Customer Project - Baby Blanket and Sweater

contributed by Barb

Linda H. stopped in to the shop recently to show us one of her latest FOs. This is an adorable baby set! Unfortunately the pattern no longer exists (at least we could not locate it as it dates back to probably the 1970’s or 80’s). 

What a great shower gift and best of all the yarn (Plymouth Dreambaby DK yarn) is machine washable. That helps those new moms who are a bit tired (and also those new dads who help our with the laundry!)

Great job Linda!

We have a similar blanket pattern here, and similar sweater patterns here and here.

Petite Hats

contributed by Shawn

Our preemie hat drive and contest is still going on!

We are still asking folks to bring us creative Preemie Hats.  I finished my first one in record time. (Do you know how QUICK tiny hats are?) 

I made a simple one color tea-bag (rectangular top) style hat. It's not too fancy, just a cute shape for a tiny head with a bit of alternating knit and purl stitching for texture interest.  

I used our free preemie hat pattern to give me an idea of the number of stitches needed for correct sizing and then just let things flow.  The Plymouth Dreambaby DK yarn is soft and I'm sure the dusty blue color will look great on some little distinguished gentleman in the NICU.

Last minute prep of the goods

Well today was certainly good weather for knitting! And it's a good thing, because I had a lot of seaming to do. This Tuesday, Suzie and I are taking the kids to deliver the goods from our after school charity projects, which include preemie hats and three blankets. We'll take pictures on our field trip, but I had to share a cute photo of a very excited Sophie. Tonight I washed everything so that it was perfectly clean for the delivery and Sophie helped me arrange the hats in what else... a Tiffany box! Can you believe we have exactly 50? WOW. Great job girls. I'm so proud of all of them.

Thanks to Berroco and Plymouth for their donations of Comfort DK and Dreambaby DK, and to Accessories Unlimited for their donation of Brittany double pointed needles. We still have yarn left, so we will continue to use it for projects like this in the future.

And totally off topic, here's a shot of my newest garden resident. I didn't realize he'd moved in when went to pick some rhubarb the other day. So he was greeted with a very loud and high pitched scream. Sorry big guy. I'm sorry if I didn't seem happy to meet you. But I don't like surprises!

Thumbs UP for Comfort!

I had a lot of car time this weekend, and spent a good deal of it knitting some preemie hats. I had made some in Plymouth Dreambaby DK recently, and this weekend I took Berroco Comfort DK.

WOW. I've always loved Dreambaby DK. It's a "go-to" yarn for all baby items - whether preemie or full sized. But over the years we've grown a little tired of the colors. They've added a few muted shades, that are pretty, but they haven't really deviated from the pastels of old. And new moms these days are anything but old school!

We have new moms coming in wanting oranges, browns, bright greens, teals and more. So when Comfort DK was introduced, we were thrilled!

The color range is so fun, it's actually outselling the Dreambaby DK now. And I have to say, it's just a BIT thicker than Dreambaby DK. Which results in the softest, cushiest little baby hats EVER! So give Comfort DK a try. We think you'll love it!

Summer Trends?

When you have a couple of days when every other person who comes into the shop ends up knitting the SAME things, is it a trend? Or is it just a spooky coincidence? This has certainly happened to us recently.

Last Friday and Saturday we almost completely sold out of our Piece of Vermont yarn. We made a Hydrangea shawl with one skein, and the yarn - which had already been selling well - just flew out the door. I didn't put it online, as I really bought it for that "something special" dyed in Vermont yarn that we could offer our summer customers. And it seems they loved it! I will be ordering more, but Jessie - who dyes this yarn - is on vacation for the 4th. The yarn is really gorgeous. It's a bamboo blend, and it's technically a sock yarn. But I think all of our customers bought it with some sort of lace shawl or scarf in mind. So now we have three skeins left. Want some? Call us.

And thanks to the sample, we've oversold the Hydrangea shawl pattern. It's due in any day though.Another popular item from the past week? Dreambaby blankets... and even an afghan. Lots of people are making cute little baby blankets out of Dreambaby DK. It doesn't hurt that we have several GREAT new colors of this yarn! One girl had already knit her child a blanket, and she loved it so much that she came back for a couple bags to make herself an afghan.

Of course - the Be Sweet has been a big trend this past week, too. People really love the novelty look of some of these yarns. Stay tuned - we have a couple more novelties due to arrive for fall.

And YAY! Our Namaste bags arrived on Friday. They are SWEET! I succumbed and bought one of the large bags. I probably don't need the extra space, because I was doing just fine with a smaller bag. With this one, I just keep filling it up of course. But the bag itself is lightweight, and so cool. They'll be online any day. We have the Cali clutch:

the Newport Bag:and the Laguna Bag:
Here's a little shot of Helen's big dance performance from Jazzercise camp last week. It was so cute, and hoorah for mom, for learning how to figure out this video thing. It's really not hard, but I do NOT have the time for new things right now. She's in pony tails in the front, and she's got quite a nice hip action, doesn't she?