Brrr!

The weather for the next couple of days here in Vermont will give us a real taste of fall.

As knitters and crocheters, we're thrilled. It's time to get those woolies out of summer storage and start enjoying them!

A little housekeeping for Charity

Some updates on some recent charity items...

Yesterday was a feel good day! We sent a check to the Vermont Foodbank for over $3,600. We pledged 25% of our sales over a several day period to the Vermont Foodbank, and we're really proud of our efforts, and of your support. 

We were so touched by the kind emails and letters we received. It's really clear that the beautiful state we live in has also touched many of you in one way or another. We know the Vermont Foodbank has always done great work, and now they're working even harder than ever to make sure that Irene-affected Vermonters don't go hungry. They are doing a great job, but contributions certainly help them.

And last week, a pattern designer named Suzy Allen-Wuttke from Long Island contacted us after she heard we were donating a portion of our sales to the Vermont Foodbank. She very graciously offered to design a pattern for us to sell to our customers, if we'd donate 100% of the proceeds to the Vermont Disaster Relief Fund. This pattern is going to be available online in the next day or so (sorry! I've been hit with my first bad cold of the season here in Finland... yes, it's FALL already here and that means sickness!) Anyway, it's a great pattern and we are really excited to be able to give back in this way. Thanks Suzy!

And finally... preemie hats! Yes, we are still running our preemie hat contest and drive and we are accepting preemie hats through the end of September. We've had a bit of a slowdown in the preemie hat donations... I think that Irene had a bit to do with that. But it's not too late to whip one (or two!) up. For more information please read this.

Thanks again, we're proud to be here for all of you.

All colors of Voile de la Mer, now available

We are now selling every single, gorgeous color of Tilli Tomas Voile de la Mer. 

This yarn is a blend of silk and seacell (kelp!) and has been one of our best selling yarns for shawls. It's a luxury yarn that you'll definitely want to try. Read the reviews!

One Cable Mitts Class

contributed by Shawn

Not too long ago I was debating what to do with my latest "favorite skein". It was a single skein of the Blue Sky Alpaca Worsted Hand Dye yarn in the Chocolate color. I just hadn't come up with a pattern or project to match it's lovely hand and color.   

Barb suggested I make the Blue Sky Alpaca's FREE One Cable Mitts and I agreed, I would give them a try.  These mitts are so nice to put on! I can't wait to wear them for raking the yard.

The best part is they are a simple single cable that crosses in one direction (reversed for the second mitt).  They knit up so quickly and I like them so much that we decided this would make a great project class this fall. So come join us in October, learn how to cable and make your very own pair.

This pattern only takes one skein of this scrumptious blend of wool and alpaca so it's a great gift idea.

Customer Project - Double Baby Shower

contributed by Shawn

What do you do for a double baby shower?! Well you knit little baby hats of course :)

Leslie brought these two hats in to show us the other day.  We love the Be Sweet Bambino Taffy cotton-bamboo blend yarn. It is so soft and one skein enough to make the Sweetie Pie Hat pattern. 

Bonus! This hat pattern comes ON the yarn label and who doesn't love a free cute hat pattern? 

These two hats needed to fit newborn babies so Leslie decreased the size a bit by removing one heart motif repeat.  

Tada! Just right to take to the double baby shower!

Fall Classes

contributed by Shawn

We have had customers asking for several weeks what classes will be offered this fall.  Well, since the Champlain Valley Fair is over and kids are back in school - that means fall is officially here!   

Watch for those leaves to start changing!

We've scheduled our knitting classes for this fall with winter gifts and projects in mind. Want to make a simple first hat, that goes quickly and won't discourage you? Why not delve into mitten techniques and make felted mittens for everyone you know. How about making a beautiful accessory for yourself or for a special friend? Our drop stitch scarf is easy, yet a bit scary, so let us hold your hand through the scary part.

If you are working on finishing some of your own projects, make sure you know how to seam properly! Our finishing workshop is always popular. If some of your projects are ready to gift but just need a little something special added to them, join us for our needle felting class.   

Sign up soon to reserve your spot before classes fill up. Don't forget if you don't see something that fits your needs you can always contact us for individual instruction!  

Calling All Knitters & Crocheters!

Two more days to make your purchase count. We are still donating 25% of our sales (through Wednesday 9/7) to the Vermont Foodbank. But here's another way you can help!

India, who used to work at our shop and then went on to continue teaching classes for us for several years, has relatives in Moretown, Vermont who were directly affected by Hurricane Irene. She's doing something to help, and we're trying to get the word out for her.

She just sent me an email yesterday and said, "We are feeling shell shocked here. Andy's down in Moretown today. The help and community response has been so wonderful, and then I remember the scope of the devastation and I just want to crawl into a hole. Doing the Warm Hats thing helps and gives me something positive to focus on."

Here is a message from India to our customers and community:

On August 28, Hurricane Irene visited Vermont. Although my town was spared the worst, many towns throughout the state suffered devastating flooding. My husband’s brother, sister, and mother narrowly escaped the rising waters of the Mad River, which inundated their home and their village, soaking everything in its path, taking out roads and bridges, and leaving behind inches of muck and piles of debris. 

My family was lucky. Many of their things, including their clothing, are salvageable. But many others are not so fortunate. Though it is still quite warm here, we all know that soon the weather will turn much colder, and people will reach for that favorite sweater or scarf, only to remember that it’s gone. 

I’m collecting donations of hand knit hats, scarves, mittens, sweaters, socks, blankets, baby items, and knitted toys, items for anyone from babies through adults, to distribute to flood survivors in Vermont and upstate New York. If you would like to ply your needles for people in need, please contact me, India Tresselt, at warmhearts2@gmail.com. Thank you! 

If anyone would like to drop things off at the Kyarns shop, we're happy to get them to India. Thanks!

Reminder: 3 More Days to Help Us... Help

Tomorrow is Labor Day, and as usual the shop will be closed. A lot of Vermonters are spending this Labor Day - a day usually filled with cookouts, end of season hikes, boat rides & family gatherings - helping other Vermonters clean up after Irene. People are pitching in and doing what they can to lend a hand and it's so heartwarming.

As a reminder - in case you missed it in our email last week, on our homepage or on our Facebook page - we have been setting aside 25% of our daily sales since Friday of last week from both the shop and the website. This money will be donated to the Vermont Foodbank, to help Vermonters who've been hardest hit. While we're not able to lend a hand and do the physical cleanup ourselves, this is a way we hope to offer some assistance.

There's still time to help, as we're running this through Wednesday, September 7th at midnight EST.

The cleanup in our state is ongoing, and the weather forecast for the next couple of days is dreadful, calling for 1-4" more of heavy rain in areas of Northern New York and Vermont, with more flash floods possible. This could bring more disaster to folks who've already been hit the hardest. We're crossing our fingers and hoping for the best.

Thanks so much for your support.

Followup to Shawn's post on Vogue Knititng Fall 2011

Thanks to Shawn, for a great look at some of the pieces in Vogue Knitting Fall 2011.

I wanted to point out to our customers that Vogue has a great way for you to see the pieces in a bit more depth. Sure, a photo in a magazine is great, but isn't seeing the garment modeled by a real person even better? And what about hearing a short description about it?

Well, if this sounds interesting to you, please check out VK360. Thanks to Vogue for this great feature!

Vogue Knitting Fall 2011

contributed by Shawn

The only good thing about the 12 straight hours of rain on Sunday, was that it gave me a chance to dive into the new Vogue Knitting Fall 2011. There are a lot of great things in this issue!

For those of you looking to "Shape Up!" there is an excellent article by Meg Swansen on 3 short row shaping methods that can help you produce professional looking handmade fitted garments.

Neutral Fair-Isle knits are featured lovely contrasts of black, white, and grey. I think the Nordic Gloves by Lone Smevik Soleng would be lovely knit in SMC Juvel Yarn. This yarn is new for us, and it's perfect for mittens and gloves because it is a superwash sport/dk weight wool.  Easy care is a must for winter hand wear here in Vermont!

The Nordic Yoke Pullover by Ruth Garcia-Alcantud is worked in the round from the bottom up and is shown here in Brown Sheep Nature Spun Sport Yarn which is a new favorite of our customers, both local and online. This yarn comes in an amazing array of colors, is soft and really reasonably priced.

Wenlan Chia presents 2 oversized sweater patterns knit in Twinkle Handknits Soft Chunky Yarn.  The Striped Cardi 

and Striped Back Top are both great looking pieces.

I think my favorite is the relaxed-fit zip-front cape by Kristin Omdahl. Knit in in Manos del Uruguay Wool Clasica Yarn, the openwork sides of this Lace Belted Cape become sleeve-like with the addition of a belt for a flattering sillouhete.

And there's a BONUS! Don't miss the GREAT article on brioche cable knitting by Nancy Marchant.  I really can't wait to try to knit this hat - stunning!

Knit in the round the hat features crossed stitches and linear decreases done in the two-color brioche technique.  Nancy's article "Crossing Over" describes everything in detail and even though I haven't tried brioche knitting yet with this article I know I can do it!

We're Okay, Thanks!

We so appreciate the support of our customers and friends. We couldn't be here without you, and to know that you care and were worried about us during Hurricane Irene is so heartwarming. 

This past weekend's weather event was strong and scary. But we are fine. We had no flooding, no wind damage, no power outage. We are among the lucky ones. My staff - who all live in a pretty wide radius of Essex Jct - also weathered the storm very well, with perhaps some lack of power, but nothing else. It could have been so much worse for us, but it wasn't. For many others it was.

By now we've all seen the heartbreaking pictures and videos coming from towns all over Vermont: houses flooding and floating away, historic covered bridges collapsing into rivers and disappearing and sections of highways being broken up like potato chips. It just doesn't seem real.

We've had lots of customer emails over the past couple of days, asking us if we were okay and pouring out their sympathies for all of the people in our lovely state who have lost everything in Hurricane Irene. Thanks so much for your care and concern. Fortunately we do not need it, but we will pass it along to those who do. Our hearts go out to everybody in Vermont (and in other states) who was affected by Irene.

Knitting Gardeners (or Knitters w/Gardening Friends)... This One's For You!

Is it just a coincidence that almost every single knitter I know is also an avid gardener? The only bad thing about knitting and gardening is that the knitting always suffers when it's gardening season, right?

Well there's not much we can do about that. I don't believe anyone has found a way to knit and garden (successfully) at the same time. I have seen people knitting while exercising though, so maybe it's only a matter of time?

For now, here's a great way for you to at least ENJOY your knitting while working in your garden. A husband and wife pair from San Francisco have started "Plant Bombing" and I'm absolutely loving it! 

Read the article on treehugger.com by clicking here!

I used to have hens & chicks in my rock garden, but I would much rather plant them in these colorful pockets!

Check out Heather's website for instructions!

Heather's website has great instructions on how to make these knitted pockets. Crocheters need not feel left out... it's a pretty simple construction and could easily be done in crochet.

This is a great project for stash yarn, and a great CREATIVE gift for all of your gardening friends this holiday.

Noro Silk Garden Color Inspiration

We received some amazing new colorways of Noro Silk Garden yarn 

not too long ago. I kept admiring them, and finally couldn't resist any longer. So I decided to take a break from my current project (a stealth one that I can't share with you until after the wedding next month!) and start something new.

I took home 2 skeins of the plum, mustard, tomato, and tan colorway (#341).  This color was calling out to me on a daily basis, and so it quickly became a hat. The Spiral Beanie Hat.

I have already had so many comments on this - everyone loves the colors! I promise I haven't been wearing it yet. It is still too hot for that here. The comments come from when I am working on it in public!

The pattern is in Noro Knits and is a simple 4 row repeat with slight modifications for the decreases at the top.  Doesn't the spiral jump out due to the color changes? LOVE! 

And I'm not alone in making this hat. It's a top pick of our customers, too!

Petite Hats

contributed by Shawn

Our preemie hat drive and contest is still going on!

We are still asking folks to bring us creative Preemie Hats.  I finished my first one in record time. (Do you know how QUICK tiny hats are?) 

I made a simple one color tea-bag (rectangular top) style hat. It's not too fancy, just a cute shape for a tiny head with a bit of alternating knit and purl stitching for texture interest.  

I used our free preemie hat pattern to give me an idea of the number of stitches needed for correct sizing and then just let things flow.  The Plymouth Dreambaby DK yarn is soft and I'm sure the dusty blue color will look great on some little distinguished gentleman in the NICU.

Fashion, and function

Ruffles. Sure they're topping the trend charts right now, but a ruffled scarf is definitely more decorative than it is warm. And with cooler temperatures just around the corner, it's important to put some function into your fashion.

Barb and decided to add some warmth to a ruffled scarf. She experimented with the Trendsetter Flamenco and Joseph Galler Flore Mohair. The end result is spectacular! 

Stay tuned for the pattern, we'll have it written up later today. And remember, any of the ruffled yarns will work for this pattern!

Fall's Coming. Wrap Your Head Around It.

Even though things in Vermont are not quite as fall-like as they are here in Finland, our Vermont customers have started to wrap their heads around fall projects. And by "wrap their heads" we find it interesting that a lot of people are making just that... head wraps! Hats, beanies, berets, whatever you call them, they're always fun projects. And we have a few that are standing out as the favorites of the season.

The Zig Zag Tam has to be one of the leaders! Can you believe that these two hats were made with the SAME two colors of yarn? That's right. They just alternated the MC and the CC. Even if you knit two hats using the same colors (without alternating MC and CC) you will have two hats that appear different. The Classic Elite Liberty Wool is for sure one of my favorite yarns. I don't know why I love it (the colorways? the random striping? the softness? the washability? the hand?) but I do. Many customers are finding this hat irresistable, and I'm really not surprised at all. It's on my list as well.

Another is the Spiral Beanie. This one also quenches the thirst of color seekers. It's knit with just 2 skeins of Noro Silk Garden (can also be made in Noro Kureyon if you'd like) and the pattern is in the Knit Noro book. Remember Shawn's blog post about this book? Well the true Noro lovers (and new Noro lovers) came flocking, and it's safe to say that our customers have got a lot of Noro on the needles right now!

The Zeikova Hat is another one that is drawing attention. This style of hat - somewhat over-sized and slouchy - has a unisex look. And it only looks hard! This easy hat is reversible, and worked in two colors of Berroco Flicker, a gorgeous and soft alpaca chainette yarn with an ever so subtle glitter. The new shades that just came out are perfect for this hat.

All three of these are great hats for the coming cold season. And they'd be great as gifts too!

Progress!

Remember this?

Well now it's finished, and I love it! Of course it's going to be making it's way back to the shop this week, so it will not get buttons until it arrives there.

I had enough yarn leftover that I decided to make a super cute jester hat. I found the pattern on Ravelry (it's free) and it is a great project for self striping yarn like the Liberty Wool. It's called the Baby Jester Hat.

I've also completed one preemie hat for our preemie hat drive. (Notice how I'm working a lot with yellows, greens and blues? Hmmm.)

I whipped it up pretty quickly the other day, and then paused for a bit to make the jester hat. I'll be making more... and hey, that jester hat might be a good idea...

Now I'm about to start the Storm Cloud Shawlette, another freebie on Ravelry. I am going to try combining the Blue Heron Rayon Metallic with the Rowan Kid Silk Haze. I love lace weight yarns like the Kid Silk Haze, but I'm not fond of using them by themselves. I thought that blending it with the Rayon Metallic would be more up my alley!

Knitscene Fall 2011 Preview

contributed by Shawn

The wonderful fall projects just keep rolling right in!  Check out the new issue of Knitscene Fall 2011.

In keeping with the 'We Love Bulky Yarns' trend for this fall the Grand Palais Shawl by Tanis Gray will be quick knit in Tahki Montana Yarn. This is a simple garter stitch triangular shawl with a knit-on lace edging. Hey what a great way to try lace knitting - with bulky yarn!

We often get asked for advice on top-down and bottom-up knitting patterns in the shop. The Beauty of Seamless article by Amy Palmer discusses top down vs bottom up circular seamless knitting techniques.  She suggests pitfalls that may arise so that you can weigh your options BEFORE you start your project. And she points out that the beauty of knitting sweaters in the round is that you can often try these on in the middle of your knitting process to be sure you get it just right!  Knitting Pure & Simple patterns are some of my favorites for beginner top-down patterns, and Figheadh Fundamentals has some great ones too.

 

For those of you sending off a college-bound guy this fall, there is a great quick bulky knit for him! Take a look at the East Hale Cardigan by Alexis Winslow.  Knit in Cascade EcoWool the yarn offers a range of lovely neutral shades in un-dyed wool.  A quick zippered layer with a shawl collar and garter trim detailed with i-cord edging.

By knitting the lace weight Filatura di Crosa Nirvana Yarn at a sport/dk weight gauge, Debbie O'Neill offers the sophisticated Hawkmoth Pullover. It's perfect for layering over those summer tops on a cool autumn evening.

And just because I LOVE saying the word 'Lepidoptera' I have to point out the Lepidoptera Cardigan by Anne Kuo Lukito.  This is knit in Manos del Uruguay Lace. The patterning is lovely - like scales on a butterfly wing - and the difference in texture is achieved by knitting the lace yarn single stranded for the body and double stranded for the edging panels.

Amy Herzog features two different patterns in this issue that use some of my favorite yarns. The Cooke Cardigan is knit using Fibre Company Canopy Worsted. I think it would be lovely in my favorite color Sarsparilla.

Also catching my eye for this fall is the Pinstripe Pullover knit using Berroco Ultra Alpaca.  We got in some great new shades for fall, and I just have to choose a color first!

A quick peek at some of the new fall yarns

New yarns, new yarns! From novelties, to super bulkies, and ruffles to chainette, we’ve got em!

This year novelty yarns are back, but they’re not like the novelty yarns of 4-5 years ago. They’re packed with different colors, fibers and textures. A couple of my favorites are Trendsetter Venus and Trendsetter Rendezvous. These are colorful and soft, and great for quick hats and scarves. (Excuse the watermarks!)

Another popular trend this season is using super chunky yarns like Berroco Link and Trendsetter Orbit… We’ve got size 35 and 50 needles for these yarns. Talk about instant gratification!

And ruffles are everywhere… We’ve got Knitting Fever Flounce, Knitting Fever Triana and Trendsetter Flamenco to satisfy all of you ruffle fiends. These yarns can be knit by themselves, but try adding in a few rows at a time to accessories for a really great look.

Another big thing this year… chainette construction yarns that knit up quickly and a warm and are super lightweight. Rowan Alpaca Chunky and Plymouth DeAire are two examples, and are both great for cozy accessories and sweaters.