Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Fun Knits Exclusive Lorna's Laces Colors

I am so excited to offer this new yarn




I have been working with Lorna's Laces for a while now to create a few original colors of sock yarn for the store. I got to pick the colors and with some coaching from Beth at Lorna's Laces this is the finished product. They did a spectacular job of creating the color to capture the yarns I wanted.



The first one is named Quadra Island



It is Blue, grey, cedar and purple. This color was inspired by this beautiful island, which is just east of Campbell River on Vancouver Island. I live on this island and love the scenery here so as a tribute to it we design this colorway of yarn with Lorna's Laces. The blue is for the ocean, grey the mountains, cedar for the forest, and purple for the distant mountains. Lorna's laces did a wonderful job of capturing the feel of Quadra Island with this colorway.

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The second color is Fun Knits



It is Brown, brick, gold and beige. This color combination is so great. These socks look wam before they are even put on your feet. The colors for this yarn were inspired from the Fun Knits Yarn Shop. It has very warm earthy colors and is a very cozy warm yarn store. Lorna's Lace really captured the essence of the store in this sock yarn colorway.
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Here are both the colors together with one sock knit from each color. I have since finished the pairs. I am really thrilled with both colors. The are great unisex colors, I actually don't have a favorite. I love them both. Please let me know what you think of them.



They are only available at my eBay store and at Fun Knits Yarn Shop on Quadra Island.
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Here are some fun pictures of Megan and Meika's visit. The first one is Meika helping Grandpa get fire wood. Not sure who is having more fun but my guess would be Grandpa.



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This picture I just finished bathing Meika and warming her up by the fire. I just love naked baby pictures. 



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On the knitting scene. I have no pictures, too exciteed about the Lorna's laces yarn. I got 2 pair of socks done today (machine knit) the baby earflap hat nearly done, the Vogue shrug started, nice knitting with Lorna's laces shepherd worsted. It is wonderful yarn. The shrug is going to be spectacular. I will post a picture soon once I get it on a larger circular needle.

Sunday, November 27, 2005

Quadra Island Craft Fair


Well we all made it through the Craft Fair. It was a lot of work but well worth it. This is a picture of our set up on the first night. Mom and I each had a table the first night. Mom's is the one with the white table cloth and mine and Megan's is the red and green one. Luckily we sold a lot the first night because we needed to condense all of this to 1 table for the next day.

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This is a picture of the 4 generations of knitters. Since Meika isn't a knitter yet I let her hold my knitting. She thought that was a good deal and tried to eat the needles. We had a lot of fun.



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This is day 2 of the craft fair. Mom and Dad, Megan and Meika.
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Here is how much Meika liked Santa. She went stiff as a board and screamed. She hasn't figured out he is a good guy yet.



Santa and his elf both look very concerned. Meika is wearing her little Noro sweater I made her and Noro Iro Toe Kozies, Megan made her. It is a really cute outfit on her.

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Sleeping peacefully after the Santa trauma all wrapped cozy in her Regia silk blanket Great Grandma made her.




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It was a great weekend. The store was really busy yesterday. A lot of great projects will be strated this week on Quadra. I am starting the vogue jacket today and will post progress. I am also going to be knitting fingerless mitts in Noro Silk garden, 2 pair of socks, an earflap hat for a baby and a hooded jacket for a baby. These are all Craft fair orders.


The baby sweater and socks I will do on the machine so they will go quick. The rest is hand knitting. This is my idea of fun. 5 or 6 new projects starting all at once.



 

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Yes I am still here

I have been very busy. Too busy to blog for sure. I have been knitting like mad getting ready for the Quadra Island Christmas Craft Fair, It is on this weekend Nov. 25 and 26th. Here is a list of what else I have been doing.

- Megan and Meika came to visit last week. Megan had mouth surgery and needed help with Meika, I gladly pitched in. Oh my gosh, I never knew being a Grandma would be this great!!! I will post pictures of Meika when I get more than 2 minutes to blog.
- My usual looking after my 2 special needs guys,

- Getting my son ready for the craft fair, He sells dog biscuits at the Craft fair.

- Teaching beginner knitting class on thursday evening

- Finishing a very fine knit sweater using the LLama and Angora yarn. It was really nice and its new owner has it tonight. I never even got a picture of it but it is very soft and fluffy

- Got in lots of new inventory for the store, so now I need to rearrange the store to fit it all in. For now it is my front hall.

- designed and knit Earflap hats for Baby and Mom out of Noro for the new book

- working at the store on Wed and Sat

- eBay is busy as usual, sending emails, packaging and shipping yarn

- I just got in my order from lorna's laces and I need to start this sweater for a customer. This will be a fun one to knit. She picked the colours shown.

- made 6 end to end scarves for the craft fair and a few pair of socks

- right now I need to go make a another load of dog biscuits for my son. He is asleep but I need to help out a bit so he can help package them tomorrow.

Well that is about it. I will take pictures of the craft fair. It should be fun. I am always glad when it comes and just as glad when it is over.

I will blog all about it on Sunday.

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Store update

Saturday was a great day at the store. It wasn't busy like I expected but Brenda, Deb and Lisa Marie were in to knit. We had cookies and muffins. It was a real kntting party. Deb is a new knitter, I mean brand new. She just started knitting last week, she is a quick learner and had the back of her vest mostly done already. She has many more projects in mind.
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Brenda is working on her Mosiac sock which she has since finished. She is multi-tasking in this picture, she is also reading. We had a lot of fun and I actually got some knitting done too. Lisa Marie is making a baby sweater with Ecoknits cotton,. It is really cute but I missed getting a picture of her and the sweater, maybe next week.

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A Fun Map

Check out our Frappr!

Here is a link to a map that you can show us who you are and where you live and a picture of you.. This is a fun map. I got the idea from Brenda

Friday, November 11, 2005


I have done nothing but fun knitting the last 2 days. I got inspired at the store the other night and decided to dig out all my scarf yarn left overs. I have a lot. I always save a bit at the end of a scarf just for this reason. I love to knit the end to end scarves and mix up the colour and textures. So here is a picture of my fun so far and my fun yarns.
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Close up of the scarves. These are for the craft far coming up in 2 weeks. I really need to get knitting socks but just can't seem to get motivated. Oh well back to playing with scarf yarn.

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Tuesday, November 08, 2005

My web site has the patterns

I went back to a format for my web site that I know how to operate for now so I could post the patterns on it again. It looks very plain but the information is there and the free patterns have a link to them so you can just click and print. I like easy. I think the web store is a long ways away so for now I have the real store for the locals and the eBay store for the rest of the world.

Opal Saphir is on ebay

I finally got the pattern for the twinset so I post the Opal Saphir yarn on eBay. The twinset is only written in size small. That wouldn't fit me for sure so I will be working on the math today to try and make this pattern to fit more than petit women. It is a really cute pattern. The sleeveless sweater is done with 2 panel, front and back in stocking st. Then a moss stitch panel at each side to join it. This should be easy to adjust to larger sizes.
The cardigan is knit in Moss stitch from side to side, so it shouldn't be too hard to make bigger either.

Sunday, November 06, 2005

Knitting fun

As always it was a fun day at the store. It was sure busy and I think a lot of people are getting knit scarves for Christmas.

Marnie brought in a scarf she is working on. Here is where you will find the pattern. It is called Yarn Party and it is perfect name for this scarf. She is making it with Mango Moon, Colinette Isis and Giotto. As always the picture doesn't do it justice. She promised to show it when it is finished also. She has a real talent for picking colours and yarns that go well together.
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Meet Deb. She is Quadra's newest knitter. She came in to sign up for my begining knitter class and couldn't wait so we got her started.I think she will be a great knitter, she certainly has the desire. She cast on for a nice chunky knit vest and got about 3 inches knit before she left. We will see more from her. I will post her progress. I encouraged her to get a blog going so if she does I will link to it.

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I am going to offer a 3 week beginner class starting Nov.17th and be from 7 - 8:30 for 3 consecutive Thursday evenings. The add will go in the Hungry Eye this week with more details. Since this is my first class I am only going to take 3 people and see how that goes. Deb has signed up so I have room for 2 more. It should be fun. I love teaching knitting, it is very rewarding.

On my knitting I got very little done yesterday. I got the other mitt done and a felted child's slipper. I was too excited to see how it would felt anf threw it in the washer before I had them both done. I took it over to the store yesterday to watch it dry. It turned out really nice. this it the first item I have ever felted beleive it or not so I was thrilled. I can see a lot more felting in my future. I will post a picture later once I get the second one done and before I wash it to show the size difference.

Friday, November 04, 2005

Opal Hats

Here are 2 hats I made with Opal yarn. The first one is made with the new 6ply Opal in colour 1252.



This was fun to knit. I started it with I cord on the earflaps and ended with I cord for the top decorations. It took only a small amount of the 6ply yarn and I have enough left to make a scarf to match. I have the pattern written out for both htese hats and the mitts if anyone is interested just email me at shelmack@telus.net.
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This hat and 1 mitt is made with the new Opal Saphir. This is really nice yarn and so fun to knit with. I got the hat and a pair of fingerless mitts out of 1 ball. I will be placing this yarn on eBay next week as I am waiting for the free pattern that goes with it to arrive.
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The other mitt is still on the needles and will be done tomorrow (too tired to finish it tonight). I imagine the store will be busy tomorrow so  I thought I would post this tonight with only 1 mitt made. They turned out great. I love the colours in this yarn it has green flecks instead of black. i think I will keep these mitts and hat for myself. They match my coat perfectly and fit perfect too.




 

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

She just gets cuter and cuter

Well I just can't resist posting another Meika picture. She is happily enjoying the hockey game tonight wearing her Canuck jersey. They are coming to visit again in a few weeks and I can't wait. sh has really changed in the last month.
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On the knitting front it has been a very busy few days. I am still working on the Batik shawl and am into the gold now and done all the green. I am deciding if it is big enough or if I should knit the red next. This will make it huge. I will decide later when I measure it. I have knit many scarves in the last week. I am getting ready for the craft fairs. The store was busy tonight and I sold lots of scarf yarn. It is the season to knit nice scarves for presents.



I got the Opal Saphir yesterday. It is really nice. I have a hat 1/2 done and should be ready for a picture tomorrow. It knits up so quickly. I love it. This yarn has a bit more wooI in it compared to the sock yarn and it has very nice body. I will post the Saphir on eBay tomorrow. Here are the colours available. I didn't get any of the free patterns for the sweater yet but they should be coming soon. I want to make it. I think I like the 1200 best.

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Tuesday, November 01, 2005

How cute is this

Meika in her Halloween costume. I cracked up laughing when I saw this. She looks so delighted.
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I just got a shipment in from Cheery Tree Hill. - Wow what nice yarn. I will post about it later when I get time.