Ready and Waiting...

That's right, later today we begin load-in for Crafty Wonderland, the fantastic indie craft show that's taking place at the Convention Center this weekend.  We'll have all our latest spring yarns there to share with you, and tons of info about Yarnia and how the shop works, in case you haven't gotten the chance to come by and try it out in person.

The store will be open regular hours all weekend too of course, and Sarah will be here to take care of all your yarn-related needs :)


Follow us on Twitter for updates from the show floor and special deals for Crafty Wonderland attendees throughout the weekend!

Down To The Wire

 

So this being my third Girasole in two years, I like to think that I've got a pretty good grasp on my timeline, and that I plan ahead enough so that I'm not frantically knitting the lace border until 4 a.m. right before the big day.  

I started this one in February, but you know how these things go.  I'm constantly distracted by the 10+ other things on my needles or in my queue, and here we are with about a month to go before this lovely blanket's recipients tie the knot.  

I'm eight rows from the end.  Doesn't sound like a lot, right?  Well, by the time I'm at this point in the pattern, it takes me about 45 minutes to finish a row...and I'm a damn fast knitter.  But really it's the knitted-on lace border that makes the final 5% of this pattern interminable.  

This kind of edging looks awesome in the end, but with every stitch being expanded into 6, and then knitted back and forth to create a large picot point, it takes a deceivingly long time to finish.  I'll show you why when I get there, but for now, I'm queuing up some podcasts and settling in for a long evening of knitting!

Featured Yarn -- Hyacinth

Hyacinth

Shades of orange cotton, linen, and rayon mingle in this springtime yarn -- soft, lightweight, and cool against the skin, with a slight boucle texture from the rayon.  Imagine the depth of color this would give in the Petrie Tank!

 

Also available in our online shop!

Baby Surprise Jacket

Believe it or not, in my 10 years of knitting, I've never, ever made a baby sweater.  Not ever.  Given that I tend to crank out 3-4 sweater-esque projects every winter I've always found that odd.  Then again, I've never had any babies in my life to give them to!

But now I have a good friend who's due in July, and she being a knitter herself, has taken on the task of the baby blanket, leaving me to contemplate my very first baby sweater.

Now, before even beginning the pattern research, I had to see what all this buzz about the Baby Surprise Jacket was really all about.  This vintage pattern, written by Elizabeth Zimmerman in 1968, is, as far as I can tell, the most popular and famous baby sweater pattern out there.

With over 11,000 finished or in-progress BSJs on Ravelry right now (as well as two support groups, and an entire KnitWiki devoted to this single garment), I am apparently not alone.

 From the Schoolhouse Press website

Good thing I was as excited to start my first BSJ as I was, because my new-project-fervor was immediately quashed when I realized I had to order the pattern, hard-copy, through the mail.  I realize now how spoiled I am in this Internet age, to rely on the fact that upon dreaming up a project, I can search a robust database of patterns, filter down to the free ones or pay with Paypal, and have it printed out with my size highlighted, all within ten minutes.  But at this point I was already on board...so I waited.

And then yesterday, it arrived!  I have to admit, the suspense did make it just a little bit more exciting, and charming that it came on a single sheet of paper with narrative instructions and a hand sketch of the shapeless garment, post-knitting and pre-folding.

(For those of you not familiar with the BSJ, the most lauded part about it is that it's knitted in one single piece -- no seaming or joining -- and then key corners of the garment are folded together and in one magical moment your weird-looking, rumply, garter-stitched mass suddenly looks like a jacket!)

I knew that I wanted to do a bamboo-cotton yarn for this one (for a summer baby!), so I started making swatches for the version that calls for 6 stitches per inch.  (No needle size is given, just a yarn recommendation and directions to try out different needles till you get gauge.  My kind of pattern!)

I came up with three beautiful, gender-neutral colors, 76% bamboo, 24% cotton, that I'll be alternating to create the cool right-angle stripes that this project is famous for.

Then, the exciting part -- casting on!  I haven't been able to put this one down ever since, even while out for drinks with some friends last night.  

The allure of sportweight bamboo on size 5 needles, the monotony of straight knitting being interrupted by two easy decreases on odd-numbered rows, the cute pudginess of garter stitch...

I'm totally addicted, already.

Crafty Wonderland's a-comin'!

Hey, did you know that Crafty Wonderland is next weekend?  This is Portland's biggest, hippest, and craftiest show around!  If you didn't happen to catch them in December, they've now got a spring show too, and it's coming up very soon...(just in time for Mother's Day!)

We'll be there at the Convention Center with a bunch of new spring and summer yarns to show off, along with over 200 other crafty vendors and DIY activities all weekend long.  It's free -- what have you got to lose?!

Featured Yarn -- Yirgacheffe

Yirgacheffe

This vibrant blend of bamboo, alpaca, and merino wool is as soft as it is colorful, set against a black rayon for contrast, and with a strand of copper metallic for shine!

Pattern Suggestion: Clapotis

 

Also available in our online shop!

What to do with all this cotton??

We've been stocking up on cotton for spring and summer projects lately...like really stocking up.  Like there's-nowhere-left-to-put-it-so-we're-stacking-it-next-to-the-machine stocking up.  

So what to do with all this cotton?  Well, fortunately we also have a plethora of bamboo, wool, and rayon to mix it with -- three fantastic matches for a cotton, to make soft, breathable, springtime blends.

However, I also love winding up the cotton just on its own, in a few different shades to make a bulky, durable yarn for dish towels, which knit up thick and quick for absorbent accents to your kitchen, and make great presents.  These are fantastic little projects to keep on hand once the warm weather hits and you can't bear to think of knitting with wool, but want to satiate your eager fingers!

 In fact, if you drop by our booth at Crafty Wonderland two weekends from now, you can be the first to grab one of our dish towel kits that we'll be selling, ready to go on 4-oz. cones, with the above pattern included.

Featured Yarn -- Java

Java

Spring is in the air!  This yarn mixes lightweight cotton and linen with a shiny rayon boucle, all in shades of green, and a whopping 400 yards!

 

Also available in our online shop!

Design your own yarn...online!

So here comes a big announcement about a project that's been in the works since the beginning of this year, in response to a frequent request from our out-of-town customers: the ability to design your own custom blend of yarn online.

We are very excited to let you know about a new part of our website that lets you do just that.  Now in addition to choosing from pre-made cones in our online shop, you can also design your own custom blend of yarn online, tailored to the colors, fibers, and weight that you are envisioning -- just like in the store!

Attempting to put a representative sample of our inventory online for you to choose from has been a big undertaking, so please keep in mind that this is a beta version of the site, and we welcome any feedback you have about the process. 

While we expect the new custom order site will be most beneficial to those of you who don't live near enough to come and design your own yarn in person at the shop, we hope that it will be helpful to all you Portlanders too: while the colors samples are not an exhaustive list of every yarn we have in the store, we're doing our best to keep it updated as new yarns come in, and expect that it will be a fun way to peruse the options and gather ideas if you've got a specific project in mind.

Okay, ready?  The new site can be found here (or accessed from our homepage).

Enjoy!

Thinking Outside of the Box

When one of our customers came in a few weeks ago looking for some yarn to use for wall art in his house, I was intrigued but couldn't quite wrap my head around what he was describing.  Lucky for us, he sent a picture of the finished product -- definitely one of the coolest DIY art installations I've ever seen!

Featured Yarn -- Eustuma

Eustuma

This luxurious yarn is made up of silk, linen, and bamboo, giving it a wonderful drape that would be ideal for spring or summer projects!  But you don't need to spend all year tackling that shawl you've had your eye on -- at a worsted weight, this light turquoise-grey mix will knit up fairly quickly, and the tweed of the raw silk and linen gives this yarn a wonderful texture.

Also available in our online shop!

Open Easter Sunday

For those of you wondering, yes we will be open Easter Sunday -- regular hours, from 12 to 5 p.m.

See you there!

Fair Isle Update

This project...finished!!

Important lesson learned: even if you're really careful about keeping the fair isle from puckering, the fabric will still pull inwards more than your non-fair-isle swatch!  Luckily in this case it wasn't beyond the reaches of some steam blocking from my iron.

Two rounds of single crochet for the border, some end-weaving, and voila!