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Showing posts from June, 2018

Free Pattern: Lilium Cowl in Manos del Uruguay Serena Yarn

When you think of Uruguay, inevitably you think of yarn....at least, if you are a knitter! Every yarn I've touched from Manos del Uruguay has not disappointed. I've been fortunate to work with several over the years, but somehow a skein of Serena , their blend of 60% baby alpaca and 40% pima cotton, never found its way into my hands. Until now! The kind folks at Fairmount Fibers, the US Distributor for Manos yarns, recently sent me a skein of Serena in a new colorway called Ethereal. As soon as I felt how soft and squishy this skein was, I knew it wanted to be a lacy cowl of some sort. What I found interesting about this yarn is that it's labeled as a sport weight, but the site notes that it has a "versatile" gauge. I ended up using smaller needles than recommended to knit this project, but I have a little bit left over and may have to try knitting a swatch on US 6 or 7 out of sheer curiosity! This yarn was amazing to work with, and in fact, I forgot that

Too big to fail, or too big to succeed?

For the first time in the seven years since I started working at Stitchcraft Marketing, I didn't go to the TNNA Trade show this past weekend, which is the annual buying show for yarn shops (and hence, where a lot of my clients exhibit). It's kind of nice to have the year off, because while trade shows are fun, they are also quite tiring. I spent a very relaxing weekend at home crafting and watching the Royals get swept by the reigning world champs. So it goes. I'm not one to suffer from FOMO, but I am curious to hear what everyone thought about the new venue in Cleveland. I'm especially interested to hear who was - and wasn't - there in the wake of last weeks' surprising announcement that Classic Elite Yarns is closing . It seems like this news has made the rounds of social media, but they aren't the only yarn-related business to recently announce that they are closing their doors: Lantern Moon posted about a "closeout sale" earlier this month

Weaving Wednesday: Project Planning Hits & Misses (PLUS: Cats!!)

Sometimes, when you plan a project, it goes horribly wrong. For example, I was really excited to weave with some yarn I've been given at the Creativation trade show at the start of this year; my plan was to make a soft and squishy bath mat using some recycled organic cotton yarn as the warp and t-shirt yarn as the weft. However, my plans quickly fell apart when I started warping my loom and discovered that I had completely miscalculated the amount of yardage I would need for this project. I ran out of yarn pretty quickly, and discovered that it was nearly impossible to purchase this yarn online, either from a yarn store OR via someone's destash on Ravelry. It would have been such an awesome project... The problem with running out of yarn mid-warp is that you can't really take it off the loom and re-use it for something else. Once it's on, it's on, because it's such a pain to get off that you're better off just cutting your losses, quite literally. Th

New Knitting Pattern: Canyon Steps Cowl

I'm so excited to finally share this pattern with you! I've been working on it for a while because I am a Very Slow Knitter these days, plus my design process seems to involve a lot more frogging and reknitting these days. At any rate, it is with great pleasure that I introduce the Canyon Steps Cowl ! A series of triangular motifs grow larger in this fun-to-knit cowl using one skein of Gobi, a luxurious blend of baby camel and mulberry silk. The cowl begins with a wide rib edging followed by 3 sections using charted and written instructions and finishes with a wide rib edging and a stretchy bind off. If you can knit and purl, you can make this project! Project Kit Contains: 1 skein - Bijou Spun “Gobi" (35/65 Baby Camel /Mulberry Silk) in the color of your choice.  1 copy of the Canyon Steps Cowl pattern by yours truly 1 3.4 oz bottle of Allure Fine Fiber wash in your choice of fragrance   1 three pack of custom, hand-made stitch markers from Purrfectly Cat