I've been reprimanded

I just finished my last knitting class until September. It was brought to my attention that I hadn't posted on my blog for a few days and that I had better get to it.

I don't have much knitting to report. The small felted bag from on ball of Noro Kureyon is finished and I have another almost done. It is a great way to show the new colours. The second Cabin Fever bag is knit and waiting to be felted.

The store has been surprisingly busy. There have been lots of customers as well as sales reps every day showing the new yarns for fall. Today I ordered Rowan, Debbie Bliss, Noro and RYC. A quick note about Noro. Many of last years colours have been discontinued-if you were looking at a yarn and thinking that you would wait until fall-be careful, the colour you wanted might not be available.

Yesterday I ordered the new Vero Tweeds from Naturally. I am in love with this yarn!! I am hoping that they will be in the store at the beginning of September.

I get emails periodically from Berroco about new yarns and patterns. The fall line looks amazing. I have ordered in a bit of the new Ultra Alpaca to try. If you have a few minutes, take a look at the Berroco website. They have the most amazing library of free patterns for all their yarns. You can also sign up to receive newsletters from them. They come out once a week and there is always at least one free pattern.

My website has hit a snag. The software for the new storefront keeps giving us an error so we are now waiting for the software company to find a solution.

The Sabres just won the hockey game. I am hoping for an Edmonton-Buffalo Stanley Cup. Now basketball is on the tv. Gotta love the playoffs.

New noro, felted bag, cute felted bag pattern and quilt

Just got in a box of the new Noro Silk Garden (7 colours-#241 and up) and Kureyon (10 colours-#172 and up). In true Noro fashion they are amazing.
Last night in knitting class Susan was wearing her finished Bettna from Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton's Noro Book 3. Everyone tried it on and they are going to be happy with the new selection of colours. The jacket fits great and is easy to knit. The bottom is stocking stitch-quick and easy. You then start at the bottom of the sleeve and knit to the center back and repeat for the other sleeve. In the center back you do a 3 needle bind off to join and finish off by doing the neck band.

I finished my Cabin Fever bag this afternoon. The picture looks funny because there is one bag ready to be felted and another just waiting to be cast off. Last week I was playing with the Vero and used 6 balls so I rewound the balls and made 2 bags.

While reading some blogs this morning I came across a pattern for the cutest bag using one ball of Noro Kureyon. I am going to try it using 184. The picture isn't the greatest but it is a mixture of fuchsia, green, orange and teal.

My quilt is coming along. Sarah wanted to see it at class last night so I laid out the squares so far for her to see. The picture is 4 squares across and 4 squares down. The finished quilt will be 2 rows of squares longer.

I have learned alot while doing this. I also came to the conclusion that I better make one more quilt before starting on my Kaffe Fassett. Like knitting there are lots of little tricks that make everything go together better.

Quilting

On Saturday a customer, Amy, was in the store talking about the quilt shop that she works in. I decided to take mom for a drive this morning to Guelph to visit Greenwood Quiltery. My mom bought me the fabrice to make a Kaffe Fassett quilt called Pastel Gridlock from his book Caravan of Quilts. Unfortunately my sewing machine is in terrible shape so we continued up the road for a new machine. This is my new Janome Quilter's Companion.

Sarah who works Saturday in the store decided that she wanted to start sewing and quilting while visiting the Creative Sewing and Needlework Festival a couple of weeks ago. We now have matching sewing machines.

This is the fabric that I got but unfortunately I couldn't get all the colours I wanted so I just placed an order online with Glorious Color.

I decided that I should polish up my sewing, it's been a while, so I pulled out some quilt fabric from my stash and started an easy quilt of squares. I have been working for the last 7 hours and it is half done. I didn't get pictures of the quilt so far-the batteries in the camera died on me so I will get some pictures for you tomorrow.

It is a small world

At lunch today I decided to run and get a piece of pizza down the street. Sitting out front was Vickey (Samantha's sister). She was talking with Samantha's husband, Michael, who happens to work for a family friend.

May is usually one of our slower months in the store which is giving me a bit of knitting time. I have the shrug increased to the proper number of stitches and am now working on one sleeve. I have decided to slow down the rate of sleeve decreases to get a wider sleeve. The final decision will be the edging to use at the bottom.

I am in the mood for some really easy knitting so tonight I am going to knit a new pattern (#707) from Cabin Fever. I am using Naturally's Vero in colour 15 (beige tones).

I was accepted

Got notification today that I have been accepted into the GTA Knitblogs Web Ring. At the bottom right of my page you can click on the 'next' and read what other knitters in the Greater Toronto Area are writing about. I am waiting to hear from Knitting Blogs but I understand that this can take a long time to be accepted there.

I have gone back to working on my shrug. I haven't accomplished much-about halfway to the point of dividing the back from the sleeves. (You can download the pattern for free from Elann.)

Great hockey game last night!! Go Sabres!!!

Did anyone watch the Apprentice last night? Can you believe those guys? They were so confident. How long before Lee goes home?

Why do we have to block?

My Trendsetter cardigan is done. Well almost. The knitting is finished and I started to sew in one sleeve. The fronts aren't sitting flat and it really does need blocking. I hate blocking!!! It takes time and I want to wear it. Now that I am done ranting I will go into knitting teacher mode-it is important to block your finished garments.

I spent the day at my suppliers seeing the new fall yarns. AMAZING. There is so much to tell but I am going to give you just a taste.

• From Noro there are 2 new yarns and new colours in the existing yarns. Kureyon and Silk Garden will be arriving by the end of the month.
• The Rowan/RY/Jaeger is fabulous. Enough said.
• Great new sock program from Lang. There will be new colours introduced every 6 weeks. These are limited quantity-once they are gone we can't get them again.
• New colours in Lana Grossa sock yarns.
• Lang has done a great self-striping yarn in a wool/acrylic blend. It won't felt which means it will knit up a great pair of socks.
• Debbie Bliss is re-introducing her Aran tweed and there is supposed to be a new book for it. The good news is that the price is being reduced.
• New yarns from Sirdar with great patterns.
• Sirdar is also bringing out a new 'tool' that lets you use yarn to make cool, loopy scarves without knitting.
  
• New yarns from Louisa Harding.
• 10 new yarns from Trendsetter including an chunky weight self-striping yarn called Granito that I really, really need.
  

I decided to write another newsletter to email out and was talking about the new Noro. Jane Ellison is doing another book for the yarn so I decided to see if she has a website and the answer is yes. You can read her blog, see pictures and find out what is coming.

Gotta go. Busy watching the Sabres winning the hockey game-just barely, the score is 2-1 right now. Beth and I have been Sabres fans since we were very young. Much to the displeasure of our dad who is a dye hard Leaf fan.

Oh, I also went shoe shopping. Enough said about that as well.

Knitting update

I couldn't stand looking at the ginger ale soaked yarn anymore so I gave it to my knitter Rhonda to clean up and knit something for her daughter. There is no way that I would skein the yarn, wash it and then reknit. I would throw it in the corner and it would sit there until the end of time. This is payment for all the times I give Rhonda a sweater of mine to finish.

Spent the morning at the hospital for an appointment with an Ear, Nose and Throat doctor. How can she be 45 minutes late for a 9:15 appointment. Glad it wasn't for 3-how late would she be then? The doctor thinks that I might have allergies, now must wait 6 weeks for that appointment. I have been told by Beth that if I am allergic to Melo, I go, not the dog!

I have one sleeve and one front done on my Daisy cardigan. The back is past the armholes and should be done during class tonight. Unfortunately I didn't completely read the pattern. I was supposed to do one knit row before starting the pattern to make a small border that would prevent the bottom from rolling. OOPS! I will have to decide when done if I like the roll and if I don't I might add a row of crochet to the bottom.

I just taught Beth how to crochet. Well, not really crochet but just chain. She is making a scarf-will show pictures when done. There have been a couple of bad words and the concentration on her face is hilarious.

Off to knitting class. It is our last one until fall. I can guarantee it will be more gossiping than knitting tonight and Kris is bringing treats-homemade butter tarts.

Fiona Ellis

Fiona taught last night for our guild meeting. If you have a guild and are looking for an instructor, I would highly recommend her. She put everyone at ease while they were playing with their cables.

We did morphing cables. Fiona is famous for her morphing cables…cables that change and become other patterns. In this workshop she will show you the basic principles of how to get started designing your own cables. Even if you are not an advanced cable knitter, give it a try. Simple patterns can morph and create unique ideas. If you love cables but find working vertical patterns too repetitive and want to heighten the challenge, this workshop is a must! Because this is normally a 3 hour workshop and we only had 2 there was homework to do in advance. This worked out great because everyone could start right away into playing.

She also brought garments from her new book Inspired Cable Knits. It is always fun to see the garments in person.

Girls Day Out

Thanks to everyone who posted comments about my ginger ale soaked yarn. Right now it is sitting on the floor in my truck-just can't look at it.

Fiona Ellis will be at our guild meeting tomorrow night teaching cables. Hopefully she will bring garments from her new book for everyone to see!!

I needed something to do yesterday while watching tv so I started my Trendsetter cardigan. One sleeve done and one front is started. Should get lots of knitting done tonight-2 hockey games and The Apprentice.

Beth is flying in tonight from LA. She spent the weekend there seeing the new Trendsetter yarns for fall. I was given a brief review but don't know all the details. I know that there are at least 2 self striping yarns (she is bringing home a bag of each). You will be seeing lots of these yarns this fall (even from Rowan-but I didn't tell you that!)

Today was spent having a manicure and pedicure with my very good friend from university. Eveline and I met during first year (almost 20 years ago) and have stayed close since then. We even have the same birthday which makes it very easy to remember.

Any 4 letter word will work

I learned a good lesson this afternoon. I was rushing around at closing time. Needed to run to Westdale to pick up my new glasses. Many of you are scratching your heads because you have never seen me wear glasses. I get a new pair every 3 years and then don't like them so I never wear them. With the headaches that I have been getting I thought that maybe glasses would help. I now have a funky pair and really like them so I should wear them more. Sorry-back to the story. From getting my glasses I was running to have my nails done. I closed the store and threw my knitting in the truck with a bottle of ginger ale. Long pause-you guessed it-the gingerale spilled all over my yarn. This is the Sassafrass from Nashua for the shrug. I have now started it 2 times on different needles (both pieces were in the bag) because I am sure that there isn't going to be enough yarn and was hoping the bigger needles would help. The other 6 balls were in there as well. I can not repeat what I said!! My question to everyone is-how do I dry out the balls of yarn? I was thinking of letting them dry, knitting up the shrug and then washing. Or do you have a better solution. HELP!!!

Frolic and new project

Here is the Jane Slicer-Smith throw finished. My original plan was to have it displayed on a rocking chair at the Frolic but the booth wasn't big enough for the chair. Many of you came by the booth and commented that the throw looks much better in person-pictures definitely don't do it justice.

The Frolic was a long day but we had fun meeting new customers as well as hooking up with knitters that we already knew. Wannietta, Cindy and Michelle all stopped by to say hello.

Of course I had to start something new now that the throw is done. I was going to make the Trendsetter cardigan but decided on this shrug from Nashua. It should go quickly and then I can start the cardigan. The yarn is called Sassafrass (50% cotton and 50% acrylic). The shade cards aren't on the net yet for you to see but I am doing the colour in the picture.

Almost there

I am proud to write that I only have 1 square left to finish on my throw. I have also finished off all ends. Should get it done tonight so I can post a picture later this weekend.

Beth and I are driving to Toronto tomorrow night to set up for the Frolic. The location couldn't be worse for Friday afternoon travel-the 401 and DVP. There is absolutely no way to get there and not get stuck in traffic.

If you are at the Frolic, please stop by the booth and introduce yourself.

A little quiz for you to take

Got this from Nadine's site.

You Are Bold Red Boots

You like to put your most outrageous foot forward!

What Kind of Boots Are You?

Next Project

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel on my throw.

I have decided what I will be knitting next. I know that I still have my shrug to finish (along with the many other projects) but this is calling my name. I am going to Indianapolis in June for a trade show where we buy yarns for fall and I will be working a bit in the Trendsetter booth so I thought that I should have one of their sweaters on. The yarn is called Daisy (the base of Daisy is a combination of Cotton and Acrylic that is blended to create this woven ribbon. Along each edge is a bright printed Viscose/Polyester blend that is woven in place with short and long ruffles. The look is simple and easy with colors that are great for any season and any wardrobe). This isn't a colour I would normally knit for myself but I have a cool pair of black jeans with gold coloured beads patterned on one leg.

This will be my first trip to Indianapolis. If anyone has been there and can recommend places to see or things to do, please let me know.

You will notice a new button on the side that lets you sign up for my store newsletter. The third issue went out early this morning. The newsletter keeps you informed about new yarns, upcoming events and news from the knitting world.

Not much knitting

Life has been crazy but there isn't much knitting to report-I am currently on square 73. Hopefully I will be done this weekend but paperwork could get in the way. I have to finish my tax return, do a GST return, 2 PST returns and finish my online newsletter for The Needle Emporium.

My dad is in Honduras for 2 weeks. They are doing a 'water project' which translates into digging ditches to bring water to the village that they visited in November. This means keeping mom amused while he is away. Last night we took her Swiss Chalet plus a surprise. The tv in their bedroom went on the blink so we bought them a new HDTV for their birthdays. Now I want one-the picture is so much clearer.

Please take a look at Cynthia's blog. She is collecting knit squares for an afghan to be put together for her very young niece who is going through chemotherapy. The response has been great and there will be enough squares to make afghans for other children with cancer. Please take some time to knit a square, I will try and get some done over the weekend.

Rowan Magazine 40

Got quite a bit of knitting done while watching the Masters. I now have 63 squares done. 30 to go.

Thanks Linda, I got the Rowan posters today.

In my opinion, Rowan #40 looks great-I have at least 4 sweaters that I need!!!! I have been very critical of the last few magazines and it looks like Rowan has listened to everyone's concerns. The styling has been toned down-no weird hats or skirts that totally take away for the garments. Here are a few highlights, I can't give too much away.

• 2 mini-magazines in addition to #40
  
• there are 12 designs for men between the 3 magazines
  
• lots of fair isle designs
• 4 new yarns
• Marie Wallin the new designer has done some great work

I also got a peak of the new Nashua for fall. They are introducing a mohair (40 or more colours), brushed alpaca (39 colours), superwash aran, ribbon yarn plus new colours in the existing yarns. There will be 3 magazines.

Rhonda has finished my felted hedgehogs for the Knitter's Frolic. They are so cute.

We are making some progress on the website. The new secure online ordering will be done with PayPal. I did alot of research before deciding on this. If you don't have an account with them, don't worry. You can pay with Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover. Got my account signed up and the next day I get an email confirming a purchase which I didn't make. This didn't make me happy with my decision. Talked with PayPal and here is their warning. If you get an email asking you to click on a link to confirm something-don't do it. PayPal won't send emails like this. They told me that companies send out emails to people hoping that you have a PayPal account and you click on the link. These companies have no clue who actually has an account with PayPal. Also, if it is from PayPal, your email will have your full name in the first line. If it says Dear Member it is just someone fishing for personal information. This made me feel much better about my decision.

Fall 2006 Rowan

I am going to get the posters for fall Rowan on Monday. My friend Linda Pratt, who is the National Marketing Manager of Westminster Fibers (the company who distributes Rowan in the US and Nashua to my store) has sent her copy to me. Can't wait to see the great garments for fall. I can't show you the pictures until the launch date on August 1 but I will tell you as much as I can Monday afternoon.

Done!!! plus information on Tent Sale

I didn't get that throw done!! I have 53 squares done on that one.

This is the Diagonal Throw. The tassels are regular but it took a while to figure out how to make them and write it out for others to follow. The cute stand is from my parents. They found it at Cracker Barrel in Myrtle Beach.

The tent sale will be Wednesday June 21 and Thursday June 22. The store will be closed on Tuesday June 20 so that we can get everything ready. The hours will be from noon to 8pm. We tried to make it so people could come after work. In previous years you had to come into the store to pay which caused quite a traffic jam of people. This year we will also have a cash register set up in the tent for those paying with cash. An added bonus-pay with cash and get a 10% discount (on tent sale yarns). Also, on Thursday after 5pm there will be an extra 10% discount on all remaining tent yarns. (Pay cash and get 20% off!!)

Off to knitting class.

Beth's still alive and the camera came home

Got through square 47 last night. Half way done!!!

Today was our first day of summer hours. We're closed on Mondays until September. This gives us all a bit of a break during the nice weather (not so nice today though).

Getting ready for the Knitter's Frolic. We are going to be busy in the next couple of weeks making up kits.

Again a busy tv night. 2 hours of Deal or No Deal, College Basketball final and The Apprentice. Should get a few more squares done.

Sometimes I could strangle my sister

Beth decided to take the camera to work on Friday and it is still sitting on her desk. I will definitely post a picture on Monday of the throw so far. I have completed 40 squares and should be half way after the Nascar race today.

A customer, Darlene, suggested using Constant Contact to send out store newsletters by email. Got the first one sent out yesterday. It shows who has read the newsletter and what links that have opened. I put a picture of the Jordana Paige knitting bag and that link has been opened the most. I got excited that people are actually reading the newsletter and have the next 2 written. My goal is to send out weekly newsletters with new products, store events and free patterns. We will see how long this lasts.

Gotta go, prerace is on.