Three great new yarns and lots of WOOL

We've finally managed to get the Shearer's Yarn out in the shop, and it's now online too. This yarn is perfect for fisherman knits.

Jo Sharp Silkroad DK Tweed came in a couple of days ago, and it should be out in the shop by early next week. It is online now. It's gorgeous and SO soft. We got a couple of Jo Sharp pattern books too, and they are fantastic.

Also new is Ecologie Cotton by Nashua Handknits. This is a worsted weight pima cotton dyed with 5 natural dyes. The colors are soft and perfect for summer for both adults and babies. I definitely see baby gifts with this yarn... We've got the front of the store changed up a bit - and we are building up a pretty good selection of wools for rug hooking. We've been spending some time dying recently to build up our color selection.

We have solids, some tweeds/prints, and overdyeds of both. Patterns will be arriving in the next couple of weeks, and pretty soon we'll have a class so all you who have expressed interest can learn. And within a month we hope to have it all online.

I've made good progress on my first piece.

And have started a second one for the shop, a cute sheep that is available as a kit, with the wool already cut into strips.

I am still working on a ribbed scarf with Mountain Colors and Lana Grossa Baby Kid. I'm close to the end, and then it just needs to be fringed.

I also have a "car project" which is a one skein (I think?) easy scarf. I've been skiing on the weekends and I need an easy knit for the 45 minute drive each way, that won't take up much room in the front seat. This fits the bill.

Speaking of skiing, last weekend at Stowe it was UVM Winter Carnival. What I noticed most about the college kids was their great handknit hats! They weren't skiing in them - thanks to helmets - but they certainly were wearing them around the bottom and in the base lodge. It was nice to see so many cool knits!

Cleaning the classroom!

Classes have started up again, which means we have to keep the classroom clean. It's hard - we use the classroom for unloading all of our shipments, and I use it to take pictures of everything for the website. We also use it for our show and tell - we bring things in that we are working on and show them to each other each day. This is what it looked like last night, right before we had to clean it for Suzie's class: Michele and Barb are taking a weaving class and this is Michele's table runner.
Joy drove up the other day to give us some of her craft supplies that she no longer wanted. I was most excited about the Puritan frame for my rug hooking! I love it and it is so much nicer than my hoop. And I'm already inspired by her stash of wools. Only about another week until I finish my rug. We will have to wait for a slow day to go through all of the other amazing things she gave us. Thanks Joy!!!

Tomorrow is a dyeing day. I mean dyeing wool. Did I mention... we're adding rug hooking? And we are so excited! Barb said the other day that I've corrupted her. Before she worked here, she worked at a church and was a pretty clean cut broad. She never imagined that stripping(1) and hooking(2) would be part of her job... and so much fun! (Please don't tell her husband!)

(1) strip*ping the process of cutting wool into strips
(2) hook*ing the process of pulling wool strips through a backing with a crochet like "hook"

Freezing Friday

Right now it's 0 degrees, but feels like 12 below with the wind chill. Brrrr. We're nice and warm inside though, and so we'll call it a good day. We had a little lunch celebration earlier - it's Michele's birthday today. We've always enjoyed cake for people's birthdays, but in December we had a little holiday lunch here at the shop, and I realized that everyone who works here likes sushi. So, for Michele's birthday I asked her if she wanted a cake, or a sushi lunch. This is what she chose:

We managed to put away all but about 5 pieces - and those went home to Michele's sons.

This morning we got some new yarn. Twelve beautiful heathered colors of the Shearer's Yarn. This may make it onto the website by today, or Monday at the latest. It was delivered to us by David Hinman, the shearer, himself. This yarn is the real stuff, baby! It reminds me of Candide, but nicer and a bit lighter weight. As David says, "No one knows wool like the shearer who shears the sheep!" David started his own flock of sheep as a boy in New Hampshire, and has been shearing sheep and alpacas throughout the Northeast for more than 40 years. From the sheep he shears and from his own flock of Blue-faced Leicesters, David selects the best wool. Then he has it processed into fine-quality, 100% wool yarn and wool blankets at a mill in Canada.

Our kitchen turned into a dye studio of sorts today. Barb and Michele dyed some wool for rug hooking. The aroma of wet wool filled the building and they had a great time!

They over dyed and spot dyed and came up with some really great pieces. It was a lot of fun and will be great when our Cushing dyes and dye books come next week!
Kalen brought in her mixed fiber rib scarf - it's gorgeous! I wear my new one just about every day and I get stopped right and left when I am wearing it. I went down in the shop to add my colors and Kalen's colors to the website, when our good friend Karen came in (who gave us this scarf idea in the first place!) We all picked out a BUNCH of new color combinations and they are all online. I think I might have to make another one - I like the Black, Burgandy and Stonechat. I already have Vaa, and I made Brown Sugar for the shop. Kalen's is Sealing Wax.
And I'm still making great progress on my rug!

A new hobby!

You know that feeling you get when you are about to hit the yarn shop? You wake up, knowing it's the day you're going yarn shopping. You're excited, because you're on the hunt for a new project. You can't wait to peruse the pattern booklets. You're eager to fondle the yarn. You're lightheaded just imagining the colors... And then you decide on a project, you pay up, head out the door and you're so eager to start. Your pulse is racing. You can hardly wait to get home and start knitting. You stay up late that night just trying to squeeze in a few more rows. It's really a wonderful feeling!

Well I haven't had that feeling for a while, about yarn, that is. Don't get me wrong! I love buying yarn for the shop. I love unloading a new yarn when it arrives in boxes and bags. I love playing with it and finding a perfect home for it in the shop. But I am surrounded by all of this yarn everyday. So it's not AS exciting when I start a new project. For me, it's just walking into the warehouse and finding the color I want. I miss the thrill that I used to have before I owned the shop. I still have the thrill of knitting... but the picking out thrill seems to be thing of the past.

At least with yarn! Last week Barb and I went to Green Mountain Hooked Rugs in Montpelier on Tuesday. Barb has a couple of rugs that she is currently working on, and of course Michele has been hooking rugs for a long time. Michele has some AMAZING pieces. She's really an inspiration. So we've all been talking about it, and I have always loved hooked rugs - how they look and feel, and what amazing designs you can do with them. I decided I wanted to get a small project. They didn't have a huge selection of patterns - but I did find one I liked, though it was a little bigger than I wanted. What gorgeous wools! I am using shades of greens and teal blues and oranges and I had so much fun picking out fabrics. I could hardly drive home - I was THAT excited. I just wanted to pull over and start hooking my rug. And then when we got back to work, we both wanted to cut our strips and get started. I had a million ideas in my head about how to arrange the colors. And I'd never even hooked before!

So now I've been up until 11:30 each night (that's very late for ME!) working on my rug. It's really fun. I am treating this as a learning experience. In each little section that I work, I get better and better. I can already look back at my first square and see things I'd like to do differently, but I'm not going to change anything. This will be my starter piece and I'll enjoy looking back at it and remembering how much I learned.

I haven't totally set aside the knitting needles. I did finish another mixed fiber rib scarf. The first one I made turned into a shop sample and is usually found around Kalen's neck. Now mine is in greens.
LOVE it. Might have to make another one.

I've also been doing some punch needle. Kind of fun. Different. I like rug hooking better, but this mixes things up a bit.

I think my next hooking project will be a chair pad, with yarn. Stay tuned.

Mmmm, I smell a special!

This arrived today from Cherry Tree Hill. Supersock Potluck in 6 colorways. Really no two alike. So many gorgeous skeins of yarn. So many cool socks just waiting to be knit.We have Earth... and Jewels...and Blues Greens...and Blues Purples...and Brights...and Water...Hard to choose!

Happy New Year!

It's always a hard day back at work/school after the holiday break. Very hard to get those kids up and out of bed in time for the bus. But thanks to new alarm clocks for the kids from Santa, it was a little easier today.


Last week we saw some strange weather, and that both scared customers away, and brought them in to the shop in droves. It just further proves my theory that you can never predict anything in retail. You think you're going to be slow and you are slammed. You prepare for crowds, and you're only steady. Oh well, we always have things to do here and when it is slower we are never idle. Last week in our down times, we did last minute year end and inventory things that needed to be done. And just so we didn't get too comfortable counting things, another crowd would arrive and we'd have a few hours of being slammed again. But we were thrilled to see the snow on Saturday. It was long overdue, and we enjoyed it (while it lasted.)


So Barb got a new pet a couple of days after Christmas. A week or so earlier, she told me that she and her daughter Lizzie wanted to get an angora rabbit. She had called a place locally but did not get a response. I gave her a contact in Charlotte and she went online, contacted them, and by the next day she had arranged to be the new owner of Milo, a one year old white angora bunny. She picked him up last week, and he has grown accustomed to his new home. He is really cute and Barb can't wait to spin up some of his fur!

Speaking of pets, Maisy and Lucy have been mischievous recently. They have taken to stealing my knitting. Not just grabbing a ball of yarn and messing it up by dragging it throughout the house. No, actually TAKING my knitting and hiding it in another room. It started when the Christmas stockings came out. Two Yankee Knitter stockings that I made for Helen and Sophie about 5 years or so ago. Just plain old Cascade 220, not even any fun angora in it, just wool. The cats thought the stockings looked interesting, so they jumped up on the tv cabinet (where we hang them... no fireplace in our house) and pulled them down. Each day I would come home and the stockings would be missing. They would turn up in various places around the house. Not ruined, but pulled here and there and in need of a little TLC.

Then last week, I started a new project. Two years ago we had this little "ponchini" or "shoulder warmer" as I like to call it. It was made out of Mountain Colors Alpaca Blend. I wore it all the time, but last year stopped wearing it. Betsy now wears it when she is chilled. Whenever someone sees her wearing it, they comment on it. So we decided to make another one, in Malabrigo. I picked out a color and grabbed the pattern and the Alpaca Blend "shoulder warmer" from Betsy's office - so I could compare it as I first started knitting. I worked on it that night, and went to work the next day, leaving the Alpaca Blend piece on the top of my knitting bag. When I got home that night, it was no longer in my bag. It was all the way upstairs by the linen closet. Luckily, no damage.

Yesterday, I finished the new one out of Malabrigo. I took it down to the basement and blocked it. It was nicely laid out on a couple of towels on top of the washing machine. I went upstairs for NOT EVEN five minutes and came down to see the towels, sitting on the machine, with nothing on them but a wet impression of the shoulder warmer. Marc and Helen and Sophie (and the two cats) were all in the basement. "Did anyone see my poncho?" I asked frantically. "Did anyone see the cats dragging a wet piece of pinkish-purplish wool around the room? The very room you are all sitting in? Is anyone paying any attention to anything? How can you miss something like that? It's like 400 yards of knitted wet wool! It's not invisible!" Well, no one saw anything. I searched the entire house and it was nowhere to be found. Finally I found it in a wet heap behind the couch in the basement. Hmmmmm. Again, no damage. Why can't they play with the nice catnip mice I gave them? Clearly I have to be more careful.

Our customer and friend Karen was in last week with a scarf she has made many times by mixing fibers. I had always heard her talking about it and she finally brought it in. It was gorgeous and inspired us to make one up for the shop. It's a pattern we used for Duo (a Berroco bulky self striping yarn a few years back) with some added fringe - just a simple 1x1 rib on size 15 needles. But it combines three soft yarns in different colors, creating a beautiful blend. It took NO time at all and I've already picked out another combination to make myself one. Thanks Karen!

Rain, rain GO AWAY!

It's two days before Christmas and it's pouring. And I mean POURING! As in buckets of rain coming down. And rivers flowing down the street. How depressing.

This is Vermont - we are supposed to have snow! Well, it hasn't dampened people's spirits too much. We've seen people today from all over the country - here visiting relatives and friends and coming in to see us and get some last minute presents for others and for themselves.

Hope you all have a great holiday!

goodies for COTS

This year we had a great response to our charity knitting drive for COTS (Committee on Temporary Shelter) in Burlington, VT. Yesterday we sorted everything, and packed it into 5 huge boxes that we'll take to COTS later this week. Look at this loot!
We had the following handknits donated: 7 sweaters, 13 blankets!!, 3 pair of slippers, 26 scarves, 161 hats, and 54 pair of mittens. WELL DONE everyone! A mountain of hats!
A huge pile of blankets!
And a ton of mittens! Michele and I sorted everything and we just couldn't believe how nice everything was. People really put a lot of thought into this, and that's what it's all about. Thanks so much for donating your time, efforts and materials to help out. We are sure these items will all find a good home.

We've had a busy week here at the shop. People are coming in for last minute things and I think we've sold a record number of gift cards, both in the shop and online. Maybe you're one of the lucky ones who will be receiving a gift card? It's always fun to go out after the holidays and cash those in. How great to be able to choose your own gifts!

Michele just finished a pair of slippers for her neice. Aren't they cute? She needle felted stars on them - they're really adorable.

And last week I did finish my handpaint hat. I was able to get it to my sister-in-law in time for her birthday and she loves it. She's all about pink.

Need some ideas?

It's definitely crunch time. While many of you have started and completed most of your handknit holiday gifts, some of you have procrastinated and are starting to freak out as we approach the 11th hour. It's pretty obvious that most of us can't start and complete a large project at this point that will be ready in time for gift opening. So may I suggest some of the following smaller projects?

Hats are a great idea! You can make a quick ribbed hat in Blue Sky Worsted:

Another quick hat (cabled) in Blue Sky Wosted:A soft and washable ribbed hat in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted: Scarves are also quick. How about this gorgeous (and totally do-able in a week) lace cashmere scarf in Jade Sapphire:
And this pattern just arrived - an adorable kid's teddy bear and matching jacket in Oh My! (I made the bear body in one evening and the jacket will be done tonight.)

A lot of sitting and a little knitting

So surgery is over. It went well, and the recovery has been good so far. The day after surgery I felt wonderful, but then reality set in, and I've been swollen and slow to get around since. I am good friends with my couch, my ice bag and my flannel pajamas.

I thought I'd get some knitting done in pre-op. Call me a wimp, but the IV gave me enough discomfort in my left hand that I had no desire to knit. Even holding the People magazine was painful. Being drugged is a funny thing. That feeling of sort of, but not really remembering things? Like how Marc was taking pictures of me with his phone (ha ha to send back to everyone at the shop) and how he would take a picture of me (in the recovery room) and show it to me... and I would be SO horrified at how awful it looked (come on - who looks good in the recovery room?) that I would make him take another one. See? Death warmed over...Apparently he took three pictures, and by the third I must have told him not to bother taking anymore because clearly they weren't getting any better. Then that night at home he showed me the pictures and I had absolutely no recollection of him taking them? I do remember that one of the recovery room nurses is one of our customers, and then I saw another nurse (and customer) as I was being wheeled out to the car. This one is my "Deer in the Headlights" look.So on the knitting front, I have done okay. I finished the Jade Sapphire scarf and it is now blocking.I finished the handpaint hat and Barb stopped by this morning with yarn for a second one. (My sister-in-law has been staying with me this week and I am going to make one for her in pinks.)

I finished Sophie's hat in Velvet Touch, and am just about finished Marc's second hat. I made a really cute hat out of the Blue Sky Bulky last night, and I just need to make 3 cool pom-poms to go on the I-cord tassels.

Unfortunately our pom-pom makers did not come in the shipment this week, so I have to either make my own using cardboard (somewhat okay option, although they NEVER come out as perfect as they do with the pom-pom makers) or wait to borrow Kalen's when I go back to work on Tuesday. I will most likely wait. I may start the Blue Sky Worsted hat today, since that should be quick.

Today I have nothing but time. The girls are at a tennis lesson, and they have a birthday party this afternoon. Then they're going out to dinner and on a Christmas light tour with Marc's parents, sister and their 3 year old cousin, Ainsley. And Marc has his company Christmas party which he will attend solo, since I can't go. So that's a lot of quiet time for me. I think my only outing today (and first since Tuesday) is to go rent some DVDs to watch while knitting.

A vacation... of sorts

Today should be a good day. My second hernia (the first one got fixed two years ago) gets repaired this afternoon. Right now I'm a little hungry with the lack of food and water, and bummed that they pushed my surgery back several hours, but what can I do? It's given me time to write this, so that's a good thing! (It's a big day for the Bujolds in terms of surgeries... my hernia surgery, Marc's aunt's shoulder surgery, and the two kitties are getting spayed.)

During the next week, I will have a bit of down time at home to recuperate. What a perfect time to finish up all of those projects that are staring back at me with evil eyes! Of course, with the holidays approaching, I have added a few gifts to the queue... Here's where it stands.

Top left: a neckdown cardigan out of Velvet Touch for my daughter Helen, who (along with her sister) still wears her last year's sweater about 3-4 times a week. It's getting a little on the short side, and she won't wear any of the store bought sweaters she has because she says they itch. SO, in her new favorite color... blue, I started another sweater for her in the summer. I haven't gotten to the armholes yet, so I can increase more to accommodate for her growth since summertime. It may or may not be finished by Christmas. The other day I whipped up a cute little hat for her - out of the same Velvet Touch and a strand of blue Baby Ull. VERY cute, with some I-cord fringies at the top. The pink/purple one will be for Sophie, and the multi colored/pink one MAY be for my niece. If I get that far.

Last year I made Marc a striped ribbed hat out of Cool Wool, which we have discontinued. It was red, gray and black, and he wears it every day. It's been washed numerous times and is still in pretty good shape. I saved a few balls of the yarn, and I'm making him two more hats to add into the "rotation." I've finished one, so I have one more to go. Last night when I was leaving the store, I grabbed 2 skeins of Blue Sky Worsted in Cranberry to make a set of wristers and matching hat (a Blue Sky pattern). Gift? Maybe. More likely... shop sample. I also pulled 2 skeins of Blue Sky Bulky in Lilac to make a bulky hat. Again, not sure if this is for someone or for the shop, I just felt the need to knit with this yarn in this color.

I started (and did not finish) two scarves when I went to Florida with my sister a few weeks ago. One is a dragon scale slace scarf out of Jade Sapphie 2-ply Mongolian Cashmere in Caribbean Mist. Talk about soft! I am almost finished this - I'm just having a hard time knowing when to stop. It is going to change pretty dramatically when blocked, both in width and length. I think I only have a few more repeats and the border, and then the blocking. I have a SIMPLE Koigu scarf that only takes one skein. That shouldn't take too long to finish. And then I am going to make my friend a Handpaint Hat. She saw mine the other day and commented on it, so I thought it would be fun to make her one, since it is SO quick.

If I finish all of these things, I can always go back to my crocheted pillowcases for my family room. I really would like to get those done in the near future. Or I may call the shop and ask for some yarn delivery!