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Yay I can finally buy some Felici!
I’ve been eagerly awaiting this for several
months–back when we first saw the colorways for this yarn, I think
every knitter in the office made a mental shopping list. And then we had
to wait, and wait, and wait–but finally it’s here and I think it looks
AMAZING in person. These are my favorite colors of Felici yet!
The helper bunnies here have been busy getting ready for our event!
My desk is covered with all these brightly colored yarn samples –
big thanks to the customer service department who wound most of these
goodies!
While I can’t say that I’m in the camp of non-obsessive sock
knitting, I know it’s not for everybody! But, with such wonderful
colors, Stroll Tonal
is pretty universally appealing whether you like socks or not. So, if
not socks, what do you do with it? Well, I’ve got a few ideas!
First,
I have to say that our IDP
designers have done a bang-up job of showcasing our yarns to their best
advantage. And there are a lot of patterns that would look awesome in Stroll Tonals!
Here are a few:
Beverly
Cardigan by Snowden Becker
I can imagine
this in the “Gypsy” colorway of Stroll Tonal
with Black Stroll as the
accent. Very elegant!
Here’s the newest installment of our
“History of Knitting” Kits:
The Soleado Bag!
This is a shoulder bag worked out of Cotlin using motifs
and construction methods inspired by the diverse fiber arts traditions
of Central and South America. This was a really fun project to design–I
always love working on our “History” projects because I learn so much
from them! The three major areas of fiber arts I drew on in designing
this piece were spinning, knitting and weaving. Much anthropological
information has been gathered from spindle artifacts collected in
Central America, and the central medallion of the bag was inspired by
the motifs found on ancient spindle whorls (that’s the disc-shaped part
of the spindle.) The stranded colorwork motifs were inspired by Peruvian
knitting (which Kerin also interpreted last year in her amazing Chullo
Hat pattern), and the borders of bi-color linen stitch between the
motifs was inspired by the rich weaving tradition of South America,
which are predates knitting in these region by several centuries at
least. The kit includes yarn and pattern to make the bag, and a brief
written history of the traditions that inspired the pattern.
I love simple shopping. If I buy
furniture from IKEA, everything I need to make the table comes right in
the box and I add it to my cart with one click – no searching for the
right nuts and bolts. Its a complete package.
With the growing
popularity of our IDP program, I wanted to bring this same convenience
to the hundreds of $1.99 independent designer pattern downloads
available, so that you can support your favorite designers and get the
same yarn they used with one-click!
Just like the exclusive Kits that Kerin & Nina
create for us, IDP
Kits contain the pattern & yarn you will need to create the
project as seen in the photo. The pattern will still be a PDF download
sent to you by email and the yarn will be on its way to your door
shortly after! The designers still receive 100% of the pattern profits,
but you save time and rest assured you’re getting what you need to start
knitting.
On applicable pattern pages, you’ll see an option to
select “Yarn Kit”. Choose your preferred size or colorway and the price
will update to show the cost of the $1.99 download, plus the cost of the
yarn. We’ve done all the math for you, so you’ll get the right amount
of yarn in the right color, but if you want more yarn, you’ll be able to
change the quantity in your shopping cart – where the yarn and pattern
show as separate items.
Happy Knitting!
Knit Picks Web Guy
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So, the hubster and I love to go fishing. Well, he
loves fishing, I love having an excuse to sit on my kiester and knit all
day! A couple of weekends ago, we decided to pack a lunch and head an
hour away to a lake he used to fish with his dad. Well, in typical
Northwest style, it was in the forties in the morning, though it was
going to be in the upper 60’s in the afternoon. So we dressed in layers.
I had on my favorite hand-knitted alpaca sweater with a wool sweater
over it, some new fingerless mitts I’d made, and an alpaca hat I made on
a previous excursion. As for hubs – well, it turns out he’s good at
losing gloves, and had to borrow a pair of mine.
Now, this could be ok, as they were pretty unisex-looking
gloves. Except his hands are twice the size of mine. It was downright
comical, like his hands were the unwitting passengers in a knitted clown
car. I took pity on him and grabbed a ball of unlabeled alpaca I’d
found in the free box here at work, and we took off for the lake.
Early samples of Felici hit the office, and now I just want to make
some awesome legwarmers to go with my favorite boots.
We also have a
new sport weight Felici coming out:
We were getting the photo samples ready this week and the colorways
look fantastic knit up. It doesn’t hurt that the yarn is buttery soft
and ready for, um, those perfect legwarmers that I want.
Felici
is still on its ocean voyage, but the yarn is due in the warehouse at
the beginning of May.
Dan and I recently bought a house (our first!), and the last few
weeks have been full of packing, lifting, more packing, more lifting,
and painting. The sweaters I knit for Dan also made the journey – I saw
this box that he had packed and labeled yesterday, so I snapped a quick
photo to share.
Good on so many levels!
Learned Lesson 1: Don’t pack a box
full of nothing but books – you won’t be able to lift it
Learned
Lesson 2: Include a warning if your box contains precious cargo (such as
HANDMADE SWEATERS!)
Learned Lesson 3: Don’t forget underpants! 🙂
It seems that the Knitting Gods feel I need a lesson in the benefits
of embracing the act of ripping out my knitting.
First, there was the Stonington
Shawl “lesson”.
Remember that the Stonington Shawl had been my “mindless” portable
project. I was in desperate need of a simple project to knit while we
were out to dinner with friends. I had planned on starting over with my new
square shawl plans.
