I LOVE color work!! Be it intarsia or fair isle. Although I like intarsia for garments for my children – my daughter has picked a sweater with a squirrel and a bubble over his head saying nuts!! Fair isle is relegated for my garments. Someday my husband may be worthy – let’s see what this wedding anniversary present brings. Any how I digress, my recent fair isle conquest is a vest from the Fall ‘08 issue of Knitscene. I used Rowan Kidclassic and changed all of the colors. I used the same needle size throughout as the pattern called for – however, normally I would have gone up one needle size for the fair isle portion knowing that my gauge changes in fair isle. The change in gauge created a wonderful waist shaping which was not before present in the pattern. I received many compliments when I wore this vest to the shoppe yesterday. I recommend this project highly. If you are not familiar with the fine art of fair isle and want to learn, there is still room in the class coming up February 24 and march 10. Just think, if you take the class you can learn two handed color work, reading from a chart and take this knitting skill to new levels to impress your family and friends. Take my vest for example, as I was knitting it, I kept exclaiming to my family, “Look how wonderful and skilled I am. Watch my hands go, aren’t amazing – I am a knitting Goddess.” When I put it on yesterday I said to my husband, “Isn’t this the most stunning item of knitting perfection you have ever seen?” You too can become a knitting Goddess or God in fair isle knitting, it just takes a little two-handed juggling, some enthusiasm and a love of color. And prepare your friends and family to be awed by your greatness.
February is such a fun month!! The weather is unpredictable – it’s still cold, do I knit cold weather items or start on spring and summer? I knit rather quickly, so if I start on a short sleeve summer sweater and it snows I’ll be annoyed to say the least. So when the new Debbie Bliss magazine arrived I was thrilled to be able to pick out my transitional layering projectes I can start wearing right away!! And yes I have dozens of the magazine, although at the rate thay are flying out of the door I am not sure how many is enough! And yes, I have the yarns featured in th mag, and I made sure I had all of the colors on order. and can you believe it only two are backordered!! The rest are on my shelves – no not the shelves in my house (almost though, the temptation was very high.) My first project planned is the Classic riding jacket in light blue Prima, my second is.. well, I’ll let you come in and take a look for yourself.
Stephanie, who is new to the shop, although many of you may know her from Ravelry has agreed to teach a lace shawl class in March. After seeing Stephanie’s COLLECTION of lace I was blown away by her mastery of the skill. Observing her low key style of help and teaching will be very soothing to the intensity of lace – chart reading, counting stitches on each row, fixing mistakes, lifelines for BAD mistakes (we all make ‘em!) the art of VIGOROUSLY blocking lace to create the timeless beauty that it is. Take a look – I’m making one of these shawls first chance I get. Actually, this is a great transitional project for the spring. Race you to the shoppe for hand dyed lace weight merino from Prism.
It’s that time of the year again – you need a project for the game and we need to make room for the spring/summer inventory. So stop in Saturday January 31 and Sunday February 1 from 9-5 for 20% off EVERYTHING, $2 PATTERNS, $2 SUSAN BATES NEEDLES, BAGGED YARN SO CHEAP!!!! this is becoming the BIGGEST SALE OF THE YEAR so don’t miss out.
It’s january 28 and it is snowing AGAIN!! The holiday party was wonderful and nearly standing room only in spite of – you guessed it- more snow! Thanks to all for the lovely banquet of food, I had such a wonderful time indulging myself I forgot to bring out the camera. So sorry!!
In the spirit of giving, TBS is supporting Care to Knit (check out www.caretoknit.org) in their recent project of squares for ill children. We are going one step further – if you purchase one square of Ella Rae Amity (enough yarn forapproximately 6 squares) – we will do all of the finishing work and donate assembled blankets to Care to Knit. They have a low supply of large afghans for older children so our goal is to present them with as many large afghans as we can!!
I’ve recently been having a lot of fun experimenting with Noro. Sure using the yarn with the traditional large striping is lovely, however I have found that using it a little differently can produce beautiful results. I just completed a jacket using an interesting pattern from Knitwhits, in which the two sides and shawl collar are knit (cabled throughout) in one long strip. The back and sleeves are picked up and knit from the appropriate places. No seaming and I was able to try it on as I went for the perfect fit! I used the same colorway of Noro silk garden, however, I alternated from two skeins every two rows. This gave the overall effect as fine stripes and it gave a base color of black which I found very pleasing! I also put a skein of Noro Iro and alternated this with Debbie Bliss Donegal Tweed for a fabulously looking hat (thank you Stacey for being the knitter and hat designer!). Expanding on this theme was pairing Noro Yuzon with Elzbeth Lavold Silky Wool for an amazing shawl which appears as if dozens of colors were used to create discrete, narrow stripes. See what you think with the samples below….
Happy New Year to one and all. I hope everyone is as excited about the new website as I am. Easier navigation, a calender to check on events in real time (if there are cancellations it will appear on the calender!) I am thankful to David Perkins who is teaching me how to manage the website and emails on my own. Thank you, David!
We must welcome the New Year with a Big Sale! All yarns with a gauge of 4st/inch and bulkier (think 3.5, 3 and so on) will be 20 % off starting tomorrow Monday December 29 and will last for 2 weeks until Saturday January 10th. Now is your chance to try out some trully fabulous yarns: Sirdar Big Softie, Debbie Bliss Donegal Chunky Tweed, Debbie Bliss Como, Rowan Cocoon, Sirdar Click, Arucania Azapa, Arucania Miski, Noro Iro, Mirasol Sulka and perhaps some others that I’ve missed. Come find the gauge and SAVE!!
We have added some exciting classes for the upcoming winter schedule. The knitting loves crochet is a design of mine and is an odd story. One morning after I ran an errand and returned to the shop, Carol who works in the shop informed me that I just missed the most amazing hat on one of our customers. It was not handmade and no there was no pattern. And the hat was long gone. But she would draw it for me and she had great confidence that I could replicate this fabulous hat. And wouldn’t this be a great class? Well, I’m always up for a challenge. After several false starts I’m happy with the results. A row of crocheted granny squares in updated colors. The row is single crocheted together. The hat is continued using the magic loop technique (I cannot stand knitting in the round on a 16″ needle.) When the hat was brought in for me to see several days later I was in the back on the phone and I heard somone tell Claudine that I had already made my version. Please bring yours in!! I’d like to see how my copy of a hat I’ve never seen has turned out!!
The fair isle scarf is from using colors of sublime DK silk and I am having a wonderful time working on this. I love colorwork – but you may notice that I am still working on the scarf. This is not because it is especially time consuming. The fair isle portion took me two evenings. It is the scarf part - I pick up work a few rows and become intensely distracted by other things. I look forward to the fair isle on the other end. I have to remember the light at the end of the tunnel. 
This is an older picture. I’ve actually knitted the main body which has alternating bands of 4 colors on a light pink base. My last measurement was 22 inches (only 20 inches to go!)
Take a look at the website for some other fun classes this winter. The needle felting projects I made to prepare for the class was great for working out all of my aggressions.
Because it is sooo cold outside right now I’ve taken 20% off Rowan cocoon and Big Softie for quick warm knits. This will run until the end of December. Happy Holidays.
Here’s some pictures of Debbie Bliss. I find they tell a story on their own.
Debbie Bliss and Me (Diana)
Debbie Bliss was wonderful to have at the shop. She was informative, entertaining and and an extraordinarily lovely person. I was pleasantly surprised at her concept of designing for “real” women. Her sample garments, all sized small, fit the majority of the women attending the event. She instructed us all to carefully read her patterns for not only the size but the EASE. She told hysterically funny stories of fashion models who came to photo shoots to wear her knitwear and she feared none of the garments would look right because the models simply never ate food. Ms. Bliss came and charmed us all. When she left we all had planned many, many projects and looked foward to her spring projects. Oh joy, oh happiness.
But this day did not begin so well for me. I arrived at 7:40 AM to meet the tent company to set up the heater and lights so everone would be toasty warm at 10 Am when the guest of honor arrived. I watched 8Am come and go, as did 8:30 and 9. At 9 my phone calls to the company began in earnest. I was polite in the initial calls. At 9, the coffee, tea and scones were scheduled to arrive. Need I say more? More phone calls. Customers began arriving at 9:20. At 9:25 rumor had it, I was swearing into my cell phone, but I will not corroborate these rumors- I generaly reserve my swearing for later in the day. Well, no heat or light, no refreshments, Debbie Bliss on her way. My head between my knees, I’m fantasizing getting into my car and driving far, far away.
At 9:50 I’m notified the heater and lights are here. At 9:55 the coffee is here. There is a God. Rapid scrambling and everything is set up and for a minute I am lulled into the crazy thought that everything will be OK. I go into the tent to inspect the situation – OK it’s a little chilly. Some women have dragged their stadium blankets out of their cars. But now they have hot beverages! I crank the heater on high. It sounds as if a small plane is preparing for take-off. Oh well – conversation is unnecesssary at this point.
It’s time. Ms. Bliss has arrived. Breathless with anticipation, I rush in to greet her. I’m scrambling in my head on how to stall. I appropriately fawn over everything Ms. Bliss has ever done in her career, then ask her assistant to set up in the tent while I offer Ms. Bliss a cup of coffee or tea. Why yes, she would love a cup of coffee. She takes it white you see. This will definitely buy us a few minutes for the heat to work. I ask one of the Rebecca’s if they wouldn’t mind getting it for her?
Thirty seconds later she returns with a look of abject horror on her face. She grabs my arm and hisses in my ear,
“There isn’t any more coffee!”
It’s now 10:10 Am. I’ve only had my coffee supply for 75 people for a total of 15 minutes. This can’t be true.
“The coffee lady went to get more.”
“Where did she go to get more? Her car?”
Sadly I knew the answer. Rebecca is great, she rolls with the punches, she just started brewing some in our coffee pot and stopped me from beating my head against the door.
I go outside to inspect the tent and ask everyone to take a seat. It IS marginally warmer, the sun has come out. People are now shouting over the din of the heater and I think I have no choice but to shut the damn thing down.
I go back to tell Ms. Bliss it is time to start. She had taken off her coat while I was gone and is clothed in nothing but a sleeveless shift. Clearly she must have thought the heater had arrived in a timely fashion. My mind races, as she walks out I’ll through my mystery afghan on her. She’ll think its a weird promotional sort of thing. I’ll tell her I’m worried for her health. Who goes sleeveless in December? Maybe, since she’s from the UK she’s not familiar with winter on the east coast. I resisted all of these things (thank heavens) and Ms. Bliss remained sleeveless throughout her presentation and most of her book signing. At the very end she puts on the darling 3/4 sleeve DK weight number from her new Rialto book (GORGEOUS!!)
At the end she left with her assistant, her sample garment and a bag of scones for the road. I had a signed book, many new projects in mind and an appointment with my colorist – could I really have that much grey coming in at my roots?
I really hope everyone who had the chance to meet Debbie Bliss enjoyed her as much as I did(I hope you enjoyed the day much,much more!)
I’ve found an interesting (alarming?) trend this season. Scores of people have come into the shop asking for black yarn to make a scarf. Seems like a simple enough request, but wait, there’s more to this phenomenon.
And please, in advance do not be offended if you are one of these shoppers. I have turned this black yarn experience into a fact finding expedition for myself. Call it research. Because honestly, I am puzzled. Last year no one wanted black anything. as spring rolled aroung I had to mark all of the black yarn down and put it on clearance. So what’s happening this year? Psychologists, social workers, social commentators, please feel free to comment.
The requests generally start vague.
“I’m looking for black yarn to make a scarf.”
To which I excitedly start the inquisition. More data for my research.
“A scarf. How lovely. Do you have a specific pattern in mind?”
The answer for this ranges from no to garter to cables to lace and so on. Scratch possibility number one – they are not all making the same scarf.
“Is it for yourself or for a gift? Does this match a specific coat or jacket?”
This is when it gets really stange.
“Yes it’s for me.”
“Yes it’s a gift.”
“I want it to match my/her/his black/brown/camel/red/blue etc. coat or jacket. Basically I want to wear it with everything, everyday.”
Wow, was this the secret all along? Knit in black and this will be your or your recipients most cherished possession. I’m not yet convinced. Maybe, I think, they are looking for neutral colors. Although, honestly this is a tough concept for me. I’m one of those people that believes plum and teal are neutral.
So I start by showing them grey blends, black/grey tweeds, dark charcoal. I throw in some Noro laced with black for fun. Inevitably it always ends the same. They look at me as if I’ve lost my mind.
“Don’t you have plain black? All I want is plain black.”
“Oooh, you want plain black.” They’ve won after all. I pull out the several lines of lovely black yarns.
Now they usually give me a long hard look utterly convinced that I am the densest person that have ever met. They leave with their purchase off the create the perfect scarf that will match with everything and be cheriched or coveted by all.
Maybe they are all right and I set off to cast on for a scarf to cast on for a scarf for myself – my hand hovers over the black merino/angora and slowly slides to the right and picks up the baby blue. This probably won’t match a thing. But I love blue. Oh well.
