We're Moving! (Okay, just the blog...)

That's right -- we're moving the blog over to Wordpress, and to our own domain!  So update your feeds, your readers, and your bookmarks!

New Blog Location: Chronicles of Yarnia

We're still putting the finishing touches on the aesthetics so it may not look perfect yet, but all the old posts are already migrated over and accessible, and from hereon out, I'll be posting over at the new site.

Make sure to come check us out, and to update anything that needs updating on your end.

Chronicles of Yarnia

See you there!

Featured Yarn :: Sam's Town

Sam's Town

Lovely neutral shades of bamboo, wool-nylon, and  a tweedy silk-polyester blend are mixed together in this fingering weight yarn.  This yarn is super soft, and has wonderful drape.

• Fiber Content: 66 bamboo / 18 silk-polyester / 16 wool-nylon
• Yardage: 435 yards
• Yarn Weight: Sock/Fingering
• Wraps Per Inch: 21
• Amount on Cone: 5 oz.
• Care: Hand or Machine wash cold / lay flat to dry
• Knitting Pattern Suggestion: Grace Socks
• Crochet Pattern Suggestion: Echarpe Pointes Violettes

Also available in our online shop!

May Knit & Crochet Night

Hey, all.  This Wednesday is the next Knit & Crochet night here at the shop, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. 

 

Bring your patterns, projects, ideas, questions, and meet some other crafty peeps in the neighborhood!

Swing on by after work and we'll make a night of it.  We'll be here knitting from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m., and will have tea, wine, music, good company, and some little snackies to keep us going!

I know I've got LOTS of projects that I need to get off the needles soon...how about you?

Check out the event on our Facebook page for more info, and to let us know if you're planning on coming!  (RSVP not required, just helpful to see ahead of time :))

How To Seam Two Pieces of Knitting Together

Okay, so you've finished knitting that beautiful, cozy, time-consuming sweater.  Aren't you proud?  Aren't you psyched??  Don't you want to try it on this minute and wear it all around town and show it off?  Oh...wait...it's in five different pieces?  Hmm...maybe it would be best to just stick it back in the knitting bag and come back to it a little later...


You're not alone.  Seaming your projects together after all the actual knitting has been done is often the bane of our existence.  After all, it's the knitting that you love, not hand-sewing, right?  


Well, unless you commit yourself exclusively to top-down, worked-in-the-round garments, this final step of finishing a long-term project may be unavoidable.  BUT, knowing how to seam your work together properly could be the crucial factor in deciding how you feel about your project after it's finished.


So, let's take a little crash course in seaming, shall we?  For the sake of this tutorial, we're going to assume you have to pieces of stockinette fabric that you're wanting to join together -- in my case, it's the front and the back of the Drape Front Sweater that I've been working on.


If you're lucky like me, the pattern that you're working from will have clearly labeled what part of the garment each section is.  It may seem obvious at the beginning, but after working on a project for four months, you may just be blindly following instructions at this point, and not even remembering what's up and what's down.

This is a great time to look at your finished pieces, and clearly label them so that you know you're matching up the right parts of your work, and not seaming them together inside-out or top-to-bottom or something devastatingly crazy.

Now, if the piece you're seaming is quite a few inches long, match up the sides as evenly as you can, pinning the two pieces together every inch or two.  I usually use safety pins for this, but I was in a pinch here, so I used some marking pins instead.  Remember, your'e lining these pieces of fabric out so that the right side of each piece is facing the outside, and the wrong sides are pressed together on the inside of the work.

Thread some matching yarn through your tapestry needle, and begin by grounding this yarn in one of the corners.  Starting at the right-hand side, pull the needle through both pieces of the fabric, pinched together, right at the corner.  Leave a few inches of tail still dangling in front of the work, to be woven in later.

Then, bring the needle through just the front piece of fabric, from back to front.

This will keep your sewing yarn secure so you can pull tightly with each stitch.


Now, grab the piece of fabric in back, and look at the V's right near the edge, where your pins are.  If you pull these apart, you'll see little bars in between each of the V's.  Take your tapestry needle, and stick it under two of these bars at a time, then pull the yarn through.

Often it's easier to see these bars when you're one stitch away from the very edge of your work.

As you approach each of your marking pins, double check and make sure both sides of the fabric are being used up at an equal rate.  Hopefully, it will look something like this.

But, if instead it looks something like this, there's a pretty easy fix.

Instead of working beneath two of those bars on either side, only work one on the side that is more taught, while continuing to work two on the side that is gappier until both sides look even again.  As you approach each pin, remove it and focus on keeping your work even until just the next one.  Working in small steps like this ensures that the stitches on both pieces will come together evenly, without having to focus on the entire width of the piece at once.


The backside of your work will have a nice, straight seam where the two pieces are joined (perfect for hiding those ends you'll have to weave in later!).

But, notice how clean the front of the work looks.  No seam at all!

Featured Yarn :: Tropicana

Tropicana

Peach and pumpkin orange bamboo are paired with matching strands of acrylic and rayon to make this super soft, squishy and cheerful yarn.  Perfect for baby blankets or clothes, or anything else you want to wear close to the skin.

• Fiber Content: 81 bamboo / 14 rayon / 7 acrylic
• Yardage: 280 yards
• Yarn Weight: Worsted
• Wraps Per Inch: 9
• Amount on Cone: 8 oz.
• Care: Machine Wash & Dry OK
• Knitting Pattern Suggestion: Lillie Baby Cardigan
• Crochet Pattern Suggestion: Child's Friendship Knot Sweater 

Also available in our online shop!

Featured Pattern :: A La Erte

Another new pattern that we're carrying in the shop!  Come on in and we'll get you all set with the right yarn for the project.  

This week...

Designed by Theressa Silver, now available at the shop!

What Next?

I'm at one of those delicious forks in the road right now, where I have three projects all about to enter their home stretch, which means that, give me about a week of good solid evenings after work to veg out and finish them up, and I'll have three projects on the blocking boards and some empty needles before me.

(Although if this week is any indication, free evenings after work are hard to come by these days.  All of a sudden all my friends are buying houses and moving, so there is a plethora of upcoming housewarming parties, like the one I went to last night, bearing bacon-spinach-feta stuffed mushrooms.)

Read all about it at Six Dollars A Day

Which means...I need to line up some contenders from my queue!  Even though we're now officially a month out from true summer, I seem to still have chilly weather on the brain, given that I recently added all three of these to my I-need-to-make-this-ASAP list:

Cinnabar, by Doris Chan

En Pointe Pullover, by Alice Tang

(almost identical, however, to the Drape Front Sweater I'm about to finish up, so this probably won't happen next)

Dockside Cardigan, by Amy Miller

I also have a couple of short sleeved tops I've been considering, but as fun as these look to make, I'm slowly realizing that I think I actually like the look of crocheted tops on myself a lot better than knit.  I'm still deciding whether that is a dealbreaker for these:

Heliotropic Pullover, by Mercedes Tarasovich-Clark

Amelia Hoodie, by Erica Jackofsky

Or, I might go totally off the map, and knit the Rose Lace Stole from last Spring's Interweave.

What do you all think?  What's eagerly waiting to be cast on to your needles and hooks?  

Featured Yarn :: Tuscany

Tuscany

Olive green bamboo and light grassy green cottons pair together to make this wonderfully soft, machine-washable blend.  The colors are not too bright and intense, and this will knit or crochet up into a breathable, lightweight fabric.

• Fiber Content: 50 bamboo / 44 cotton / 6 rayon
• Yardage: 260 yards
• Yarn Weight: Worsted
• Wraps Per Inch: 8
• Amount on Cone: 8 oz.
• Care: Machine Wash & Dry OK
• Knitting Pattern Suggestion: Francis Revisited
• Crochet Pattern Suggestion: Cinnabar

Also available in our online shop!