Yarn Gallery Blog

Two days off and nothing accomplished!  Unlike Dave Ritz, whose latest and greatest are below this post.  I love the sweater he made for himself – the pattern was translated from German and was a bit mysterious but you can see how well perseverance pays off.  And that baby gansey is just too precious, check out the underarm gussets, love it!

I actually did finish a sweater

and get a lot done on another.  However, I should be spending time on other things, but – oh, well, if anyone knows how that sentence ends, the people who read this blog do. ‘Tis the season to be knitting, and that’s that.

I just added two new classes to the Class page on the website. Karen Walter is teaching both of them, a Fair-Isle tam which you saw a couple posts ago   and these cute little fingerless mitts.  She made them in the Fibre Company’s Canopy, such a beautiful yarn to work with.

Okay, I’ve got to get a move on here or the boys won’t get their walk and I won’t have time to do my nails, which are getting to Howard Hughes length and must be dealt with! I can barely type – I keep hitting 2 keys at once.

Here is a beautiful sweater knit by Billie Beadle from a Debbie Bliss design in Luxury Donegal Tweed.  It’s absolutely beautiful and she loves it, but admits there was a lot of sewing up to do to put all the blocks and strips together.  Worth it, now that it’s done!

This is a top-down sweater that Jettie Hunt is working on in my favorite Debbie Bliss yarn, Cathay (of course, discontinued!).  She got the design from Dave Ritz and it’s turning out great in this wonderful and sophisticated color:

Amy Wall and her mom were in for our Top-Down sweater class that just started, and brought in some goodies.  Here is her version of Chris Bylsma’s Making Waves bag:

And this is her rendition of our Plain and Fancy scarf.  Both turned out so well!

Lynne Nagle was in to start her crocheted dishcloth series and brough in a couple of neat show-and-tells.  Here is a crocheted sock in Zauberball:

This is a bag she’s test-crocheting for the designer in Silk Garden.  I can’t wait to see it finished:

And she’s wearing this “easy” sweater that I hope she’ll teach this winter:

She’s making a dressed-up version in black – we’ll see that soon, I hope!

Got to run – see you soon!

Trish

shulana sweater, originally uploaded by yarngal628.

hi trish.. well i just finished my sweater YAY!!! Ii love it!! it
was so worth all the time trying to figure out the pattern, thank u.
( which was really easy as the pattern got established) , but i wrote
it all down in my own words just in case i want to make it again for
myself..

here are 2 pictures of it..

cya soon!!!

baby gansey, originally uploaded by yarngal628.

hi trish
had to make a quick baby sweater for a friend of mine… so i made a
baby gansey..(can u tell im excited about the upcoming class!!)
i should also be done with my schulana sweater either today or
tomorrow…i love it!!!!
cya soon
Dave Ritz

Well, now, I believe just last week I was b**ching about yarn not coming in as quickly as I thought it should.  The universe was listening and look what UPS brought us last week:

Geordie is hoping they all contain dog biscuits, but there was not even one crummy biscuit in the whole load.  It was disappointing for the canines on staff but really very exciting for the knitters!  The challenge last week was to find someplace to put everything so that people could actually get in the store, and somehow we managed to do that.  Now we need to find permanent homes for it all and that will take a while.  I’ll be introducing things as we get them sorted out.

The first yarn I want to introduce because it’s really just moving out the door so quickly, I want you at least to have a look at it, is K’acha, a Mirasol yarn made of baby alpaca, merino wool and silk.

It’s a mottled hand-dyed monochrome, soft and smooth with a subtle sheen, that knits at a worsted gauge.  I like it at 4.5 stitches per inch, although the yarn company recommends 5.25.  I think it would be a waste of yarn, but yarn companies are prone to mess with gauge to encourage you to use more yarn.  Aren’t you surprised?  That’s why I always like to knit with a new yarn and really see what it wants to do best.  All the colors are really lovely, even the pale one that looks like silver on my monitor but is really a wheat color.  The more you look at the skein, the more you see.  There are already about 4 sweaters being knit with this yarn just from this weekend, so you know it’s irresistible.  Beware!

Some old friends that were received this week were Rapture from Reynolds, one of their great All-American yarns, cabled in wool and silk, at 3.5 – 4 stitches to the inch; Moorland, a mohair, wool, nylon tweed from Classic Elite that was a favorite last year – no new colors arrived yet, darn it, but I expect them soon; new colors of Superior, the laceweight brushed cashmere/silk blend from Filatura di Crosa, a gorgeous peony included.  I could go on, but I’ll stop for now.

Lynne Nagle brought in another version of the crocheted mitts she’ll be teaching later this fall, done in a fingering weight merino from Debbie Bliss, in a gorgeous red for her mom.

Sorry for the eye-blasting contrast with the blue shirt!  The mitts are so darn cute and Lynne says the size is really adjustable for any hand or any yarn.

Jodi Spiegel made these adorable booties from BabyBoo in just a couple evenings, and came back for a couple more colors.

How sweet are these little things?

And Robin Lapi finished her second Big Easy in Tahki Yarns’ Montana.

New colors came in this week, with the newest designs, too.  Check out this fabulous cape – I think it’s on my list!  I just need another foot in height to carry it off.

Well, I am off to work on my bathroom for the rest of the afternoon.  Someone in the history of this old house painted the tiles a lovely shade of beige.  Removing the paint has been a dreaded first step in re-doing the horrible little room.  I finally started and look what I found:

A pretty little black and white frieze that I think is repeated along the top.  Now I’m inspired and want to uncover the rest.  Honestly, who would paint bathroom tile?  It must have been a man!  (Sorry to all you men with good taste out there.)

And tonight I’m going to finish (maybe) the borders on my lace and bobble cardigan.  Here’s a look at the interesting part of the sweater.  I really like the way the yarn (Mermaid from Fibra Natura) makes a good, crisp pattern, don’t you?

Okay, enough!  Come in soon and see all the beautiful stuff (oh, and pet the boys, like Beth Bauman’s mom, Edie, is doing here.  Both hands engaged!)

Don’t they all three look content? See you soon!

Trish

I had occasion to look back through all the images I’ve posted on this blog for the last two(?) years and all I can say is:  You guys are incredible!  When I looked though all the projects that have been so beautifully executed by our customers, I was floored.  It was a stroll down Memory Lane, recalling who made this and what yarn it was made from – and sometimes harking back to the frustrations, problems, ripping out, and final triumph over adversity.  (Some sweaters are like suspense novels:  will her gauge change halfway through, can the neckline be successfully changed, will she rip out or live with this boo-boo, will her daughter like the color – oh, the Humanity!)  Anyway, bravo and brava to you all!

The shop has been busy, busy with people signing up for classes and in for new projects and lots of new yarns to learn about, to find a place for, to dream of what they’ll become.  I love fall so much and this weather – well, I don’t want to wear wool every day yet, but my Napa sure felt great one cool morning last week.  Karen Walter and I scheduled a couple of small-project classes this week – I’m sorry I haven’t updated the class page yet but I will, and send an e-mail when it’s done.  Meanwhile, this is one of the projects:

It’s such a pretty thing, and you really should touch it, it’s made from 2 colors of Road to China, a wonderful blend of baby alpaca, soy, camel, and I think, silk.  It’s lovely!  I had to try it on: I do love hats!  Karen is also going to teach some last-minute mitts, which she’s making from another Fibre Company yarn, Canopy, also an interesting blend of strange and exotic fibers: We’re looking for other fun and quick projects for the holidays – any suggestions out there?

I finished the Textured Cardigan from Vogue Knitting, which was a lot of fun to do.  The shoulders really are too wide, although my pretty little sister looks great in it, n’est-ce pas? She actually looks pretty great in anything, darn her anyway.  I’m still thinking about those shoulders, though.  The yarn – I love it!!!! really four exclamation points for this wonderful Plymouth Yarn (King George is its name) – should be here this week, I hope it’s shipping today although many yarn distributors are having a hard time keeping up with shipments.  They, too. have had layoffs and have had to trim inventories and so on, just like every other business, so the yarns are sometimes slow to roll in.

I started a sweater in Lima from Rowan – another yarn that you just want to roll in, it’s so sensuously soft.  I don’t know whether I’m happy or not, the Lima Collection from Rowan is wonderful but it’s full of cardigans and jackets and this is definitely a next-to-the-skin yarn.  I’m pondering, and while I ponder, I must knit, so I also started this cute lace & bobble cardigan from Classic Elite’s Weekend booklet, only instead of their Chesapeake yarn, I’m doing it in wonderful Mermaid from Fibra Natura.  In white, which is what I had here.  Very impractical, but my, it’s so so pretty.

Crocheters – or potential crocheters – the photos of the dishcloths in this fall’s series are up on the Class page, as is a picture of the fingerless mitts that Lynne is going to teach (also shown here):  They are very cute, and lovely to make and wear in Crystal Palace’s Merino 5.

And we received one set of Knitter’s Blocks, a snap-together set of foam blocks that you can use to block your knits.  I only have the regular size shown here but I understand it also comes in a larger size (more blocks).  I think it’s kind of expensive ($48 plus tax) but if you have nowhere to block things, this will certainly work, and it’s easier to store than a huge blocking board or (my favorite idea) a nice big piece of foam insulation from Lowe’s.

Well, I’d like to keep rattling on, because I’m in cleaning and paperwork avoidance mode, but I really must get at it, so I’ll see you soon…

Trish