Berroco Patterns Now Available As Singles!

This is great news for those of you who find a pattern in a Berroco booklet that you'd like to make, and are dismayed that you have to purchase the entire booklet. Now ALL Berroco patterns (starting with Fall & Winter 2013) are available as single patterns for the price of $6 each.

These patterns are all from NG #13, now available as singles.

Of course, it's still a better deal to pay $8 for the booklet (as long as you like more than one pattern) but it is nice to be able to offer these patterns to you as individual ones. Norah Gaughan books still retail for $14.95 as there are more designs in those booklets. So if you like 3 or more? Buy the book. Like just one? Buy the individual pattern.

Norah Gaughan single patterns are all for sale on line now, and all other Berroco books will be done in the next day or so. They are all available for sale as singles in the shop as of tomorrow.

NOTE: These singles are all electronic! No paper copies. Save a tree!

Knitting with Staples

And no, I don't mean the bent pieces of metal that hold papers together! I mean staple patterns. Do you have any?

A staple pattern for me is one I use over and over and over. It's a pattern that is well written and easy to understand. A pattern I can use as a launching pad for my own creativity. One that gives me the basic sizing information, that can be customized by my own yarn choice, or by my addition of a stitch pattern. 

Figheadh Yarnworks Fundamentals patterns are all staples. The patterns in this series are all for basic items like hats, socks, sweaters and vests, but they cover a huge range of sizes and they're all written for multiple yarn weights. It's such a bonus when you can use a pattern multiple times!

We sell almost all of the Figheadh patterns in the shop, and we carry ALL of their PDF patterns. I'm thrilled about the PDF versions - my new printer was recently having issues and it would NOT print. So I emailed the PDF that I was working on to my Kindle, and I was in business!

The Figheadh pattern I'm doing is a new one: #F11 Top Down Baby Cardigan. With all the baby knitting people like to do, this one is a must have. You can make the same sweater over and over, and never have it look the same!

Mine is knitting up so quickly! I am using the Classic Elite Liberty Wool Print, which is new for us this year. I wanted to bring it in to the shop last year, but didn't. Lesson learned... I should have! We're always looking for more variegated or self striping yarns in worsted weight and this was a great addition. This yarn comes in beautiful colors that work well for both adults and kids, and it's machine washable and soft. I'm really enjoying working with it, and glad I will have enough left to whip up a hat of some sort.

As you can see, I finally got my printer to work. An upcoming car trip and a dead Kindle battery was a good motivator for me to tackle the printer issues. I won!

Roo Designs... and instant gratification!

So Roo Designs patterns always make me smile... but my smile is now bigger! Because all Roo Designs patterns are going to be available (possibly by the end of today!) as PDF downloads. So it's click to order - double click to open - and cast on. Enjoy!We're also adding her newest patterns too.

Options

So many customers have come in to the shop and admired the Rocketry Baby Blanket and Cardigan set that Jill knit up as samples a while back.

The patterns for these two projects are really nice and because the Dream in Color Classy is a little pricey, we've been helping people find substitutions in colors that are similar, but less expensive. The Classy version takes 6 skeins of Classy, 1 each in 6 different colors. It's enough to make the blanket and sweater and costs $108.

An easy substitution is Berroco Comfort. This worsted weight yarn comes in wonderful bright colors and is quite soft and machine washable. If you choose to use the Comfort, you need to purchase 7 skeins (1 each in 5 different colors, and 2 of the sixth color.) At just $5.75 each, that comes to $40.25. Big savings!

If you like the colors we used in our shop model, you'd want to get the Berroco Comfort in Pimpernel, Dutch Teal, Purple, Seedling, Kidz Orange and Delft Blue.

We've also made up a few combos for customers wanting some different mixes, so you may also like:

~ Seedling, Adirondack, Primary Blue, Deft Blue, Navy Blue and Agean Sea OR

~ Seedling, Dutch Teal, Primary Blue, Purple, Pimpernel and Filbert OR

~ Teaberry, Rosebud, Turquoise, Cornflower, Agean Sea and Rasberry Sorbet

And in another attempt to save some money, did you know you can buy the PDF versions of these patterns for less $$$? We've just added a bunch of Tilli Tomas PDF patterns online too.

Are you rested and ready for summer?

I hope you all had a nice long weekend! I enjoyed - and needed! - the three days off, and I guess summer is here, though our weather this week doesn't seem to agree.

I started my weekend with a surprise visitor on Saturday morning! I looked out the window and had a little friend staring in at me. We often have deer in our backyard, but this one was about 6 feet off the front of the house. We had a bit of a staredown through the window, until the deer got bored or hungry and wandered back into the woods.

I didn't work at the shop on Saturday, but I did come in with the girls and Marc to see the Essex Junction Memorial Day Parade. It's always a long one (pushing two hours!) and with the road closed for several hours, the shop is never too busy on Saturday of Memorial Day weekend! Once Emily and Shawn finished restocking and pulling orders, they came out on the front step to enjoy the parade. They seamed some charity afghan squares while they watched. I was in the shop waiting for the parade to start and just as it started, Helen came in to get me so I wouldn't miss the "disabled veterinarians" who were coming up the street. (We were a ways away from the announcers, so she didn't hear it properly!) It's always fun to see the unexpected in parades, like old cars that seem to have lost their get up and go. Luckily people watching jumped up and started pushing this one, so this guy made it up the hill with a bit of help.

One of my favorite groups was the bagpipers. What a beautiful sound they made!

And of course the Green Mountain Derby Dames were a highlight this year. They are Vermont's first and only all-female flat track roller derby league. They've been popping up all over recently - getting the word out about their team. Cool!Sunday was the Vermont City Marathon in Burlington, and while we didn't enter as a shop this year for the relay team, I did agree to run a leg on my friend's team several months ago. Then, I was so busy with the launch of the new website, that I didn't get to train as much as I should have. I only had to run 5.6 miles, but when you haven't been running at all, 5.6 miles can seem daunting - and it did! I was extremely nervous all weekend, but I managed to surprise myself and came in well ahead of my ETA. It was really fun, and I felt that nice kind of "sore" afterwards (and still today!) but it did POUR the entire time I was running, and I definitely could have done without that.

Marc and the girls were going to watch me finish my leg, but didn't make it in time. Between me finishing faster than expected, and Marc trying to find parking in the North End, they were still 6 blocks away when I finished and called them. I was glad that Marc thought to bring an old Gortex parka with him, because by that time I was drenched and freezing!

I started a new swatch last night! Yarn is Pure Pima and it's a stitch pattern from one of the Barbara Walker books. Oh how I love this cable pattern! I stayed up way too late last night knitting it, because it was so much fun. I'm going to have to design something around it now...

Time for a new website feature: let's talk about patterns! Our free pattern section will be expanding this summer, but the biggest thing to notice is that all free patterns have now been formatted so they look a heck of a lot nicer on the page! And if you'd like to print out a free pattern, just click the Printer Friendly icon and a Word file will open up for you to print.

Customers have been asking for months, "Can we buy PDF patterns?" and we're happy to announce that starting now, we do have some PDF patterns available for purchase. For those of you who don't know, PDF stands for Portable Document Format. It's a file format that captures all the elements of a printed document in an electronic image. When you purchase a PDF pattern on our website, once you submit your order, you will be able to download the pattern almost immediately. People like PDFs because they are fast, paperless, and usually less expensive than paper patterns. All copyright laws do apply to PDF patterns, so please bear that in mind!

At this moment, we have our own patterns and two Dream in Color patterns available as PDFs. BUT we are expanding the offering, so stay tuned! Not many of our vendors sell their patterns in PDF format, so we are identifying those who do. And we're hoping that the vendors who do not offer this format will reconsider, as it's a green thing to do!