Customer Project - Fun & Bright!

contributed by Shawn

I've always loved the bright fun colors that are available in the Jil Eaton CottonTail Yarn. Seeing them all on the shelf together is an inspirational burst of color for the senses. 

And so is this sweater! One of our customers recently came in to do a bit of shopping for her next project and she was wearing her latest creation incorporating many of the CottonTail colors. 

I love this Trapezoid Pullover that she created using the CottonTail and a Kaffe Fassett pattern. 

Sorry, I didn't catch explicit pattern source details at the time because I was too excited by the actual sweater!

From pattern - to shop model - to real life model!

Patterns, patterns, patterns. There are a million of them! Some of them have great pictures - so you know what your finished item will look like. (And some don't!) 

Minnowknits patterns have always been popular with our customers. The designs are cute and work really well for babies and toddlers. And they've always have good photos, which is helpful!

We love their little dress patterns for girls. Back in 1999, when I was expecting my twin daughters,  I knit two of the Minnowknits Brittany Jumpers for Helen and Sophie. They were adorable! In 2002 when I opened the shop, my daughters had long outgrown the dresses, so they became shop samples. For several years the Brittany Jumper was a top selling pattern because of this.

Brittany Jumper

Over the years, we've made a number of dress samples. We've made the Sunflower Dress:

the Pinafore Dress:

and most recently, the Daisy Dress:

Now this pattern picture is adorable! And it certainly didn't NEED a shop sample to convince people to buy/make it. But we loved it so much that I ended up making a shop sample anyway:

The pattern calls for Jil Eaton CottonTail Yarn, but I substituted Berroco Weekend. It was a quick knit and I love the flowers!

Sometimes our staff members see samples and fall in love with them too. Luckily Polly had the perfect recipient for this adorable dress... her beautiful granddaughter! So we get to share pictures of another Daisy Dress, but this one... in action:

So cute!

This picture was taken in the Boston Common (at the Frog Pond!) on Emma's 1st birthday earlier this summer. Polly says that the dress wasn't on for very long since Emma was not quite walking at the time, and crawling in a dress is pretty much impossible! 

Polly's tips: She tacked down the petals of the daisies all the way around from the inside of the dress. This way, little hands are not tempted to try to pull off the flowers. GREAT idea!

She also used Berroco Weekend, like I did, and loved the way it came out. It's very soft and washes beautifully.

Dresses for the little girls in your life

It's always fun to knit little dresses. I know I've made many in my knitting career, and by looking at our sales reports for dress patterns, it's clear to me that you all have made many as well! Some of the best selling dress patterns for babies/little girls are by Minnowknits. The Brittany Jumper # 130 has always been one of my favorites. I made two of these - one for Helen and one for Sophie - when they were about a year old.

The Sunflower Dress #186 is adorable too. It has a little more coverage above from the waist up, and the fun buttons on the front, as well as the stitch patterning, give it that little something special.

The Cotton Candy Dress #218 is precious. It has sweet little sleeves and a lovely diamond pattern on the skirt and bodice.

The Pinafore Dress #230 was the hit of the year last spring. It was featured in several ad campaigns in knitting magazines, and is probably one of our top selling patterns, ever. It's actually one of Minnowknits' most simple dresses, and works well in both solid and variegated yarns.

And the most recent Minnowknits Dress, the Daisy Dress #238 is what I took to Florida last week for my vacation knitting. It is a simple hemmed dress with gorgeous I-cord flowers attached at the bottom of the skirt. I used Berroco Weekend and made several modifications to this pattern (see my changes in tomorrow's post). I'm thrilled, as it came out beautifully!
All of these patterns can be made in Jil Eaton Minnow Merino and Jil Eaton CottonTail yarns. Of course Berroco Comfort and Berroco Weekend are also wonderful options!

Polly's Summer Project is Finished. Is Yours?

Here's a great post about sticking to a project... written by Polly:

Here's a note of encouragement to all of us knitters who take on a project saying "This is what I'll make this summer (or fall or whenever)" and then wonder as the time goes by whether it will really happen or not.

Well, I'm here to say that it's possible, but only just! Last April I purchased the yarn and the pattern to make the Una sweater by Berroco. It's in the Berroco Weekend Book #296. I had been eyeing the Jil Eaton CottonTail yarn ever since it came into the shop - in particular, a color called Fresia which is a very soft peach tone. Well, now I had the perfect yarn to go with this adorable sweater. Because the CottonTail knits up to the same gauge as Berroco Weekend yarn, it could easily be substituted. With yarn, pattern and needles in hand I was off and running with the WHOLE summer ahead of me.

But, life intervened and it was sometime in mid August that I realized that, although the back and front were nicely finished and waiting in a drawer, the sleeves were not going to knit themselves in the next two weeks! Thankfully they are fairly short sleeves. It also helped that I knit them simultaneously so that the end was always in sight.

What didn't help at all is that when I got to the absolute last row of the sleeves (the Pleating Row), there was a major glitch. After repeating the directions exactly as written about four times and having the stitch count and placement of pleats absolutely not work out, a lightening bolt went off (why did it take so long?) saying that just maybe it was the pattern and not me that was cuckoo.

Sure enough, when I went to the Berroco website and searched for a pattern correction (errata), there was my Una sweater with revised directions for my sleeve Pleating Row in bold print! Note to self: ALWAYS check for erratas BEFORE beginning a project!Not to be undone by the glitch with my silly sleeves, with about five days to go before the unofficial end of summer (Labor Day) I set about sewing the sweater pieces together. With my trusty copy of The Knitter's Book of Finishing Techniques open to the chapter on Seams, I was off and running.Would you believe that the last stitch was in place and the sweater was washed and blocked a whole two days before Labor Day! My reward for the stress of the big rush is that I absolutely love everything about it: the fit is perfect, the color is gorgeous and the pattern detail is lovely.Now the big question is what's my fall project going to be??

The Pinafore Dress

I can't tell you how many of these patterns we've sold! All because of a cute little ad in a magazine for the Minnowknits Pinafore Dress pattern and the Jil Eaton Cottontail yarn. We've even sold out of the Cottontail yarn (in the same color it's pictured in) several times over.

It's a really cute pattern but I don't like always making something in the yarn it calls for. I'm on vacation now and needed a quick mindless project in a fun yarn. Because I just used Cottontail in the Sheep sweater from Roo Designs, I chose the Mission Falls 1824 Cotton in one of the "whirl" shades for the Pinafore Dress. I picked the "Bouquet" shade in tan and blues... think sand, sky and sea because after all, I was headed to Florida.
It knit up really quickly and is just adorable. The hem definitely curls a bit, but with a bit of blocking it will be perfect.

Double Ended Crochet

We had such a great response to our Crochet Series Classes that I thought I'd share a little of what we did last week in our Crochet II Class: Double Ended Crochet.
I used some of the new Jil Eaton Cottontail and hooked up a couple of dishclothes in spring-y colors. They were quick to work up and finished up soft and thick in this yarn. The double ended crochet technique is what gives them the two color look - and I love that the back is a reverse of the front.

Baa baa white sheep, have you any cotton?

When the new Roo Designs patterns arrived last week, I fell in love with several of them! Since I completed my baby block project, I was feeling ready to tackle another intartsia project.

I had a hard time choosing between the Owl Sweater and the Sheep Sweater... and I may just end up knitting both of them!

But then we got a shipment of the new Jill Eaton CottonTail yarn, and with its gauge and great selection of fun & happy colors, it was a perfect match for the Sheep Sweater, so my decision was made.

I had a busy weekend so didn't get as much done as I'd hoped, but I am well on my way. It's been fun knitting with the CottonTail. I really like it, and I'm not a huge cotton fan.

We also got some fun new Jil Eaton Minnowknits patterns which work with this yarn, too.

Here, kitty kitty!

I just finished a baby sweater for a friend's baby. It’s their first baby so I really wanted to knit something for them. They decided not to find out the gender of the baby, so I had to choose colors that would work well for either a boy or girl.

I have always loved the Roo Designs Cat Pullover pattern that we sell. It's so cute! It calls for a worsted weight yarn so I picked out several great colors of Jil Eaton Minnow Merino. What a super color selection - it was difficult to pick.

I also thought it would be fun to make a matching hat and socks. I used my Ann Norling Kid's Fruit Cap pattern for the hat, and just followed the stitch count and shaping - but striped the hat. Then for the socks I used my Yankee Knitter Classic Socks for the Family pattern.

And here is the result - I love it!

Camp knitting

I'm headed to our camp in Maine tonight for the 4th of July weekend. It's Marc's 40th birthday, so he will be having his favorite "lobstah" dinner tomorrow night. I like lobster, but not the getting messy part, so Marc's nice enough to pry & pick the meat out of my lobster so I don't have to deal with the ick... I mean, he's getting messy anyway, so it's really no trouble in my opinion!

There won't be knitting on the drive over - only in little spurts here and there. Four hours of driving on Route 2 while trying to knit is enough to make you seriously carsick. Believe me, I've tried. Marc's great - he gives me warnings "In about 2 minutes you should put your knitting down" or "Up around this curve you can start knitting again." What a perfect partner!

I do have a few small projects to take with me and hopefully there will be some down time so I can knit. I am going to make (well, start?) a Minnowknits Coco Loco out of the new Minnow Merino. It's a sweater I've knit before, but I just love it, and the colors of the Minnow Merino are calling out to me. It was hard to decide which ones to use, but after about 10 minutes of complete indecision, I ended up choosing these three:

I think it will be so cute!

Then yesterday we got a new yarn in - it's from Kertzer and it's called Marble. It's 100% acrylic and is perfect for baby blankets, afghans, sweaters and more. It's surprisingly soft - in my opinion it is AS soft as Encore (if not more so...) It's a dk weight, but also crosses over well into the 5 stitches to the inch/worsted category. I started a little baby sweater last night and I like it a lot! I know, I know... I've always been sort of a 100% acrylic snob. But this one really changed my mind when I saw it a few weeks ago, and I know that people will really like it. That's why I brought in 14 great colors of it to start. Aren't they pretty?

Make way for Minnow Merino

The Be Sweet yarns are finally online, but our ravenous shop customers have pretty much decimated our stock in just one short week! I apologize - some of the images online are not showing up. I'm working on fixing that.

We have very low quantities in some colors, but there is a lot more on order and we'll just have to be patient. I can tell that it's going to be hard to keep this in stock, so if you want some, order it and if we don't have it, we'll put you in line for it. We should be getting another shipment of Magic Balls (and some new colors) in about 2 weeks.

Yesterday we got our shipment of Jil Eaton's Minnow Merino - WOW! This is washable superfine merino wool for kids - but don't just think kids - these colors may be bright and kid-like, but that's not going to stop me from using it for myself. We had several customers madly digging into the box as we unloaded it. (This has been a trend with our shipments recently...)

New Jil Eaton patterns are due in next week. Can't wait to start working on this yarn!

I'm finishing up a cute little bag made with one Knobby Ball and a Be Sweet pattern. I'll have a photo tomorrow.