Rios including Black. We have been waiting and waiting for black. The other box I know about right now is a restock of Lykke needle sets. 

My post is short tonight because I need to get ready. There is still laundry to do and then pack. I’ll write from Vegas.