Mr. MuddyBin, our rolling composter, wishes you a happy Earth Day. Tonight’s celebration includes a viewing of “An Inconvenient Truth” – my husband still hasn’t seen it, and he thinks I just like it because I have a crush on Al Gore. I also thought I’d share something interesting that I learned this week about Shine Worsted and Shine Sport. I knew that both yarns contain Modal, and I knew that Modal is a cellulose-based fiber that’s smooth and shiny. What I didn’t realize, until writing a tutorial for the Knitting Community, is that Modal has a great eco track record. It’s made by an Austrian company, Lenzing, out of beech wood harvested from local tree farms that practice sustainability. The byproducts from Modal production are used in a number of different industrial applications – for example, the leftover wood sugars are further refined to ...

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Hi everyone, I’m planning out our catalog themes for 2009. Each catalog’s theme (there are 8 of them) needs to be a large enough topic that we can develop several related technique tutorials for it as well as a few free patterns fitting that theme and then, of course, lots and lots of projects to inspire you. So, what I’d like to know is what topics would you like to see addressed in our catalogs? Are there any areas of your knitting life that need a pick-me-up? Is your knitting seasonally challenged? What new techniques would you like to learn? Please leave your thoughts in the comments – I’m looking for a bunch of ideas! Thanks! <

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A friend pointed out that this lace shawl looks like a dead animal in one of my previous posts. Ugh! She’s right though, lace looks horribly ugly until it’s blocked (and perhaps my photography skills need improvement :-). My HUGE problem is that I’m pretty sure I won’t have enough yarn. I made the body of the shawl bigger than the pattern said, so I guessed at how much yarn I would need – oops. For some reason, I have this feeling that if I knit really fast, I can sneak in some repeats of the border without actually depleting the ball of yarn. Totally illogical, and yet I find myself knitting faster and faster and checking how much smaller the little ball of yarn is. I’m just going to have to order some more yarn and hope the dye lot is close. Pattern: Curved ...

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Yesterday, I dyed some samples of Jacquard Acid dye colors we don’t currently carry. For comparison, here are the colors we do carry. Do you see any colors in the photo above that you’d like us to carry? Please leave a comment with your vote(s) – yes, more than one choice is allowed! Top row, left to right: navy blue, gun metal, periwinkle, violet, spruce, brilliant kelly green Bottom row, left to right: scarlet, russet, aztec gold, golden yellow, silver gray Separately, a customer called in to ask what happens to the tweed nebs in our Bare Essential Tweed when it is dyed. Since I had only used Kool-Aid dye on Essential Tweed before, I dyed a sample in our darkest Jacquard color, jet black (if you love black Essential Tweed, you can get it already dyed here). The nebs might ...

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I was on vacation last week, doing a HUGE basement repair project, which means hardly any knitting happened. Every time I sat down for more than 10 minutes, I fell asleep! Also, what I’m knitting on is kind of secret. I can at least tell you that it is our Bare Essential yarn, which Alison dyed using Jacquard Acid dyes in purple, emerald and sky blue, but that’s about it. For now, enjoy the stripes! I always bring my knitting to work because it’s perfectly acceptable here to knit during meetings, but I especially look forward to Fridays because I am guaranteed to have half an hour of knitting time while I proof Kelley’s podcast. Her interview with one of my favorite designers, Kathleen Taylor, will go up later today. ...

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Katie’s still out on maternity leave, but she brought her baby boy into the office to say hi to everybody. He’s so tiny and sweet! Kelley’s Elegance alpaca and silk shawl kept him nice and toasty in the office. It’s not exactly one of our baby patterns, but it sure did the trick. Xena wanted to meet the newcomer too. Welcome little one! And come back soon Katie, we all miss you! P.S.: The adorable baby booties were knit by our very own Nancee. Nancee works in customer service. She used Dancing to knit up those little booties. We don’t stock Dancing anymore, but Risata would make a good substitute. <

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A lot of my job entails staging pretty pictures of yarn, which can be hard work! You see, center pull balls are wonderfully convenient for the knitter, but they aren’t particularly photogenic, so I often end up skeining dozens and dozens of balls of yarn. This week I’m preparing to shoot some photos for web graphics. Luckily, Gloss (middle row) already comes in skeins, so my work there is done. I’m not so lucky with the Comfy (top) and Risata (bottom). So far I’ve got 3 skeins down and 21 more to go! I guess there could be worse jobs than twisting up yarn all day… 😉 <

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