Meet Quadra's Newest Knitters

I had fun teaching this group to knit last night. They learned very quickly. They learned about different weights and fibres of yarn, tension, how to cast on, knit and cast off. After the next 2 lessons they will be unstoppable. Sorry the picture is so dark I think I better charge my batteries before I go to Cortez. I better go get packing. Astor and a few of the ladies taking the course are going to meet me at the Lovin Oven, (Quadra's Restaurant) for lunch and then they are coming to the store for a little shop then off to Cortez. I am going to get a ride with them, it is cheaper than driving my own van on the ferry and will be way more fun. It is beautiful weather today so hopefully it lasts all weekend. I will blog all about the workshop when I get back.

Very busy week

This is sure a busy week for me. Aside from my regular work I am busy getting ready for a new knitters course. I have 4 maybe 5 people coming for 3 lessons to learn how to knit. I love the enthusiasm of new knitters. This should be a fun group. We start on Thursday night. I am also getting ready to go to Cortez for the weekend. I am trying to plan my knitting projects to take. I need a brainless project and a harder one plus something in case I get very inspiried and of course I will probably be too busy with the planned knitting to do any of the other knitting but I better bring it just in case.
I am looking forward to my weekend away. My only regret is that I will miss meeting Jo and Peg , Jo has come all the way from Ireland to travel around BC and see knitting shops and I guess a few other sites on the way, and to meet her Blog friend Peg. They are coming to Fun Knits on Saturday. I will be 1 island away in knitting paradise. Mom will be in the store and she is looking forward to meeting them also.
Another thing going on is I plan to have some Sweatermaker available for sale at the Web store this weekend also. I am working on it. I will have shawl kits. They are great.

Finished Noro Pinwheel

I actually finished something other than Toe Kozies. I got the Noro Silk Garden  Pinwheel sweater done last week. I love the sweater in Noro. That is why I made it because I thought it would look great in Noro and it does. When I was knitting it for the contest that is what I could imagine. I knit this with Silk Garden colour 8 and it took 5 balls. It would have taken 4 but I wanted the sleeves to match. Now I need to find it a home. Megan has the original one for Meika. I will sell this at the Christmas craft fairs.



We had a nice visit with Megan and Meika last week. Meika is a lot of fun to play with and very busy. Here are a couple of sleeping baby pictures. Megan nursing Meika and knitting toe Kozies. Do you remember this post My daughter can Knit. Well she is still nursing and knitting. Wouldn't want to waste precious knitting time.

Meika after her nursing having a nice nap. She is wearing her watercolour Toe Kozies. Megan and I got a lot worked out about the Toe Kozie business. I think they are going to be a great hit.

I have a busy week and I am really looking forward to next weekend. That is when I go to The Pull of Wool on Cortez a workshop put on by Astor Tsang. I am excited to go and spend an entire weekend with my only focus being knitting. You would think I would get enough knitting but I don't. I am really busy with my Group Home for special needs guys and with the Store.  I have some really excitng things coming up for the Store and the Web Site, be sure to stay tuned.

 

Look who is coming today!!!

Yahoo. I get to hug and squeeze and play with this little sweety if I can catch her.

Megan and Meika are coming for the weekend so we can knit Toe Kozies and finish talking about the business plan. We are putting in an order with Lorna's Laces so if anyone want any Lorna's Laces please let me know and I will get it for you. I have been very busy this last week knitting socks and Toe Kozies. Now I have to go and clean/baby proof my house. Meika is a very busy 15 month old now.

Beautiful Sunset

I just thought I would share with you a beautiful sunset. It was spectacular tonight. Hope that means we get another nice day tomorrow.

My daughter's Toe Kozie Blog

We are getting ready to offer the Toe Kozies online for sale and we are getting lots of them knit. My daughter Megan has started a new blog called Toe Kozies. So go over and see her new blog and say hi.
This is fun having my Mom and my daughter all in the knitting business. On her blog today she has a 4 generation picture of us all. Knitting is definately in our genes. I hope Meika got those good knitting genes too.

Great Saturday at the Store

As usual I had a great day at the store on Saturday. Mom bought some Cherry Tree Hill to make me a birthday sweater. I can't wait to see it. She is going to design it herself. It is going to be a cardigan with a couple of cables up the front. Sounds great I think. I picked out my colour.  Denim and purple. I had a hard time deciding between that one and the red one but the denim won in the end.

I also had a visit from Judy Maclean and her husband David. We had a great visit and talked about the upcoming launch of the sweatermaker yarn for sale on the internet. I hope to get that all ready by the end of Sept. For now just the Island Hues is available. Lots more to come. This is the first time they have come to the store and they really liked it. It was a nice day so we sat outside and visited. Judy is wearing a shawl I made with the Sweatermaker yarns.

Yes I am going !!!

I booked the knitting retreat. Everything worked out great. Mom is going to work for me, My respite caregiver can do the weekend and there is still room in the workshop. If you want to come there is still a few spaces.
I can't wait.

Help me talk myself into this knitting retreat

I won't need much help with this. I really want to go to - The Pull of Wool - presented by Astor Tsang. This workshop is Sept.29 - Oct 2 at Hollyhock on Cortes Island, one island away from Quadra. I really need a vacation and I think this would be the best break I could get. I would love to go and hangout on Cortes for a few days and let my creativity flow - pour buckets. I have a head full of design ideas and no time to get these thoughts out. Anyways where else does someone who lives on Quadra Island go to get away from it all. - Cortes Island of course.
So what do you think should I go - - - - anyone out there in blog land want to come too. I talked to Astor today and she has a few spots left. That is what I couldn't beleive. I think that is sign that I should go. I figured this soon before it begins it would be full. Mom told me she would work in the store for me. I couldn't convince her to come.

The Pull of Wool is pulling me - Should I to go register.

I would take a notebook and tons of yarn , needles and all my stitch books. I will decide later and let you know.

Want to see how much yarn I can fit in 300 Sq. ft.

I haven't shown any pictures of the store lately so I thought I would. I think the store is a marvel in how to get a lot of yarn in a small space and still have room to walk. The first picture is the outside of the store. I have started putting yarn outside on nice days.

This is what you see from the door of the store.

Here is the sock yarn wall. The sale sign was for the August sale of Opal Saphir.

More yarn shelves and hooks and baskets and you can just see the knitting couch.

This is the needles wall plus much more yarn. This yarn section is the novelty yarn and is a bit chaotic also you can see some of the Malibrigo hanging nice and close to the checkout desk so I can pet it often.

Here is our book shelf and pattern rack and binders.

This is the Noro and Sweatermaker section. Aren't those colours amazing. I am working very hard at getting all of the sweatermaker available on the internet this month.

And of course the most important part of the store, customers. Here is Brenda with her newly finished Diamond Fantasy shawl knit with lace weight Island Hues yarn. Her shawl is lovely and she plans to block it and show pictures on her blog so go have a look. We had a nice day on Saturday at the store. We sat outside and knit when the store wasn't too busy. It was fun to knit and chat with Brenda. She showed me magic loop sock knitting. It actally looks easy.

EBay fun

This weeks auction will be very fun on eBay. I just got in 4 new Opal Prototype yarns and Confetti yarn aren't they great. I imagine I will get a few bids on these yarns as they aren't available anywhere else. Brenda - check out the Lime one- I love the fuschia one and hope to knit some socks for me later this week. I have some socks from a sale in Gibson's to knit first.

I am also clearing out a few sock yarns. Here is a picture of all 10 collections that I have on eBay this week. They are starting at a low bid of $19.95. All the collections have 4 balls of yarn each and some colections contain silk, cotton and hand painted yarn. I have 1 Gedifra collection and it has 8 balls of yarn as they are 50gr. It was fun putting the collections together. I hope they go to good homes /stashes.

Combination knitting

This is what I am doing today instead of putting sock yarn back on the shelves and photographing the new Online Highland sock yarn, like I am supposed to be doing. I am playing with the method of Combination knitting. It is interesting to learn new methods of knitting. I have always been intriged by the continental method of knitting as it is seems much faster but have never taken the time to learn it. The combination purl row is definately faster than a regular purl row. I will practise this a bit and may adopt it as my new knititng method. Notice I have a few bad rows in there as I was trying new methods of holding the yarn. The garter rows and rib rows were just for contrast and I was trying rib with the new purl method. It is fun to play around with, NOTE to MYSELF - - GET BACK TO WORK -----

Pictures galore

Yes you guessed it I got a new camera. Here are the last 2 pictures with my old camera. Helen, Marnie and Carol came to the store on Wed. to knit. They had a good time. Mom and I were pretty busy trying to rearrange the store, so we didn't knit very much. Helen finished the back of a cotton sweater, Marnie is knitting something, sorry Marnie I forget what. She is wearing Mom's sweater she made with the Marble yarn, Looks good on her. Carol is knitting her fuzzy socks. They are really soft and nice. Knit with Sisu yarn and eyelash yarn. Fun idea.

This is my new camera a Fuji S5200 and here are pictures I took with it. This is the trip from Campbell River to Quadra. It is about a 10 - 15 minute trip depending on who is driving the boat I guess. It was a bit cloudy and dull out but the pictures have good colour. They are very accurate. The picture program allows me to print on the pictures so that is fun. This view is much nicer when you can see all the mountain and it is sunny out.



I hadn't figured out the zoom by this picture yet or I would have zoomed on the house.


I could have zoomed in even more but didn't want to cut off the boat.


This camera has a lot of potential. I can't wait to start getting very accurate and detailed pictures of yarn. The new yarn I have is Online Highland sock yarn and I need to photograph it as it is quite new and no links to any pictures. It is a nice tweedy yarn in great colours. I will probably post it on the web site on Sunday.

Gibson's was a blast

We had a great time at Gibson's Fibre Festival. It was a lot of work but also a lot of fun. I met so many new people and a few customers that I only knew from the internet. It is so nice to finally meet face to face. Here are some pictures. The first 2 are of the Merchant Mall and if you look close you can see our booth. My Fun Knits sign is on the wall in the first picture between the white square and the black rack on the wall. These pictures were taken just before it opened.

Here is a close shot of the booth. It was really fun to hear people when they got to our booth say " OH wow Sock yarn". I sold tons of sock yarn.

Megan and I spent most of my days at the cash register, but I did get a little shopping done and a bit of knitting. We also chased Meika around. My husband had Meika most of the time and she was very busy. She is sleeping in her stroller in this picture under the bright orange shawl. When she was sleeping her stroller became a display rack.

Holli from Bees Knees came the last day. It was great to have the extra help and fun to chat with Holli.

This is what we did when we were done selling for the day. Megan knitting and Meika napping. The other lawn chair is mine with my new knitting bag full of knitting waiting for me. It was the only way to unwind after a long day of chatting and selling. After the picture was taken here we all fell asleep. Very relaxing.

On the last day when we tore the booth down we went out for dinner with our new friends, the owners of Knitopia in White Rock. We had a good time. We were all exhausted and starving by the time we were all packed. It was a fun show and I will definately go again next year. The only down part of the week was we came home to a burned out pump in our well and no water. It will be fixed within the week but wow is it hard to live without water. I am doing better about it today but yesterday was rough.

Off to Gibsons

I am packing the camera so I thought I would take a picture of chaos central at my house. I am sorting sock yarn to take to Gibson's. My living room is the sorting area.  The store looks worse but no picture as I am too busy. Sorry for the blurry pictures I think I need a new camera. See you when I get back and I hope to get good pictures if my camera cooperates.

Camp

We had a great time at camp. All went well. When you travel with special needs kids things can go wrong in a big way but our trip was uneventful and therefore a huge success. We had a very full week of activities. Here are some pictures. I spent all week with Megan and Meika. Meika had just woke up in this picture and was a bit shy. She is very busy now running everywhere. So much fun to play with her.

This is the drumming event. A great event for deafblind kids. The vibration was fantastic in the drums. All the kids had a wonderful time. I even put down my knitting and played the drums for a while. It was great fun.

The vibration in the huge drum was amazing. Even just simple talking could resonate in that big drum.
 
I spent lots of time visiting with the other families that come to camp. It is so nice to talk to them about the stuff we live with everyday. We had a planning meeting for my son as he is going to become an adult next year. This is called our transition year. He is going to be leaving school and start working, so this requires a lot of planning. The kids did lots of other activities at camp. They did arts and crafts daily, a scavanger hunt, went to Science World, had a visit from Cinemazoo and saw and pet all kinds of animals. On the last night we had a great bbq.

I got some time off and went to Granville Island, went to the show and out for dinner with my hubby. (Nice treat.) While at granville Island I met with Holli Yeoh, Bees Knees knits. I am going to be taking some of her new kits the Gibson's Fibre Festival next week. We had a nice visit and of course talked about knitting. She is going to try and come up to Gibson's too for a few days. One evening I met with my Yarn reps. It was more like show and tell. A few other people from camp came and it was fun. I am getting some very neat yarns soon. Will blog more about them once they arrive. Keep you in suspense. So it was a great week, and I am happy to be home. Now I have to pack up a ton of yarn and be in Gibson's on Wed. If anyone is going to be at Gibson's and has a special yarn request email me at shelmack@telus.net . I will be bringing a huge variety of yarn. Can't wait.

I got a bit of knitting done. I am nearly done the edge on my Noro silk garden pinwheel sweater. I got 8 pair of Toe Kozies knit and a new hat with buttons on it. No pictures yet. My camera is acting up a bit. I think I wore it out.

Off to Camp

Every year we take our special needs guys to Deafblind camp in Burnaby. It is called camp but is anything but that. We get a nice posh house to stay in. It is really fun to go to the city for a week. The guys really love camp and it is nice to see all the other families with Deafblind children. They are really the only people we actually have anything in common with. Some of them even knit. It is a very different life living with a deafblind child,(teenager)and no one really understands it except others that live this life. Its lots of work but we always have lots of fun.
I have lots of fun things planned aside from camp activities. I am meeting my yarn reps down there to look at all the new fall yarns and I am meeting Holli Yeoh of Bees Knees knits one day. That should be fun.We will see all of our kids and have a fun family week.
The store will have a few different hours this week.
Wed the store will close at 4:30. and Sat. the store will be open 10 am - 3:30 pm.
Any items purchased this week at the web store or at my ebay store will be mailed August 14th. I will try and get near a computer now and then.
I am taking lots of knitting of course but mostly for Toe Kozies. We need lots of these for selling at Gibson's next week.
See you when I get back

Filberg fun and our version of bah bah black sheep

I had a great time at Filberg Festival yesterday. It was fun going to it and just looking around at leisure. There are so many talented people there. I only got a few pictures of the Sweatermaker booth. I forgot to empty my camera before left home so I hardly room for any pictures. There were several weaving, knitting and spinning booths there and of course that is where I went mostly. Judy's booth was great, she was right beside the guy who sells hand made drum, they are really neat but I'll bet that got old listening to the drums all day, poor Judy. Maybe she was too busy to notice. Everytime I went by her booth she was swamped with customers.

She has some great new yarns and this fall I will have all of her yarns available to buy online. She also has some great scarf kits. I am going to be taking all her yarn and kits to Gibsons Fibre Festival Aug 17-19, if she has anything left after Filberg

We finally got a minute to talk and I got a picture of Judy. She had a busy day. She will be there again today if anyone in the area is going.

Now here is tune that can stick in your head all day. This is Megan and Meika's version of Bah bah black sheep

Hey there Grandma have you any wool?
Yes baby yes baby a million bags full
some for my home
some for my store
and some for me to knit forevermore
hey there Grandma have you any wool
yes baby yes baby a million bags full .

I think that should be my new theme song.

I am going to be away this week at camp with my Special needs guys. I don't have an eBAy auction on and any yarn that is purchased from my Web Store this week will be mailed monday Aug. 14th. I will try and get to a computer so I can answer emails. I think this is going to be a busy week.

FLashy finger gloves done

I got 2 things done today. The gloves and a pair of socks for Meika.

I will post the sock pattern later in the week. I am too tired tonight to write it out. Both the gloves and the socks are made with Opal Saphir the Fun Knits sale yarn for August. I love the socks. I want to get her a pair of clear rubber boots to wear with them but her feet are too small for those yet.

Here is the glove holding a mini opal so you can get an idea how small they are. My last picture is my new signs for the Van. I want to wash my Van before I put the signs on but I can't seem to get that accomplished so I stuck the signs on my fridge for now. Huge fridge magnets - I like them.

August Sale yarn and Mini Opals

I have just listed the August sale yarn. This month the sale yarn is Opal Saphir. It is a 4ply yarn but a Sport weight. It is in 100gr balls, 250 metres. I love this yarn. You can make a pair of socks in no time with this yarn. I posted the pattern for the flashy finger gloves but I don't have the picture of the gloves up yet. I need to knit the thumbs. I will post the picture later today. I have been really busy, Too busy to knit a couple of thumbs.
I am also offering the Mini Opals for sale at the Web Store. They are so sweet I am sure everyone will want those.
I also wanted to mention that I won't have an eBAy auction this week as I am going away next week and I am taking a break from eBAy. I will put an auction on once I come home. August is busy month for us.
Next week we are going to Deafblind camp in Vancouver with the kids and the week after that we are going to Gibson's Fibre Festival to sell yarn. Should be lots of fun and a very busy few weeks.