Anyone familiar with tatting?

I'll admit, I'd never heard of tatting until about a month ago, when Barb showed me some things she'd been working on.

Tatting is a process of making stitches composed of half-hitch knots. A single thread is looped and knotted with the aid of a small shuttle, and the results are intricate and beautiful!

Barb had tried tatting 25 years ago, and this winter decided to try it again. I guess the second time's a charm because she's hooked! Here are some of her completed projects:

Earrings:

A doily for one of my Finnish treasures (a large "Iittala Kivi" votive):

A heart doily for her daughter Liz for Valentine's Day: 

And most recently, some beautiful handmade note cards:

Check out the detail on these!

They remind me of a fun project in the Beginner's Guide to Needle Felting that we received recently:

 What other crafts do you like to do besides knitting and crocheting?

Felting for the Holidays

contributed by Shawn

I've been trying to do some finishing of my knitted gifts lately.  So last week I got out the stack of mittens I had knitted using the Fiber Trends Snow Country Felt Mittens Knitting Pattern.  These mittens have been waiting for a lovely cool and crisp day and a washer full of hot water! They are from my summer 2011 mitten period:

Not all of the mittens in the photo were intended to be felted.  The striped pair was knit in Berroco Vintage and our Easy Mittens Free Knitting Pattern and the cabled ones followed the Green Mtn Spinnery Bulky Mitten pattern, and I knit them Cascade ECO Wool Yarn.

Here are the felted pairs that just came out of the wash.

I realized that it takes longer to felt the Cascade Eco Wool mittens than the other fibers I used.  I'll have to run these grey mittens through the agitation cycle again.  I am especially fond of the fabric that was created in the brown heathered mitten (shown upper right) where I used the Plymouth Galway yarn. You might notice however that it is a bit smaller than the others as Galway felts more quickly. I should have been watching more closely, but now I know!

I decided to use this pair for demonstration purposes in the Needle Felting class.  Here are the supplies all laid out.

I did a bit of work during class, but I will be adding more polka dots and need to finish my border.

This is such a great way to embellish hand knits and personalize your projects for gifts. Stop on in to the shop and we'll be happy to help you pick out some great supplies to needle felt with - anyone can do it!

Needle Felting Inspiration - You've GOT to Check This Out!

Ever tried needle felting? We carry some great kits in the shop if you've never given it a try. The kits are relatively simple since they tell you exactly what to do.

Check out Kiyoshi Mino's website for the most inspiring needle felted animals I've ever seen. My sister in California came across this website and shared it with me earlier today. Thanks Kristin!

Can you believe how talented he is? This cat, this heron and this owl just take my breath away!

Read more about these animals on his blog!

Cheerio, cheeriup

It's the sound I hear when looking at this gorgeous mitten... another one of customer Tammy B's creations. Beautiful!

Tammy strikes again

So Tammy stopped in to the shop the other day with more felted mittens. She's got to stop DOING this to us! We are in love with her two new mitts - check out these birds:Have you ever seen anything like it? Someone's got some artistic talent... and it's not ME!
she also brought in this mitt to show us how beautiful the Malabrigo Rios cuff looks. It's colorful, soft and cozy.

Customer Project - Felt Times Two!

Last week our customer Tammy came into the shop and shared some mittens she's been knitting for friends. (Lucky friends!)What gorgeous felted mittens! These are Double Cuff Mittens, felted on the outside with a knitted ribbed cuff on the inside.

These mitts are knit and then wet felted into super warm thick mittens. And then, after they have completely dried, Tammy does some seriously amazing needle felting on the outside. I LOVE THE BEES! I even threatened to take them home.

These mittens can be knit using a single skein of Cascade 220 for each pair. If you decide to put in the fitted cuff inside that is not felted Tammy warned us that you may need additional yarn. She's being creative and picked out some soft Malabrigo Rios today to go inside some of the ones in the photo.

If you are looking for inspiration for wet felted knitting projects you can check out this pattern and many more in the book Knit One Felt Two.

Time for flowers

They're calling for up to 10" of snow tomorrow, so I think we'll be doing a bit of shoveling again! That's okay. I can dream of spring and warmth and flowers while I am making my very own flower-embellished yarn!

Last year I made the Pagewood Farm Needle Felted Silk Scarf, and it was so fun to do. Yes, it took HOURS, but it was my own issue that I felt I HAD to get it done in one (long) night. (What was I thinking?!) However, the end result was spectacular, and it's been a favorite item with customers down in the shop.

Recently my Pagewood Farm rep visited, and I ordered some other fun items for the shop. Of course their sock yarns sold out almost instantly - we only have a few skeins left of the Yukon and a little more of the Denali. (Don't worry, they are all on order!)

We also ordered some fun "Design Your Own Yarn" kits that include yarn, roving and mohair locks to make little needle felted flowers to attach to the yarn. You'll need a felting tool/needle and a felting mat, but this is fun stuff!

I took one of the kits home 2 nights ago, and have been making flowers like it's going out of style. You make the flowers first, and then attach them to the yarn. And then, I'll probably make a quick scarf or something... who knows. Here are a few shots of the process. (Taken with phone, not real camera, so I apologize on the quality/color!)

The necessary supplies: Pagewood Farm Needle Felted Designer Yarn Kit, a felting mat and felting tool. Embroidery scissors optional. Attach the center of the green leaf fiber onto your felting mat, just to keep it in place. Grab a small amount of the mohair locks, pull it apart a bit, and then scrunch it into place. Gently needle felt it to the leaf. Next step (not shown) - take some sparkly fiber and wind it into a tiny ball. Attach it to the center of your flower. I found it was easiest to hold this down with the points of my scissors until I positioned the tool in place. Then, viola, finished flower. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Easy & quick. My type of project. Once you have finished making the flowers, it's time to make your yarn! It comes in a hank, so after I wound it into a ball, I started attaching the flowers. Every yard or yard and a half you are supposed to needle felt a flower to the yarn. I have not finished this part yet, but it's so easy, I will be finished by tonight. The finished yarn is stunning!
We could have purchased this yarn with the flowers already attached, but there was a huge price difference ($22!), and we felt that our customers would enjoy making the flowers themselves.

We also ordered kits for just making the flowers (with no yarn included). This is because these flowers are so sweet, they would look great on a lot of other items that we knit and crochet. Stay tuned for a fun class on needle felted flowers this spring!

Best Picks

People always come in to the shop and ask us what other people are knitting. So we thought we'd do a show and tell for you on the products that have been really popular over the past month:

Best Pick for Kits:

Scarf Kits Galore! The Pagewood Farms Tinkerbell Needle Felted Silk Scarf Kit, the Be Sweet & Artyarns Synergy Shawl Knit Kit and the Jade Sapphire Cashmere Scarf Kits (for Him or Her)

All of these kits are really grabbing attention in the shop. We have some gorgeous samples to fondle and purr over if you have a chance to stop in. There's such a variety of fiber goodness in these four kits, and they come in such wonderfully tempting colors that everyone is ogling. Come in and see these before the selection is gone - they'll make a great gift or an outstanding conversation piece for yourself. (I know not enough of us create FOR ourselves and all of these kits are great values! Now I just have to finish my own cashmere scarf...)

Best Pick Patterns:

Norah Gaughan volume #5, Berroco Book #288 Blackstone Tweed, Jane Ellison's Queensland Collection Book #9 (featuring some of the most handsome new men's designs!) AND Queensland Collection Book #10

Best Pick Accessories, Notions, & Needles:

The Namaste Mini Clutch, especially in Black or Eggplant (this is a super supple PVC-free faux leather mini clutch with a shoulder strap-check 'em out) and the Kollage Square Double Pointed needles in both 5" and 7" lengths. We're still getting great feedback about these needles and how much people love trying them out both in the store and as additions to needle collections.(Yes, there's a set on the counter for you to try!)

Best Pick Yarn(s):

Berroco Vintage Wool and Kollage Half & Half are the favorites of the month! Vintage Wool continues to be a strong choice for customers because it's so soft, and they can't believe it's a washable acrylic/wool/nylon blend. We added more new colors, too, so we've rounded out the pallet a bit for those of you looking for more options. And Half & Half is milk protein mixed with wool. NO, you can't drink it, but people are amazed that it contains milk. And once you touch it, it's on the counter waiting to be rung out.

Needle felting is addicting!

We just received some beautiful needle felting scarf kits from Pagewood Farm. Barb and I saw them at TNNA and fell in love with them. Last night I took home the "Reds" to give it a try. Inside the kit are instructions, a gorgeous silk scarf, and lots of fibery goodness they call "tinkerbell fluff." It looks like this:

Mmmm. Pretty. I grabbed a Clover Felting Mat and another Clover Felting Needle Tool (one of the girls broke mine a couple of months ago - whoops!) and after dinner gave it a try. It's really fun, and completely addicting!

I was worried about poking those needles into that lovely silk, but that's what you have to do to get the fibers to adhere to it. The directions even say to needle felt onto the parts of the silk that have no fibers - this gives a "faux nuno" appearance of crinkled silk. And it's lovely!

I don't think you have to be super artistic to make this scarf come out looking wonderful. I was worried at first about placement of the "fluff" but after a while I just started throwing it on the silk in a less contrived manner.

I stayed up WAY too late to finish this scarf. But I was having so much fun, and there's another project I want to start tonight, so I pushed myself to the end. I know it doesn't look like I'm having fun here, but exhaustion was starting to set in! And I went for another 2 hours after this! I think the overall time it took was about 4.5-5 hours. But look at the finished product. Totally worth it! We have 8 colorways in stock now, and we are already reordering since they take 4-6 weeks to get.

Finally, a finished hat

It's been sitting in the classroom for weeks now, and it's finally done! I knit the hat but wasn't too sure of my artistic ability when it came to the needle felting. So I asked Michele to do it, and both she and Kalen contributed some flowers, and yay! It's done.
Very cute! Now I just have to find my notes from when I made up the pattern... Need to recreate it. Why am I always so bad about keeping good notes?

We've been going through a lot of tea recently - we've sold Harney teas for several years now, and we just love them! Many of our internet customers have been turned ON to Harney - most of our boxes go out with a little Harney tea sample... and we're amazed at how many of our customers love tea!

Every afternoon I seem to need a pick-me-up at about 3:30. My favorite is the Hot Cinnamon Sunset - a black tea with 3 types of cinnamon, orange peel and sweet cloves. Yum! I had been drinking the Hot Cinnamon Sunset for about a month, when I started to have difficulty falling asleep at night. It's most likely NOT the tea's fault, as it was during the last full moon, and I often have difficulty sleeping during the full moon. But I figured it couldn't hurt to switch to a decaf tea, so I switched to the African Autumn, which is a blend of herbal Redbush, cranberry and oranges. It is delicious! And so no more counting sheep for me!
I just finished a gorgeous scarf out of Pure & Simple. I can only show you this much... ... because it's in Massachussetts at a Tilli Tomas photo shoot right now, along with several skeins of our custom colorway "Leaf Peepers". They are doing a shoot for fall ads and may use our stuff... COOL!


I'm also working on a cute little sweater from the Nashua Handknits Blossom booklet. I chose the Cascade Cotton Rich DK and I am really enjoying working with it. I had already knit a swatch with this yarn and really liked it. It has very subtle color variations that add some nice depth to the finished piece. The sweater I'm making is cute - and should be done soon as it's only a 3-6 month size.
We've already made two other models (still drying!) from this book - it's a keeper. We used the new pink Ecologie Cotton for one, and the Purelife Cotton in Lipstick Tree for the other.

Raise those windshield wipers

Today we are getting a nasty, wintry mix. We are closing the shop at 2pm, and will not be shipping any outgoing packages, since UPS doesn't come until later in the afternoon. The girls had a half day at school so I just picked them up and they're coloring in the classroom. Our Knitting on 2 Circulars workshop, that was scheduled today at 1pm, has been rescheduled to next Friday at 1pm. We called it yesterday, as we knew the weather was going to be iffy. It turned out to be a good call. And two people couldn't make next week, so we now have some openings. Give us a call to sign up.

So big Superbowl day on Sunday! I am excited to get some knitting done! I am currently swatching some Tilli Tomas yarns. Last night I swatched the Plie and it is really gorgeous. Same gauge as the Pure & Simple, but plied, so it is not going to pill. It would be wonderful in a sweater! I used Jade - one of my favorite colors. I photographed 27 colors of Plie yesterday, so they are now online.
Then I started swatching the Beaded Plie, which is the same yarn, strung with gorgeous beads. I'm not quite finished this swatch - but I used Ruby Wine, another one of my favorite colors. These colors are SO rich. The beads make it a little more difficult to keep an even tension, but with blocking it will be fine.
Tonight I will swatch the regular Pure & Simple, in Leaf Peepers. This is a custom color that Tracy made for our shop. It's really beautiful.

Last weekend after skiing at Stowe, I stopped in the ski shop at the base lodge to check out the offerings. In my early years, I worked in Stowe as a manager and buyer for one of their top shops, so I'm always interested to see the latest products. I picked up this hat, because I thought it was really cute. It has a nice fleece liner, since the wool is a bit scratchy. I wore it on the ride home, and unfortunately, by Waterbury Center, I had to take it off because it was still itching me. Bummer - I really liked the hat. No worries! On Monday I grabbed a skein of Malabrigo Chunky, and whipped up my own version of the hat.
I made it about 1/2 inch taller so it fits better. And white, so I could have fun with embellishing. Now it just needs a little artwork... I'm thinking of using the Cherry Tree Hill Powderpuffs and doing some funky needle felting. So stay tuned!
This morning was mandatory computer time for Michele, Barb and Kalen. We always come in and do a mini show and tell each morning. We bring in our latest projects, and show our progress. Well, now you're going to get to see what they are doing, too. I told each one to grab a computer and write for 15 minutes. I'll be posting their entries on the blog over the next few days.