Linda is one of our wonderful customers who always amazes us with her exquisite creations. Every time she visits us, we know we’re in for a treat to find out what her latest projects are. We’ll I thought we could show you a few that she’s recently brought in to show us…

This Moss Stitch Jacket is featured in the Debbie Bliss Fall/Winter 2009 magazine.  The pattern uses Debbie Bliss Donegal Luxury Tweed Aran – a gorgeous, soft tweed. I think the button that Linda chose is a perfect finishing touch to the jacket!

Flora is the cutest little doll made from a kit by Pick Up Sticks. Linda said she was really fun to make! If you love Flora, make sure you get her gear! Floras Furnishings comes with everything she’ll need for an outing; a hat, sweater, bloomers, and a knitting bag with needles.

Ok, so I may be a little biased about this next one because of my love for bunnies, but isn’t he so cute!? Linda made this adorable bunny from the Debbie Bliss Spring Summer ’09 magazine. The bunny takes 2 balls of Debbie Bliss Rialto Dk and  is knit on 3.25mm needles. The pattern suggests Debbie Bliss Donegal Aran Tweed for the sweater, but Linda used something from her yarn stash as you don’t need too much yardage.

Thanks so much for all the inspiration Linda… that bunny is certainly on my “to-do” list!

This week’s special is Mission Falls 1824 Cotton at 25% off. Why not knit up some of these little baby hats. You can find the pattern in Last Minute Knitted Gifts and it only uses one ball per hat! This sale yarn is only available at the Point Grey location, but can easily be transferred to Edgemont.

Thank you so much to everyone who came out yesterday and made our “Luxury Yarn Tasting” a huge success! We’re glad everyone had the opportunity to knit with these luscious fibres. Take a look at some of the fun we had yesterday…

If you couldn’t make it out yesterday, don’t panic! We still have all the yarns out for you to try. We also still have the gorgeous samples, but they will sadly be leaving after this weekend.

Carrying on from Friday’s blog post, we’d like to accounce that Urban Yarns will be holding a “Yarn Tasting” all day this Friday! Most of us aren’t able to appreciate these creatures,  such as yak, bison, and muscox in person, so we’d like to give you the opportunity to try knitting with the fibres from these exquisite animals.

Come by and join us at the Point Grey Store from 10am – 9pm this Friday, March 5th.  Sit down and relax while trying out these fabulous yarns. We have some gorgeous samples made up in these yarns to inspire you! These samples are only here for a very limited time, so take a look while you still can!

Our weekly Special this week is Katia Mykonos at 40% off. Mykonos is a fancy ribbon type yarn which is a 22 stitch gauge. We have 4 colours to chose from, all of which have gold glitter throughout to add a little bit of glitz and glam. Great for lightweight,  delicate projects!

Also, the February UY draw winners are Honey from Point Grey, and Linda from Edgemont. Congratulations to the both of you! If you’d like to enter our monthly draw, just drop by one of our stores and enter your business card or fill out a knit pick card. If you’d also like to be on our mailing list (monthly newsletter filled with great info, new store items, upcoming events, and shop news), just send us an email!

Bijou Basin, Buffalo Gold, and Qivuik are the newest additions to our collection of luxury fibre lines.

Can you think of a yarn which is as soft as, or even softer than cashmere? Well we’ve got one for you to try… Yak! Yak is an extremely warm, yet lightweight yarn. Bijou Basin sent us three different weights of their luxury yak yarns:

Laceweight – 100% Yak
Lhasa Wilderness – 75% yak / 25% bamboo
Himalayan Trail – 75% yak / 25% merino

Vogue Knitting chose this next yarn from Buffalo Gold as one of their Holiday 2009 top picks.  Lux is a beautiful yarn made from 45% bison down, 20% mulberry silk, 20% cashmere, and 15% tencel. Tencel is a regenerated cellulose fibre made from dissolved wood pulp. Creamy, silky, and springy are some of the words that they used to describe this yarn.

Qiviuk is what you’ve all been waiting for! We received this in a variety of colours. The blend that they’ve  put together for this one is 80% merino, 15% qiviuk, and 5% mulberry silk. Qiviuk is the undercoat of a Muscox, an animal native to the Canadian Arctic, Alaska, and Greenland.

The other three yarns that we received from Buffalo Gold are:

Heaven – 100% bison down
Earth Lite – 90% bison down / 10% nylon
Earth – 90% bison down / 10% nylon

We have some great samples from the Trunk Show in the Point Grey store right now! Come and take a look while they are here, and feel these gorgeous luxury yarns all knit up.

And just a quick note that we will not be open tonight for Stitch and Bitch or late night shopping. We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause you. Our hours over the weekend are as normal (Saturday 10-5:30, and Sunday 12-5)

Mini Maiden is one of our most popular yarns for shawl and lace knitting. We just received a nice big box, bursting full of this lovely yarn!

The ten colours that we have for you to chose form are boreal, hemlock, raspberry, woodland, peridot, sangria, nova scotia, midnight, cezanne, and pewter.

As you can see, this yarn has amazing stitch definition and will look great in either a simple or complex lace pattern.

Try knitting Evelyn Clark’s Swallowtail shawl with only one skein of Mini Maiden. Or try the Norwegian Woods shawl or scarf by Sivia Harding. Alison has kindly let us borrow her  sample in sangria to keep in the store for a while. Come by and take a look, and feel the softness of this amazing yarn!

We’ve also got lot’s of Lace knitting books in stock at the moment. Get inspired by taking a look at Victorian Lace Today, Lace Style, and Traditional Knitted Lace Shawls.

And on special this week, we have the Fleece Artist Harvest Jackets at 25% off! We only have a small selection of these kits, left, so get them before they’re gone!

The sweater has become all consuming. Although I managed to whip through the back last week the progress since then has been slightly slower going. I had a minor mishap with the sleeve: 1/2 way done before I realized I hadn’t been doing the increases and had to rip back to row 9. Ripping back colourwork is painful. Don’t find this out for yourself though, just take my word for it!

The other setback has been that chart work is not portable or conversable knitting (I made up that word, let’s have it catch on). While I’m sure there are individuals in the world who can chart and talk and watch hockey all at the same time I am unfortunately not one of them. That being said, I couldn’t just not knit ANYTHING while waiting 3 hours to see the Colbert Report so I had to continue work on a little garter stitch project.

I’m using more of the lovely Sweetgeorgia yarn, this time it’s Tough Love Sock in the colour Honey Fig. Something about naming yarn after food is intriguing to me. I’m not even sure I love purple on the best of days but I was immediately attracted to this skein. Weird. I think it’s in the name. The pattern is Multnomah and it’s quite nice. It’s a simple pattern to start, just some increases, then it gets into the feather and fan lace at the bottom. I’ll have to pick up something else conversable when I get to that point I think.

To make a Multnomah of your very own you will need:

1 skein Sweetgeorgia Tough Love Sock

3.25mm (US3) needles (I like the addi lace for this project, 24″)

The pattern, which is free here

With that little side track and the setback in the sleeve I have completed the back, almost all of one sleeve, the cuff of the other sleeve. and part of the right front. I think this might be why my Mom calls me the queen of almost. When I have almost finished something it tends to reside in the finished side of my mind. Then, when I have to gift and item or bring it to the shop I realize it’s not REALLY finished. There is still often a little sewing, some buttons to put on, or ends to weave in. Sometimes late at night (almost always). Ah well, such is the life of a knitter! I’m off to watch some curling and rib my heart out!

—Alexa—

Anina’s  commemorative  2010 sweater is finished and has been proudly placed in the Point Grey store window. This is a traditional Norwegian sweater which has a lot of fun techniques. Anina has been kind enough to offer some of her time to anyone who needs help with this pattern in particular. Please feel free to give us a call and set up a time.

This gorgeous ski sweater is made from Dalegarn Falk; a 100% machine washable wool with a 24 stitch gauge. We’ve made the sweater into kits which comes with the yarn, a zipper pull, and an official dalegarn 2010 patch. The book is free with  purchase of the adult size kits! This all comes in a really nice  and very useful wicker basket. Unfortunately we can’t sell the books separately as they are the last ones that are available in North America. With that in mind, you might want to get these kits while we still have a few left!

Amanda is modeling the sweater in the two photos above. She said she felt really nice and warm while she was wearing it! Below in the left, is a part of the fair-isle pattern. The red and whilte really seem to pop nicely against the black. On the right hand side is the Dalegarn 2010 commemorative patch.

A little fun outside in the sun to pass the day away…

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Look at what was in our very first Shibui box!

To the left are the semi-solid colour-ways and below we have three of the fluid colour-ways. Shibui is a great company based in Oregon. Here’s a little bit about them taken from their website:

“We scour the world to find unique, hard-to-find combinations of fiber and texture, and then dye them in an array of rich, flattering tones. Our goal is to provide a texture palette in addition to a colour palette. Our blendable textures with their dyed-to-match colours will spark the imagination of any knitter.”

We’re so excited to be carrying their yarns and some of their fabulously designed patterns. Remember, this is only the first box to arrive… many more to come!

This Week’s special is Sirdar Peru at 40% off! We have 4 colours to chose from and loads of great patterns to match!.