Duplicate Stitch

I'm happy to say that after more than 30 years of knitting, I have added "duplicate stitch" to my skills.

I'm not sure why I was against learning the duplicate stitch? I think I'd seen way too many bad examples of it to want to try it. But now I realize that the bad examples I've seen were because the yarn used for the duplicate stitch was too thin, or the tension was all wrong.

Barb took 5 minutes on Saturday to give Kaitlin and me a little tutorial. 

Counting the stitches and marking out exactly where the design was supposed to go took up most of that 5 minutes... the duplicate stitch part only took about 30 seconds to master. I finished it at home this weekend and now all that's left is seaming... my favorite part!

The sweater is the Little Boater Crew from the Thirteenth Little Sublime Hand Knit Book (#668). 

There's an adorable blanket that matches... what a great baby gift idea! 

The pattern calls for Sublime Baby Cashmere Merino Silk DK, but as we already have a number of shop samples out of that yarn, I chose the Sublime Extra Fine Merino DK. I LOVE the yarn... maybe a sweater for myself will follow?

Just Fur Kicks

Can we talk about how COLD it was today? 42 degrees when I woke up and 69 and breezy this afternoon. Perfect weather for knitting and crocheting!

Sophie didn't even mind modeling our new hat out on the back deck. Made with Plymouth Just Fur Kicks yarn.

Spring Cowl - FREE pattern!

Here's a link to a great free pattern for this pretty cowl made in Tahki Yarns Pixie. 

It takes just 2 balls and works up quickly on size 13 US needles. Thanks to Tahki Yarns for sharing this pattern!

This is a beautiful yarn, with a unique construction. It's a thick, loopy chain that knits at a bulky gauge and delivers maximum color and textural effect. It really makes a statement!

We also love the Spellbound top in Pixie:

This can be found in the Tahki Intermix book and we have a shop sample so if you are local, be sure to stop in and see this one in person!

Bella Sweater

contributed by Shawn 

We have a lot of samples in the shop for customers to look at and all of these samples have to be knit before we can put them on display. Some of them are knit by staff, some we get from companies, and some are knit by our sample knitters. Kim has been knitting for us for over 10 years (!) and she recently finished up another batch of samples for the shop. When she dropped them off for us to oooh and ahhh over, she picked out something to knit for herself. 

Then, when she finished it, she showed us and very generously allowed us to 'borrow' the finished sweater so we could oooh and ahhh over IT as well. It is so soft and she did an amazing job - I love the detail!

It's the Bella Short-Sleeve Vest with Leaf Motifs from Essentially Feminine Knits: 25 Must-Have Chic Designs by Lene Holme Samsoe. She used Knit One Crochet Too Elfin Tweed Yarn in the color Berry Heather (#1261).

So inspiring!

Lace Ribbon Scarf in Pediwick

Sometimes an oldie is a goodie! And that's why we went all the way back to Knitty's Spring 2008 issue and chose to knit the Lace Ribbon Scarf by Veronique Avery. Just because the pattern is over 4 years old, doesn't mean it's not still very in style!

Knit One Crochet Too's Pediwick Yarn is a springy blend of bamboo and nylon. I use the word "springy" because it is spun with a natural stretch that helps keep things in place. This quality is perfect for socks and tanks. And even though a "springy-ness" is not really necessary for scarves, there's something about a knitted piece that you can grab, pull and tug on and it goes right back to it's original shape! I love things with this stretchy-but-won't-stretch-out quality.

I knit the Monhegan Tee back in March and fell in love with Pediwick. 

After that we knit a sock sample for the shop and it's been super popular with our customers.

This scarf is too! And a bonus - it's easy to make with a pattern stitch that's easily memorized. Perfect for throwing in your bag and pulling out at doctor's appointments, hockey games, lunch breaks, etc!

The Perfect Neck Accessory for Fall

Back in August we received Liberty Wool in a sport weight (Liberty Wool Light) and Classic Elite Book #9184 - a pattern booklet of accessories for this yarn.

Each time I add a pattern booklet to our website, I have to resize all of the secondary images. You know, the images of the other patterns INSIDE the book, the ones you can enlarge? The small ones below the picture of the cover...

And sometimes by looking at all of these pictures, I get stuck on one and feel the urge to make it. While looking at the accessories in this pattern booklet, the Triangaholic Shawl caught my eye. It's done in 2 balls (each a different color) of Liberty Wool Light. 

It's a pretty simple top down, triangular shawl pattern, and since this type of knitting is kind of mindless for me, and I didn't currently have a mindless project on the needles, I decided to start one. Barb and I mulled over all possible color combinations, and came up with colors 6606 (Reflecting Pool) & 6698 (Blue Twilight). I love the colors! And as you can see, it looks FABULOUS with bright blue nail polish. Or not... your choice!

It was, as suspected, an easy and fun knit and is ideal for this time of the year, when there's a chill in the air and you just have to have something to keep that cold air off your neck. And I love the size of this shawl! It's perfect for wrapping around your neck and fastening in the front.

Cirrus clouds are in the forecast

contributed by Barb

Cirrus clouds are characterized by thin, wispy strands.  Cirrus is also a brand new yarn from Berroco, and it's a great name, since it's as light and airy as a cloud!

Jill and I were really excited about this yarn when we first saw it in May at our sales appointment. We couldn't wait to make something out of it so we ordered a bag of it to be shipped to the shop immediately so we could start a sample. 

The tough part was figuring out which sample to make, since there are a number of good ones in Berroco Book #323 Cirrus. Should we make the Vergoose Sweater:

the Denslow Wrap:

or the Spenser Sweater?

We finally settled on the Germane Vest from the new Norah Gaughan Collection Volume 11.  This vest is so lightweight and cozy! It looks amazing on and is very on trend with what we're seeing for styles right now.

I must say I am not a fan of mohair, but this one is definitely an exception!  I very much enjoyed knitting with this yarn, despite the fact that I did have to rip out a large section. (This was my own fault - I misread a part of the pattern!) I  am looking forward to wearing the vest this winter.

Jill's about to make the Ryll Headband - which is a one skein project and should be quick. I'm sure she'll like the yarn as much as I did.

Preview of a New Yarn

I've been cooking up a crochet project in my head and was hoping to use a colorful yarn with a longer color repeat. Noro came to mind first, and I considered Silk Garden and Kureyon. But they are just too heavy for what I have in mind. 

The new Noro Ayatori is a perfect weight, but with it's 40% silk content and low yardage (155), the cost sky rocketed so I decided against it.

What about Zauberball? We've got this yarn in the shop in the fingering weight, and customers love it for shawls and socks. It would be perfect, but I thought that maybe a fingering weight crochet project would be pushing my luck. I want to finish a project, not just start one!

So I decided to get the Zauberball Starke 6 which is a DK weight. Perfect! I've started the project but won't work any more on it until next week. I'm chaperoning a trip to England with the girls and their class. Lots of bus, airport and plane time will be perfect for this project. I just had to start now to be sure I knew what I was doing!

Look for Zauberball Stark 6 on our shelves soon. And think socks, baby sweaters, gloves, and other accessories!

Manic-In Monday

The heat wave last week was awful and we're thrilled to be breathing in some cooler air. So is our gal! New fall yarns have been arriving for weeks now, and her wardrobe has just gotten a little bigger with all the new fall sweater samples. This one is a sophisticated body-skimming cardigan edged with ribbing and a hint of plush texture along the front bands. And even though the color of this sweater is super classic, she grabbed a little colorful Koigu (see the new colors on the wall behind her?) to accessorize. 

Sweater: Cappuccino Cardigan Sweater knit with Berroco Voyage and Berroco Nanuk Yarns. Pattern is in Berroco Book #314 Voyage & Nanuk.

And to show you how different this sweater looks in another color, check this one out!

It's a mystery

We just unloaded a new yarn from Tilli Tomas yesterday... and it's gorgeous! We are the only ones to have it right now as it is BRAND new. It's called the Mystery Skein, because it's got multiple fibers in it that change as you knit... so it's a mystery as to what is coming next!


There are 10 colors and all the fibers are dyed in similar (or the same) shades. There are a number of different yarns/fibers in each skein... like Pure & Simple, Symphony Lace, Milan, the un-beaded version of Angel, and then some other fibers like a funky mohair boucle, a gorgeous ribbon, etc.


I grabbed a skein of the Dusty purple and a size G crochet hook and worked up a simple crochet skinny scarf. I had some yarn leftover, so I crocheted some little flowers and attached them on the ends. I love it!


We are working up some other samples with this yarn. It's really gorgeous and so soft... there are are so many possibilities for it!

New Noro Knit to Wear

Just the other day we recieved this new sample from Noro and I LOVE IT! I'm so glad that it fits me because now I can wear it here at the shop to show off the gorgeous colors in the Noro Silk Garden yarn.

This is Design Y844 from Noro Volume 26 - a great textured and entrelac project. I just may be wearing it next time you stop in....

1-2-3, Completed!

I am feeling a sense of accomplishment in several ways today. Isn't that how you should feel when something you've been working on has been completed? And I have several completions to mention...
First up, the adorable Jessica sweater in Berroco Pure Pima that I started in Florida on my spring vacation. I finished it last night and then sewed on the buttons this morning. This would be a sweet little gift for any little baby girl. The pattern is in the Nashua Handknits Sprout booklet.Excuse the strange colorations in the picture, I didn't need to block the entire sweater, so only certain parts are wet. By tomorrow it will be dry and in the shop.

Earlier this week, we added two new shop samples to the mix, featuring Berroco yarns. Barb knit the Amherst Sweater out of Berroco Cuzco in the color: Ginseng. This is a super popular pattern from Dolce Handknits. It's easy and quick, and customers have been raving about this pattern. Now they can see it knit up!

And Karen finished up the Nimbus Sweater, in Berroco Peruvia Quick. This is an ADORABLE little cropped sweater with a fun shawl neck. I love the color we chose - Bing Cherry - and folks, it's a FREE PATTERN on the Berroco website! It was featured in their KnitBits newsletter a while back, and it's SO good that we couldn't pass it up. Check out our sweater, and link directly to the free pattern from our site.

And finally, the best completion of ALL. If you've noticed that I've been a little quiet in the past few months, well, here's the reason. Three months ago we started the process of migrating our website to a new provider. This was a HUGE undertaking, and was the number one priority for me - day in and day out. My days were full of maxxing out spreadsheets, editing and resizing images, re-classifying data, creating skus, etc. Because of this switch, we had to install 3 brand new major softwares here at Kaleidoscope Yarns. With apologies to my staff (and myself!) for having to learn three new software systems, pretty much simultaneously... but hey! We all lived through it, and things are awesome!

Our new site started to launch on Tuesday of this week, and by that evening almost all of our customers in the US and abroad were seeing the new version. Check it out! You won't notice any major design changes - the folks we surveyed were actually thrilled with our design and didn't want that to change. But we do have a lot of nifty new features that I'll be posting about here and in our e-mail newsletters over the next week or so.

So, with this HUGE project now completed, I guess it's time to get back to regularly scheduled programming blog entries!