Archive for February, 2010

Haiku

Friday, February 5th, 2010

alchemy-006

A lovely box of Alchemy Haiku was delivered today! Alchemy is a company which we love for it’s luxurious fibres, and rich, vibrant colours. Take a look at their website to find out a little bit more about them, and how you can contribute to the social and economic well-being of different cultures and communities by purchasing their yarns.

Venus, who works in the Point Grey store on Mondays, is in the process of knitting the Illusionist shawl from Destination Alchemy (pictured below). This shawl takes 4 skeins of Alchemy Haiku, and is knit on a 6mm needle. Venus recommends using the Addi Lace needles or bamboo needles, as the regular Addi needles are too slippery for this yarn. The pattern is made from rows of slip stitch ribbing, alternated with stocking stitch ruches. It’s absolutely stunning with the change in texture, and subtle change in colour depending on which colour-way you chose. We have 11 georgeous colours to chose from including dragon, meadowgrass, mediterranean, and aubergine (pictured above).

Other yarns that we carry from Alchemy are Juniper, Silk Purse, and Silken Straw.

destination-alchemy

A store favourite

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

We are stuffed to the rafters with our new Fleece Artist and Handmaiden shipments! One of our most popular kits has been re-stocked in some beautiful colours. The Devin’s Toque is a great gift to give knit up into the hat, or just given as a skein with some circular needles. This is the warmest hat you’ll wear made from 100% cashmere. Here are a few of the colour choices:

devin-006

For another soft and cuddly yarn, try out the Peter Rabbit. Check out Kalin’s crocheted scarf that she made from this pattern. It just shows how different a pattern can look in different types of yarns.

my-rabbit1

The Bias Shawls always seem to be the first to go when we receive the boxes. This time we received them in blackberry, paris, caicos, periwinkle, hemlock, and cedar.

bias-0051

We also re-stocked our collection of Lace Silk, Casbah sock, Mini Maiden, Swiss Mountain Silk, 2 Ply Cashmere, Lady Godiva, Olann, Big Merino, and many other yarns and kits.

The Harvest Jacket kit makes a beautiful, warm jacket, made from nine gorgeous skeins of big merino. We brought in five lovely colours to chose from; earth, twilight, morgana, caicos, and red fox. No photo’s as of yet, so come in and take a look!

Jan’s favourite is the Northern Nights Blanket Kit. She knit the one below which Jessica is nicely wrapped up in… what a lovely photo! She says that her two daughters fight over this favourite blanket all the time! We’ve re-stocked these blankets in labrador, blackberry, ireland, boreal, mahogany, hemlock, and burgundy.

jessica

We know you’ll love all the products that we’ve brought in from Fleece Artist and Handmaiden… we certainly do!

For this week’s special we’re putting the all of our Sirdar Denim permanently on sale at 50% off! This includes Denim Tweed Dk, Denim Sport Aran, Denim Chunky, and Denim Ultra.

Another Month gone by, another Urban Yarns draw! Congratulations to Shirley in Point Grey, and Patrice in Edgemont who both won a $50 Urban Yarns Gift Certificate. Feel free to pick them up anytime!

GCC: Welcoming February

Monday, February 1st, 2010

crw_7811

It’s February, the heart of the grey Vancouver weather. It’s not fresh and new like January, or Christmassy like December. It’s just February. Not quite spring yet and on the down swing of winter.

I try to keep up beat in February, I mean, wet weather means cozy knitting time in doors right? Sure February has Valentines day to spice things up, and the Olympics will offer a nice distraction, but the fact of the matter is February means grey and wet. Depressed yet? There’s hope. Hope in the form of a lovely sweater.

crw_7820

I just finished up the beautiful February Lady sweater. It’s a pretty pattern adapted from one of Elizabeth Zimmerman’s patterns, the Baby Sweater on 2 Needles. The sweater is knit from the top down which is great for trying things on as you go. The pattern is perfectly customizable which is always a good thing. Short sleeve, long sleeve, swingy, conforming, whatever you want, you can do!

This sweater has been popular around the shop too. The lovely Jessica, up in North Van, knit up a February lady last year with the gang at knit nights. Emily also knit up a February lady but she modified hers quite a bit (I’m not surprised). I started working on mine in December but I had to ask myself why I was asking for so much trouble knitting un-gift related items in December. The sweater got put away but I pulled it back out in January and it’s already finito!

crw_7825

I used the ever popular (can you feel an obsession forming?) Sweetgeorgia Superwash Worsted in colour Riptide. I kind of want to decorate my entire house in this colour, it’s like a teal/navy/black kind of combination. Love it. The yarn is quite sproingy which I quite like in this pattern.

The buttons were a major point of debate around the shop. Should I go with a pewter button to dress things up? A warm wooden button? It was the genereal consensus of pretty much anyone I asked that heart buttons were much too cutesy. So I went with the wooden heart buttons of coures! To make a February Lady of your own you will need:

Yarn: 9-16 skeins of Sweetgeorgia Superwash Worsted (depends on sizing of course. I made the 44″ bust size and used 14 skeins. The pattern gives measurements for bust sizes 35″-52.5″)

Needles: 5mm (I used 32″ addis for the sweater and 16″ addis for the sleeves. You could use double points for the sleeves if you prefer)

Buttons: You will need 3 or more buttons for this sweater. You can use any size, just match them to your buttonhole sizes.

Notions: Stitch markers were very helpful in this pattern. You will also need a little waste yarn to hold the sleeves.

Pattern: Free on Ravelry here.

crw_7823