SweetGeorgia.

Probably the prettiest, most colorful display we've had at the shop entrance...maybe ever? or at least in the past few months. Last week our first shipment of SweetGeorgia yarn - all 81 colors of Tough Love - arrived and took over the cubbies and baskets.

SweetGeorgia is actually not a local company; it's based in Vancouver, Canada, founded in 2005 by Felicia Lo. Check out her video here and you'll get a taste of why we're so excited to carry the yarn. Felicia talks about color and how it can bring healing, comfort, and joy...and express love. That pretty much sums up what I love about needlecraft, and how perfect to use a yarn designed and dyed for that same purpose.

Tough Love is a washable 3-ply merino/nylon blend fingering weight yarn with a generous 425 yards per 115 g skein. It's perfect for socks, drapey shawls, sweaters and - held doubled - a great worsted weight substitute.

Here are a few of my favorite project suggestions.

First up - socks. The variegated colorways are stunning on their own. I'd use the Churchmouse Basic Sock pattern with a simple 2x2 ribbing at the cuff and a stockinette leg and foot. Or choose a tonal colorway to show off pattern and/or lace, like in the Cherry Lane Socks or the ever-popular Monkey Socks.

a very small sampling of the variegated color ways that scream Socks! or Summerflies!! 

And then the shawls. Summerflies is still our favorite single skein shawl (suggest a size 7 needle for the "average" tension). 425 yards should be enough to add another butterfly repeat or make that last knotted openwork section a little longer if you want a bigger shawl. I used 430 yards a few years ago for mine (project notes here) with added repeats and more knotted openwork.

Of course colorwork shawls like Color Affection would really shine. The hard part would be picking three colors! And if you're looking for something similar, but not quite the same, how about Happy Street . It's a new design by Veera Valimaki who designed Color Affection.

And finally sweaters (of course there are sweaters!). Ravelry seems to be overflowing with fingering weight sweaters these days so there are plenty of patterns that will work; it makes narrowing this list to three a challenge!

Joji Locatelli's Boxy . If you follow our forum on Ravelry you know this is going to be our next Knit Along, likely starting in mid-August. Most of the sizes call for a little over 1,600 yards of yarn...four skeins of Tough Love. Our shipment included four skeins each of those 81 colors so if you think you want to use it, you need to move fast!

These next two are designed by Jane Richmond. She suggests SweetGeorgia yarns for both...maybe because she's also from Vancouver? (or maybe she and Felicia are just good friends!)

Georgia  and Grace  . These are both top-down seamless cardigans with a contiguous sleeve that looks like a traditional set-in sleeve - not a raglan. The smaller sizes up to 36" take three skeins and the larger take four to five.

Remember - you will need to alternate skeins if you knit a project with multiple skeins of the same colorway.

Convinced? if only to see the yarns in person?

As always, happy knitting!

Revive.

Are you familiar with Rowan's Revive? It's a DK weight blend of recycled cotton, silk and viscose, which makes it a perfect three-season yarn for our climate. It comes in gorgeous tweedy colors. It's nice to knit (it is Rowan after all). Can you tell it's one of my favorite yarns? ...and I can't believe I haven't blogged about it before!

But maybe that's ok - because now we have a beautiful sweater to show off the yarn.

This is Julie Hoover's Insouciant . We're not the first ones to use Revive; the FO's on Ravelry are all pretty and encouraging.

There are plenty of other sweater patterns that would work, too. One of my favorites is Thea Colman's ("baby cocktails") Vodka Lemonade . It looks so pretty with the tweed.

I also love Heidi Kirrmaier's Peasy . I've knit it twice already, but the gallery of Revive FOs, especially this one, might entice me to knit a third one!

Revive is also beautiful for lace. I used it for Traveling Woman and that shawl is one of my favorite summer wraps; it looks great with jeans and a t-shirt or a dressy black linen top. Check out all the FO's on Ravelry.


Or if lace isn't your thing, how about the Churchmouse Folded Poncho ? The pattern calls for a DK weight wool, but if you've been around the shop lately, you know we're knitting it out of EVERYthing! And it works up great in Revive.

Convinced!? what would you knit with Revive?

5,580.

...that's my answer.  And you ask, "What's the question?"

How many stitches can four knitters work on a Friday afternoon?

Here's the work in progress on four linen stitch scarves...two of them have 450 stitches and two have 480 stitches. My scarf is the one center right; I worked three rows of 480 stitches. I think the others were at least that productive*. And that makes 5,580 stitches. Pretty amazing!

It's also pretty amazing how different those four pieces look up close.

*or maybe not. Sandy stopped by and shared her work in progress; she's knitting the alpaca silk version. It's lovely. 

The four of us working the linen version might have gotten a bit sidetracked thinking about alpaca silk....and then one of us pulled a few skeins of yarn...so maybe the answer is closer to 5,000. That's ok. It's still an impressive number!

 

Meadow has arrived!

...and I promise: it's even better in person.

I met with Theresa this afternoon to talk over some new ideas for this blog (if you have any suggestions, we'd love to hear them!) and at the end of our meeting I asked if she'd heard any more about the much-anticipated Meadow shipment. She told me it was here...and she was waiting for us to open the box together (can I say how much I love her??!!). So we did.

with Butchie's help!

It's lovely.

But it's even better on the shelves!

all twelve colors. gorgeous.

And now the tough decision...which color to choose for the Mystery KAL?

Next Up, the Linen Stitch KAL, but first.

As promised, I'm back with a proper post about our next KAL - the Churchmouse Linen Stitch Scarf - which we're going to cast on next Friday, June 7.

But first, I wanted to be sure everyone saw yesterday's announcement from The Fibre Company about their newest yarn, Meadow. It's a laceweight blend of merino, llama, silk and linen. I know, right?!, this is the perfect fiber mix for all-season knitting! The 12 colors are gorgeous, as you'd expect and Theresa has ordered all 12 (as you'd expect!). The shipment should arrive in plenty of time to participate in the Mystery KAL Kate & Courtney are hosting on their blog and in their Ravelry group. I bought my pattern yesterday...now all I have to do is choose a color (which I suspect is going to be a hard decision!)

from Churchmouse - the Linen version

from Churchmouse - the Alpaca Silk version

...and now, the Linen Stitch Scarf . This pattern has been popular at the shop for years and most of us have knit at least one. I knit mine back in 2010 and three years later it is still my favorite wool scarf. Even though it seemed to take ages to knit, I've always said I'd happily knit another (I already have the three skeins of handpainted fingering merino stashed). Ahhh, but leave it up to those talented folks at Churchmouse to really seal the deal. They've published two addenda - one that uses Claudia Handpaints Linen and the most recent that uses Blue Sky Alpaca Silk.

Choosing the color combination is great fun. For all three patterns, you need three skeins in three different colorways. Go for contrast to really show off the linen stitch (it will also make the knitting easier if you can easily tell which skein worked the stitches). Here are a few suggestions to get you started. Please don't let these limit you - we have a great selection of all three yarns (as well as the size 10-3/4 needles suggested for the linen version) in stock.

Claudia Handpaints Linen - Mushroom Hunting, Driftwood, Midnight

Claudia Handpaints Linen - Urban Fever, Copper Pennies, Mudslide

Blue Sky Alpaca Silk - colorways 142, 143, 120 

Blue Sky Alpaca Silk - colorways 148, 129, 122

Claudia Handpaints Fingering - Cherries, Old Hollywood, Lipstick 

Claudia Handpaints Fingering - Be My Valentine, Makes Me Hungry, Lipstick

I've chosen the linen for mine.

Euroflax Natural and Claudia Handpaints in Cabin Fever (purple) and Scout's Honor (Blue/Green)

and can't wait to get started...as soon as I finish Pendulum...today, maybe? I'm on the 10th stripe. The rows are really long (good thing it's Friday and I'll have company at the shop for knitting this afternoon)!

So - hope you'll consider joining us for the Linen Stitch and/or the Meadow Mystery. If you have questions or comments, please let us know!

Why Do We Knit?

Whoa. It's been a while since there's been anything new here. I apologize for the long absence, but Life Outside Knitting (yeah, I know, it does exist even for me!) has been consuming me and it's honestly going to be a few more weeks before I'm really back.

I've missed weeks of posting on my personal blog as well, but Carole's Ten on Tuesday topic was about knitting, specifically "Why I Knit", and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to share my list. Of course y'all - the Cast-on Cottage Community, both in person and virtual - are a huge part of it and I want to first, say thank you...and then, ask why do you knit?

the Yellow Table on a Friday afternoon, blogged here.

Please share your feedback here in the comments, or on Facebook or Ravelry. Let's keep the Community strong!

And quickly - I hinted about a new KAL in our Ravelry forum. Yes, we are going to knit the Churchmouse Linen Stitch scarf, likely starting in early June. I hope to write a proper post with yarn suggestions, etc., but in the meantime, you might want to check out the project page on Ravelry , and specifically the recently published addenda to use Claudia Handpaints Linen or Blue Sky Alpaca Silk. We have a great selection of both yarns, as well as the traditional Claudia Handpaints fingering, in stock. (really, who needs a blog post, right?!)

Happy Knitting!!

Pendulum | Tips and Suggested Modifications.

Word around the shop is that we have quite a few knitters joining us for the Pendulum KAL. And if you're on the fence about joining us or maybe just haven't decided which yarn to use, we just shelved a big order of Zen Yarn Garden Serenity 20 (including a few of the "one of a kind" color ways). This yarn is a merino/cashmere/nylon blend with 400 yards per skein.  Two skeins would make a lovely Pendulum!  ...but I already bought my yarn. Yep, I went with the Panama in blue and cream!

the blue is my main color and the cream is my contrast

As promised, I've reviewed the completed projects on Ravelry to gather up tips and suggested modifications.

The good news is that many have knit the project as written, with stunning results. So if you simply want to follow Amy's instructions, you are good to go! Please note that I found a lot of variation in yardage and needle sizes (many knitters used 400 yards plus of the main color...on size 5, 6 and 7 needles). If you are close to the specified 340/230 yards, you should definitely swatch. You'll be adding two stitches on every row... so the shawl grows quickly and the last few repeats will be on several hundred stitches (which means those rows use a lot of yarn!)

However, many knitters have made modifications. Most of these are to the cast-on and edge treatment to help block the edge straight, so you can wear the piece more like a scarf than a shawl (similar to Color Affection). Before I dive into more detail on those modifications, I thought it might help to see what the cast-on and first bit of edge looks like...as written.  Honestly, I'd be fine with it!

as written, after working seven increase rows

But I've knit both my Color Affections by starting the increases on the very first row and with an added YO at the beginning of each row (which I dropped on the subsequent row to create loose edge stitches, but no additional holes); I was planning similar modifications for Pendulum, but then I read what Knitloon did with hers. She added YO's at both ends (K1, YO, M1L, .... , M1R, YO, K1) and then used those YOs on the next row as the basis for her M1s. Pretty great idea. Here's what it looks like after a few rows. The edge is flat and stretchy; I'm going to use this method.

working increase rows right away (I did not knit the plain row after the cast-on) and YOs at both ends

...and in case you'd like to use it too, here's what it looks like in more detail (you should be able to click the photos to see them bigger).

I've worked K1, YO and the next stitch is the YO from the row before.

then....

Note that we could be elegant and do the first YO on each row backwards...which would eliminate having to re-position the bar before we work the M1R...but that just seems like a lot to remember and this project is supposed to be social knitting. 

Many knitters also substituted a garter tab cast-on. Frankly, I don't see the point since there is no garter edge on the shawl (and Color Affection doesn't use one either and it turns out beautifully). But if you want to try it, here's a great tutorial from Stephen West.

The important thing to remember is that this is YOUR project and YOU get to decide what - if any - modifications you make.

Our group cast-on is tomorrow afternoon at the shop (2pm-ish on Friday, April 5); hope you're planning to join us in person or virtually in our Ravelry thread!