We recently found out that another company sells a product named “Essential”, so we need to rename our Essential yarn line. We’ve been brainstorming, but honestly, we’re stumped, so we need your help. Post your suggestions below, and if we pick your name, you win a $50 Knit Picks gift certificate. It can’t be a name that any other yarn company currently uses. If you’re feeling generous, we’ve got a super cute new gift card right now with a heart shaped ball of yarn on it, and we’ve got another one in the works for Mother’s Day, but I won’t blame you if you want to keep the whole prize for yourself!
If you haven’t tried Essential yarn before, it’s a 75% Superwash Merino Wool, 25% Nylon fingering weight sock yarn. It comes in 52 colors including kettle dyes, tweeds, twists, solids, heathers, and multi-colored …

I’m doing a crafty-exchange with a friend who lives in northern Maine. She requested some cheerful fingerless gloves for wearing in her chilly house, and she offered to trade some custom embroidery work. I finally have her package ready to go.
These mitts are from a free pattern (Fetching from knitty.com) and I knit them out of some Merino Style in my stash (in the old Maple Leaf colorway).

They’re super-soft, and it was a great speedy stash-busting project. I did add a row of single crochet to the bind-off edge, just to reinforce it and keep it from rolling. It’d be a good project for teaching someone how to do Magic Loop and how to cable.

I had just been to a great Spanish tapas restaurant here in Portland, and one of my favorite …

My dad and I are working hard this week to complete a few construction projects while he’s in town visiting from North Carolina.

Transforming my back patio into a screened-in back porch was on our to-do list this past weekend. We made good progress, but the fingerless gloves I was wearing hit a major snag. Literally. I caught the bind off on a piece of wood and ripped out about 3 inches of it. These are my favorite gloves!!! This was a crisis of epic proportions!!!
Luckily, Doc Kerin was on hand to diagnose the problem and perform the necessary procedure. She picked up all the dropped stitches for me and prescribed some Palette in Asphalt Heather . Now all I have to do is bind off again and weave in the ends, and my gloves will be better than …

Sheldon’s been out of the office and on a whole slew of adventures since he got back from Japan. He made this slideshow of his latest travels so you could see what he’s been up to.
On a more serious note, I know a few of you have noticed that the Sheldon career and animal outfit kits are no longer available, and are probably wondering where he went. We sold out!!!
But don’t worry, all of the patterns from both kits will be available as free downloads by the end of April. We posted the first one, along with the pattern for his body (with permission from Sheldon’s designer, Ruth) on our patterns page. If you’d like to be notified every time we add a new free Sheldon pattern, become our fan on Facebook to get our updates.
And for those of you in the Sheldon career …

Truthfully, I think I prefer cables to lace, but I surprised myself this week by picking out a lace pattern and figuring it out on my own!
I’ve been intending to give lace a shot for a couple of months now, and the eyelet hearts that were Vogue’s Stitch of the Week pattern last week were so sweet and innocent-looking, I thought to myself, “Why not try to knit a few hearts for Valentine’s Day?” Four tries later, I have a soft scrap of Comfy fabric that’s about 2 1/2 by 6 inches with three little hearts on it. And I’m so excited about it!!!! I don’t think I’d be any happier if I’d managed a whole sweater!
Now what do you do with a piece of knitting 1 1/2″ by 6″? Frame it? Use it as a bookmark? Knit another one and stitch them together …

I thought it’d be fun to start a UFO knitalong so we can all encourage each other to keep plugging away and finish up some projects. Here is what is on my knitting “to do” list:
Pattern: Sylvi Jacket by Mari Muinonen
Yarn: Cadena in Tree Frog (I said Leap Frog in the video – oops!)
Needles: US Size 8 nickel plated circulars
Pattern: Lady’s Circular Cape from Victorian Lace Today (except I am only doing 9 repeats instead of 12 hoping that it will not turn out quite so full and ruffly)
Yarn: Shadow in Spring Green Heather
Needles: US Size 5 Harmony Wood circular
Pattern: Positano Tote from Interweave Knits Winter 2009 issue
Yarn: Wool of the Andes in Avocado, double stranded
Needles: US Size 7 nickel plated circulars
Pattern: Herringbone Scarf (I’m using the herringbone pattern from the Positano Tote)
Yarn: Oregon Worsted from Interlacements
Needles: US Size 7 Harmony Wood circulars
Pattern: Flip Mino felted case – making it …

It took me so long to post about this project because I lost the page with the pattern on it. I cleaned out my craft room this week and found it! I pulled the pattern out of a “Crafts ‘n Things” magazine, though all I have is the page that I pulled out and it doesn’t list the issue date. I’d guess the issue was last summer.
The original pattern was for mittens and scarf and this hat and all had a red cherry on top. I changed it to have pink sprinkles instead of a cherry.
I used Comfy worsted in Flamingo, Ivory and Fedora. The pink edging is crocheted, which I’d never done before–Kim showed me how. I was so pleased with how it turned out. <

My friend in Maine received her gloves, and the name of the photo album she sent me was “In which I try to make you a thank you card for the gloves and Sadie tries to eat the note.”



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(drum roll please)…Stroll!
Captain just won a $50 gift certificate for suggesting Stroll first.
We’re also going to give Pfinarffle a $25 gift certificate for making us laugh with the suggestion “Copyright Infringement”!!!
I’ll be sending both winners an e-mail to get their addresses.
Thank you for all of your wonderful suggestions! You are such a creative bunch!! <