On line Selling experiment

I have been wanting to get an online store going for quite a while. I am trying to see if this works and the first 3 people that buy yarn from this site get free shipping. You will be helping me out and at the same time get this amazing yarn shipped to you free. You will initially pay for your shipping but I will send you a refund. So buy as much as you want and the shipping is on me. I will post once 3 people have bought.
I have posted the yarn on my website and linked it to paypal. This sytem looks good and if it works like it should I will be posting many more yarns here in the future.
The yarn I am selling is the Fun Knits exclusive Season's Yarn for $16.50 US.
It is amazing yarn and the colours are fabulous. Since it is 100% Merino it is very soft. The colours were hand dyed for us by Judy MacLean of Sweatermaker. She has a great line of yarns which will be available here soon.
This line of yarn will be available in 4 colourways soon, All 4 seasons Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. I can't wait to see the next 2 season's as I just love Spring and Summer.
Update: 3 people already got the free shipping and the system works great. I will be listing more yarn available here soon.

Jaywalker problems

Last week I started the Jaywalker socks in Opal Rosehip. When I started it I used 2.5mm needles. I usually use 2.25mm needles but thought I would use the needles I had handy. I didn't do a tension swatch, that is what a sock is isn't it. Well live and learn, yesterday I ripped out. I  knit it for a a few inches and realized it would be way too big so I thought maybe I will go to smaller needles (2mm) and so what if the top is a bit loose. Well it was a disaster. Once I got the heel knit I tried it on  tried to try it on, but no way I could get it over my foot. Way too tight, so that was that and it got frogged.

So here is sock #2 much nicer. This one is knit on 2.25 needles just like the pattern calls for and time will tell but I think this one will fit. I should have ripped out the first one sooner. I love the way this yarn looks with this pattern. It is really a fun pattern to knit.

My Trip to Vancouver

I had a great trip tp Vancouver. I spent lots of time with Megan and Meika and I got to see my 2 boys also. It was nice to relax and have some quality time with my kids. I took some pictures so here they are. The first one is Megan wearing her new birthday sweater I made her. It is made with Noro Transitions. The pattern is from the same edition of Vogue as the Twisted float shrug Fall 2005, It is pattern #1 in the book. Eyelet pullover with Peplum. I made a variation at the bottom of the sweater. It is supposed to flair out like the sleeves but I didn't think Megan would like that flair so I didn't do it. I think it is very nice on her. She looks great in anything. Notice the beautiful weather. It was like that for my entire stay in Vancouver, what a treat.

The second day I was there we meet up with Holli Yeoh of Bees Knees. She  bought some sock yarn from me so I thought I may as well deliver it since I was coming down, plus I wanted to meet her. We could have talked for hours about knitting and sweater design. It was fun. In the picture left to right, Meika happily drinking a bottle, Megan, Devan, (Holli's little boy)he is so cute, Holli and me.

The rest of the time in Vancouver was spent walking around enjoying the beautiful weather, scenery and eating. Here is a picture of Meika eating breakfast. She is so much fun now, full of energy and very playful. I had a lot of fun playing with her.

 Here is a picture of Megan eating at the Keg. We had a great lunch there. Meika was very bored with this so had a good nap.

I actually got some knitting done while I was away. I am at the heel on my first Jaywalker sock and it is really nice. I will post a picture later.

Taking a few days off

I am taking a few days off and going to Vancouver to visit my kids. I am going tomorrow and will be back Sunday. Anyone who has bought on this weeks auction if you pay by tonight, your parcel will be in tomorrows mail. If you pay later it will be in Mondays mail. I will send this info with your invoices today.
At the store it will be business as usual,(I am not really needed there). Deb is working tomorrow and Mom is doing Saturday for me.
I really need a break so this will be fun. I hope the weather is nice so I can get out and walk on the Seawalk. I will probably post from down there as I will have time. I hope to get lots of knitting done.

Quadra Island Knitting Guild first meeting

The first meeting of our new Knitting guild went very well. We had 13 come out and everyone had a lot of fun. Some of the beginner knitters learned a lot. For the beginner knitters we are going to make a different dishcloth pattern each month. This month we made this one.

It was a challenge for the beginner knitters but they got it. Dishclothes are great to learn on. They don't cost much to make and they are practical. The more experienced knitters decided to do the Jaywalker socks. I am going to make mine with Opal Rosehip. This is actually a really easy pattern. I cast mine on last night.

Here are a couple of pictures of the group. See we are all very busy knitting.

It was fun and I look forward to next months meeting. We decided the meetings will be on the 3rd Thursday of the month, so the next meeting will be April 20th.

Quadra Island Knitting Guild

The names sounds great doesn't it. Well tonight is our first meeting and hopefully it will be well attended. We are going to have a planning meeting tonight and discuss what people want. I hope everyone brings their knitting. We are going to have a monthly meeting with Show and tell, and a lesson to learn a new stitch for new knitters. We might have knit alongs if there is interest and special guests. We will have a lot of fun. If you live in the area and want to come we will be meeting at my house, 701 Heriot Bay Rd. (the white house just east of the store)at 7 Pm tonight.
I will let you know tomorrow how it went and have some pictures.

Twisted Float Shrug in the mail

The Twisted float shrug is on it way to its new owner. Hope she sends us a picture of her wearing it. I hope she likes it. It was a fun sweater to knit and I am glad to be done it. Here are some pictures of it.

A Closeup of the back. The colours are amazing. It is knit in Lorna's Lace worsted Watercolour and Charcoal.

The front

The sweater laid out on the floor

Deb modelling it. Looks great on.

I had some questions about it on one of my comments and I don't have anyway of answering you so I will do it here.

First of all, do you end up carrying the color or breaking the yarn when you start the 2nd color.... there are too many rows of one color to carry the other color nicely. - I carry the colour while I was twisting the floats and then break the yarn for the plain section.
2nd, what increase are you using? - I knit in to the front and the back of the same stitch, Use stitch markers to mark where the increase sections start and if you stagger the increases like they suggest they don't even show.
3rd, are you also getting a jog where the knit becomes purl? Yes. There is a line where the knit row becomes a purl. If you look close on the sweater in the magazine you can see this too. I tried everything to figure out how to avoid this but never did. It looks ok as it looks like a very neat seam. When I did the sleeves I put that section on the inside of the arm if it is worn as a sweater. That was complicated to figure out. If you have any more questions email me at shelmack@telus.net  and I will answer you in email.

 

Meika pictures

Well yesterday I promised some pictures and here they are. Mostly pictures of Meika and Megan's visit. So if you don't love baby pictures scroll to the bottom and you can see the booth at the Needlearts Show. 

This is Meika's first snowman. For anyone who doesn't know, we don't get much snow where we live so it is always a novelty. Everyone big and little always makes a snowman. This was her first and she loved it. I am not sure who had more fun Megan or Meika. 

Meika and Grandma warming up after the snowman fun.

Meika getting into stuff. She can get around now and she is very quick to get into stuff other than toys.

My happy girls. I just love this picture. Notice Megan is wearing her Regia Cotton socks.
OK enough Grandma pictures now back to yarn.

This was our booth at the show. It was great. I brought over a good cross section of yarn from the store and lots of sock yarn. I brought needles and books too. We had a lot of shoppers but I took the picture during the only quiet moment so you could see all the yarn. We had an ugly basketball net right over the booth so we decorated it with scarves. It looked great.

Oh gee another Meika pcture. Well this is Mom and Meika at the show. Meika was helping Grandma run the booth while I ran around taking pictures and shopping. Megan was off shopping too. Meika is wearing her little Noro Silk Garden vest. This is one of the patterns that will be in the new Noro Book coming out sometime this year. It is knit from side to side.

I took a picture of the twisted float shrug but it didn't turn out so I will try again and post it later.

Very behind in blogging

I have so much to write about I hardly know where to begin. I will post a good version of this tomorrow night when I have time.
I have been very busy all week. The Sewing and Needleart show went great. I met so many new people and sold a lot of yarn. It was a very busy day. I took pictures and will post them tomorrow too. Our booth looked great. We took all the yarn over the night before and set it up. It was a really nice day so we took it all in the truck and left most of it in the shelves so it was an easy set.
The next day was a different story. It was snowing big wet flakes when it was time to pack up and come home so all the yarn had to come out of the shelves and into garbage bags to travel home in the van. That was a huge job.
I spent the next 2 days organzing the store and unpacking yarn.
The store looks great I took this chance to reorganize it. I even have a few spaces in the store now. Probably won't last long.
Also this week. I finished the Twisted Float Shrug. It looks great and it's picture will be on tomorrow too.
Megan and Meika went home. We had a great visit and Meika is soooooooo much fun. She is just full of life. I miss them already.
Also in store news Deb started working at the store. She is going to be working on Thursdays now as we are open from noon -5:30 on Thursdays now.
Lots of news no time to write in the blog.
I will try and catch up