more great colours at Fun Knits...

"Sweatermaker" braided beauties are hand-dyed by Judy McLean in Courtney.  This is only a sprinking of the many fabulous colours we have in stock.

Vivian Dorsett's handspun, hand-dyed, and hand knit articles -- a 'must see' area.

This is a delightful section of the shop with dozens of colourful bags of soft, fluffy roving, fibre and silk hankies. We also carry smaller bags full of small amounts of fibre in various colours for embellishment or other art/felt/spinning projects.

Isn't it amazing how a bag of neon bright fibre (bag on left) can translate into a more subtle multi-coloured skein of spun yarn (long thin twisted skein on right).

And finally, a bouquet of dahlias for all!

northern lights and more.....

Here are some of the glorious colours to be found in the store right now.  The new Northern Lights roving in "forest glade" spins up into a deep dark emerald flow with lighter strands of teal and olive  -  it is absolutely beautiful!

Then there is the "mulled wine" that Shelley was spinning on Tuesday - from a distance the yarn looked like rich burgandy reds with fire shades throughout. Very yummy!!!

"Meadow trail" looks lovely and will no doubt spin up into vibrant tones that will remind us of spring and summer.

We now stock recycled sari silk - it is crazy soft and the colours are iridescent.  These photos don't do justice to the luminous quality of each shade.  Just imagine intense radiance - you have to see it and feel it to believe it.

We have an open bag of this exquisite shredded silk thread on the table by the couch for anyone who wants to experience it's allure.

On Tuesdays at 10:00 a.m. several spinners gather at Fun Knits to spin, knit, tell stories, and share beautiful handspun, handknit articles.  I am always struck by the unique loveliness of each piece and the obvious commitment and devotion to the craft whether its creator slants toward meticulous perfectionism, free-form rustic, or one of the endless variations between the two - the item and its maker are amazing!!! 

Free Patterns Now in PDF

I just wanted to let everyone know that Shelley's wonderful free patterns are now available in pdf format on the website, on this page. I'm hoping to get some more of Shelley's patterns up over time as well (she has so many patterns in that clever head).

I'm heading over to Fun Knits tomorrow to hang out with Deb and Shelley for a couple of hours. We should come up with some great ideas and projects (and I may come away with some yarn....) for the next few months!

A few hours between spinners...

What a wonderful time we newer spinners had with the island's original group of spinners who invited us to join them for Distaff Day.  Thank you to Marg for sharing her gorgeous home in the woods. Everyone brought their wheels and fleece, and went to it, happily spinning, laughing, plying, talking, eating, and knitting up the handspun.  (Shelley, you were missed by all - and next time, I'll woman the fort and you can go play.)  I'm inspired all over again and can hardly wait to get to work tomorrow to wiggle my fingers through a new bag of Northern Lights - I think I'll go for the stunning "forest glade." 

Creative sock

Here is a picture George put on my desktop at the store. George is the computer guy that is keeping the store computer functioning. He isn't knitter but I think he gets knitting.

Great picture

Spring cleaning in January

Fun Knits was wonderful today, as was yesterday and Tuesday.  I've been busily and contentedly cleaning shelves, organizing drawers and reorganizing yarn, furniture and fleece.  There's more room now for our spinner's gathering on Tuesdays - I'm looking forward to seeing a visible space between our spinning wheels.  

For all of you felt/fleece/spinning artists out there, we have three new colours of Northern Lights roving in - "mulled wine" and "forest glade" and "meadow trail" -  each bag is full of exquisite shades of absolute loveliness!  (Note - I am new to blogging and don't have a clue how to link you to the photos of our stock but I promise I'll ask Shelley or Kate to teach me soon so that you can see what I'm referring to.) 

Several people have asked for smaller amounts of fleece in a variety of colours - we now offer just that, a small bag containing various colours of wool or a wool/silk blend.

I'm grateful to Shelley for inviting me to add my thoughts to the blog -- I think we have a great team of skilled, inspired women working together to keep a great yarn shop moving forward.  Kudos to Shelley for her dream and the gutsy leap of faith it took to open this knitting sanctuary. 

Wishing all of you an imaginative new year with a ton of finished projects,

Deb  

Mmmmmm, Malabrigo

First, a thank you to Shelley for the invitation to be part of this blog. I am so enjoying working with Fun Knits and I look forward to sharing some of the website news here as well. Just to let people know, the website is updated Sunday nights, so a new front page is up on Mondays. One of the things I am working on is getting all of Shelley's great free patterns (in the links at the side here) into pdf format and onto the website, this should be done soon.

Now, one of the great things about this job is that I have to write about yarn. And to write about yarn, I have to see the yarn, touch the yarn, fondle the yarn and, hopefully, knit with the yarn. When Shelley got the last shipment of Malabrigo in at the store, I knew this was my time to knit with this luscious yarn! I already had got some lace weight from her in the summer, and this time I picked up some worsted weight in the same colour way: Emerald.

I am not immune to the trends of the knitting world, and right now it seems one of the big trends is cowls. I love cowls:

 they keep your neck warm without slipping off or needing to be wound about (although I am quite a fan of scarves as well, they are one of my favourite things to knit); they can cover your face or your ears; they are a pretty little burst of colour at your neck. So I used both my worsted and my lace weight Malabrigo to make two different cowls. And I love them! (The colours are the same in reality, unfortunately winter is not the best time for taking photos.)

I'd love to hear what other people have made with these weights of Malabrigo, as I still have some left (and I'm pretty sure there will be more skeins in my future....).

New Year and New changes

Well if anyone still reads this blog you may notice I have been absent from blogging for most of December. I have been incredibly busy with life and have had no time extra for blogging. I love to keep in touch with the blog and feel bad when I just get busy and can't blog. Because of this I am introducing some changes. New year always prompts change for me.
I have added a few new authors to the blog
Deb - has been working at the store for quite a while now - she is my organizer - she is the reason you can find anything in the store and she is a good balance for me because I am not organized. Deb will be blogging about her ventures in the store
Kate - has been working for Fun Knits for a few months now. She is more behind the scenes so many of you may not have met her. She is updating the web site weekly and keep things alive on Ravelry etc. ... Kate will also be blogging
Mom (aka Donna) - she has been on this journey of Fun Knits since the beginning. She is my knitting teacher and mentor and has a lot to share. I hope she will blog also.
I will probably be more prompted to blog with all of this action going on.
I will certainly be checking it daily to see what everyone is saying.
So stay tuned. This blog should get very busy again.
Happy New year to everyone
Shelley

The Malabrigo is here

I got 5 boxes of Malabrigo today. I got every colour of Malabrigo sock yarn except the colour 801 it is back ordered. I need to control myself not to cast on a pair of socks until I have all of this yarn inventoried. I want to knit my husband a pair of #800 for Christmas. I will have this yarn available on the web site by Sunday. If you want -need a particular colour you can email me shelmack@telus.net or phone the store 1-250-285-2751 to purchase before it gets on the web site.
The last order of Malabrigo sock yarn lasted only a few days when I was at Gibson's fibrefest.
Aside from the sock yarn I got in 10 colours of Malabrigo worsted weight 44, 80, 88, 137, 203, 204, 194, 148, 173, 83 and 10 colours of Malabrigo lace weight. 247, 204, 137, 229, 203, 181, 5, 21, 30, 44 .
What amazing yarn.

Christmas in the Cove - Dec 6

Christmas in the Cove will be a great event happening on Quadra Dec 6 10 -5. All of the stores are participating and will have good sales and happenings all day. Fun Knits will have 10% off everything in the store and a few sale bins with great savings. We will also have a visit by William a small Shetland sheep for the day. I met William last week and what a sweetheart he is. He loves to be pet under the chin. He is just sweet.
So come and have a fun day on Quadra and meet William.

Our Spinning group

A little over a year ago a bunch of women on Quadra were all interested in learning spinning including me. We have a few very talented spinners on the island so with their help we started to learn. Now we have lots of spinners on Quadra. If you come into the store any Tuesday morning this is what you will see. We meet every Tuesday from 10 - Noon and spin, show our finished skeins of yarn and projects knit or wove with the yarn. It is a fun group and we all enjoy spinning a lot. I am usually busy with the store but sometimes I get to sit and spin with the group. Last Tuesday I did and it was nice.

Back from BC Creative Expo

We are back from the show and had a nice time down in Vancouver. It was nice to see all our kids. Time in the hectic city really makes me appreciate the nice quiet place I live. When we arrived in Campbell River last night there was no traffic and it was peaceful and wonderful. Then we got on the ferry to Quadra and it was even more peaceful on Quadra. I am not a city person at all. We stayed at a hotel near BC place Stadium and there were 3 hockey games in town so it was very busy and noisy.
The BC Creative Expo was disappointing. I didn't like it at Canada Place as much as in Abbotsford. Last year when they announced that the show would be at Canada Place I imagined it would be posh and nice not like a cold warehouse but it was a big noisy cold warehouse.
In spite of that we had fun and sold lots of yarn. This was my least busy show and the show where I had the most help.
Vyvyan from Quadra Island was there the first day and she spun all day at the booth and helped sell yarn, Kathy from Campbell River came and did the Make and take table with people. They made little end to end bookmarks like her end to end scarves she sells. This was quite popular. She actually taught several people to knit also. Megan came fro most of the time and helped out. She sold lots of her Toe Kozies and shopped lots also. She loves making cards so there was a lot of fun make and takes fr her to do. We had a lot of fun and it was nice to have company at the booth when it was quiet. Here are some pictures from the show.
This scarf was knit in freeform and it is fabulous. I am sorry I don't have the persons name but I know she is from Salt Spring Island. What a beautiful scarf. She wore other amazing knitting all weekend. Some people are so talented. I met lots of great people and had fun over all.
Here are a few pictures of my booth and the last pictures are to show you how amazing my husband is at organizing a load.
Here is our van already 1/2 full of stuff and then a picture of what needed to go in next. It all fit plus we had room for our luggage, the Ashford joy wheel and us.
Now I have to get busy and get the store loaded again.

Koigu yarn - BC Creative Expo

When I first opened my shop in 2005 I applied to Koigu to order yarn. The reply was that they had too many customers and I couldn't order from them. I was disappointed but managed without getting their yarn. This year I got an email and now they could provide Koigu yarn to the store.
Well it was worth the wait. What beautiful yarn. I am so inspired by this yarn I actually have 3 projects underway 2 scarves and 1 hat, haven't even started socks yet. I guess they will be next. I got in many colours of KPPPM, KPM and KFM. The KPPPM is the hand dyed multi colours merino yarn, KP is the hand dyed semi solid merino and KFM is the hand dyed multi coloured heavier weight felting merino. It is amazing yarn so soft and cushy. Wonderful to knit with.
I will be taking this yarn to BC creative Expo this week as well as - Noro Silk Garden and Kureyon sock yarn, new sock yarn from Diamond yarn - Foot Loose ( 90% merino superwash wool 10% nylon) and Fancy Free (10% Nylon, 20% Alpaca, 70% Merino Superwash Wool), Arucania Ranco, Lorna's Laces, Cherry Tree Hill, a new sock yarn from Ancient Thread Farms that is dyed with natural products and many more sock yarns. Lots of undyed yarn and of course Kauni in multi colours and solids. I will also have a great selection of fibre. I will be doing a spinning demo on the stage Friday at 6pm. There was rumour that Breakfast Television will be at the show and they want me to do knitting and or spinning demo on TV. That isn't a sure thing yet but who knows I may get my 5 minutes of fame.

Kathy from Mad Katerpillar Scarves will also be at the booth with me. She is going to be working on the make and take table helping people make end - to end bookmarks using novelty yarns. She sells the wonderful Mad Katerpillar scarf kits that are so popular.
I have a few new free hat and scarf patterns.
So if you are in the Vancouver area Nov 7-8 drop by and say hi.
I also have Ravelry buttons to give out to Ravelry members (while quantities last) and that best for the last
I will have a huge bucket of sale sock yarn - $10 - 100 gr ball. Come early for the best selection as this won't last long.
See you there!!

A very Fibery week

Last weekend I went to the Spinning retreat at the Kingfisher resort. I had a wonderful time and spun and ate and slept all weekend. I met a lot of new spinners and it was great to be surrouned by spinners and fibre all weekend. I shared a room with Brenda and she remembered to bring a camera so here are her pictures of the retreat. I bought this nice basket at he retreat to hold my Philosopher's wool sweater while in progress. I am finished both sleeves and have started the body now. I had hoped to get it done by the time I go to BC Creative expo, but the that isn't going to happen unless I focus better on one project.
I am busy with my new weaving loom. Diane helped me get it entirely warped and I am making great progress on my first blanket. The warp is Ranco Sock yarn and the weft is some pink mohair I had in stash. I'll bet you can't guess who this blanket is for. (Meika of course). I hope to finish this little blanket today and then get a new warp on the loom for 2 blankets later this week.
Here is a picture of my nice view as I weave. We have had a beautiful fall here so far. Cold but sunny.

Weekend Bliss

This weekend I am going to a spinning retreat at the Kingfisher. Lucky me. I get to eat, sleep and spin only this weekend. I will probably knit too.
See you Monday

Winter Hours for Fun Knits

Starting Wed Oct 15th Fun Knits will be open different hours for the winter. Tuesday and Sat will remain the same 10 am - 5 pm, Wed, Thurs and Friday will be changed to open at 11 am and closed at 4:30 pm.
This is for several reasons but mostly because those are times when the store isn't busy. I have been watching the trends for the last few weeks.

What a great Retreat Weekend

We had a wonderful group of knitter's attend the Philosopher's Wool knitting retreat this weekend. Ann, Eugene and Susan did an amazing job teaching everything we needed to know to make a wonderful Philosopher's Wool sweater. The new designs are amazing and they will be shown soon on the Philosopher's Wool's new website, so watch for that.
Here is how the weekend went
Friday - people arrived and got settled in, then we had a great barbecue salmon and steak dinner. We met and introduced Ann, Eugene and Susan to all the knitters then we went to Fun Knits for a huge sale. We sold lots of yarn and sweater kits this weekend.
Sat - after a great breakfast we got to work on our sweaters. Everyone came with a cuff done and ready to start Fair Isle. I have been stumbling with the 2 handed technique for a while and it took me 2 minutes to see why. I was holding my yarn wrong in my right hand for it to easily flow.
I learned so much this weekend.
We worked on our sweaters all day, in the Afternoon Ann detail how to finish the sweaters and Sat evening we had a show and tell. This was amazing. Such talent. So many knitted items.
Sunday Susan showed us her finishing techniques, How to prepare and finish the sweater. A great way to pick up the button band etc..... By the way Susan has knit over 300 Philosopher's wool sweaters so she really knows this well. Most of the Philosopher Wool sweaters in the pictures are knit by Susan.
Here are some pictures of the weekend,
I am starting with what I knit this weekend because I think it is just great. I am going to love this sweater and I can't put it down so I hope to have a finished sweater to show you soon.
The next pictures are of Ann, Eugene and Susan teaching. Next pictures are from the show and tell.
Joan and Roger modelling Philosopher's wool sweaters and broke into impromptu dance. A very wild fun sweater knit by Leslie of Naniamo, Eugene's Nuclear sweater - great story attached to this sweater. Mary Tanti's winning socks (wish her luck).
Linda''s amazing socks - yes they match.
Roger's great hats
The Teddy's in their Fair Isle sweaters. Everyone got a Teddy bear and enough yarn to make sweaters for them.
The last pictures are Eugene and Gary ( Susan's husband) and Ann and Susan in the boat leaving the resort.
What a wonderful weekend and I can't thank Ann and Eugene and Susan and Gary enough for coming the Quadra and sharing their talent and warm kindness with us.

Huge Sale this weekend

Well I have been quite absent from my blog. I think this is the longest I haven''t blogged since I started this. Well I guess it because I am busier than I have ever been (anyone who knows me knows that is realllllllllly busy), we are short staffed at the group home again and that always makes it hard to find time to blog. I am also in the process of getting help for Fun Knits. This business got too big for me to handle without lots of help.
So the new people are Kate and Shanaya(bloggless). Kate is a knitter from Campbell River and Shanaya (will be a knitter again), she is definatley a fibre lover from Cortez Island. My Mom and Deb are still working at the store too. So between all of us from 3 different Islands we are going to whip this store into shape. There will be lots of great things coming for Fun Knits. So stay tuned!!!

Now about the sale. This weekend is our knitting retreat with Ann and Eugene Bourgeois from Philosopher's Wool. We are all ready and have a great group of people are coming this weekend for our Retreat. It should be a fun weekend.
We are also having a major sale at the store all day Sat. Oct 4 10 am - 5pm
Patons Decor and Classic Wool 40% off
Online, Regia and Oapl sock yarn 20% off
Everything in the store is 10% off
There will be lots of other yarns at clearance prices so you will just have to come and see what else is deeply reduced.

Back from a great weekend away

What a nice weekend. We left on Friday night and it was really rough, windy and late so we got a room for the night and decided to boat down to Nelson Island on Sat. Good decision as the wind calmed down a lot and there was only 5 foot waves instead of 8 - 10 foot wave. Big difference in a 24 foot boat. Once we arrive we unpacked had a nap and then I put together the new Joy wheel. I sat out on the front deck of the cabin in the sun and spun for a few hours. I actually didn't get any pictures of me spinning or the new wheel. The Ashford Joy is a wonderful wheel. It spins just like my Ashford Traditional (which I love) only it can fold this up and stick it in a bag and take it places without it falling apart. I will get some pictures of it later in the week. I love it. Anyone interested in trying it the wheel will be at the store (unless I am on holidays).
After a wonderful night of star gazing and sleeping we went out on the boat to a great pebble beach near our cottage. The place was a farm on Nelson Island for many years and is now open to people to come and enjoy. The first pictures are of pebble beach. I didn't get any pictures of the way to Nelson Island it was too rough. Then pictures of our boat at anchor while we played on the beach. Our daughter in law Lorna was at the Island for the weekend too and she came with us to the pebble beach. This picture is her all dressed in winter coat and scarf on the way home with my husband still in his bathing suit was funny . About 20 minutes earlier her and I were contemplating swimming out to the boat from shore. I am really glad we didn't. It cooled off quick.
We had a nice fire on the beach that night and then the next morning we headed for home. I drove the boat part way home as I would like to learn to handle it better. It was very calm for the trip home. We only saw 2 dolphins on the way home, usually we see lots more.
You can see how much knitting I got done, not much. It was a great weekend. Now I have to get back to work and ready for the retreat.
I also have a bunch of pictures of Gibson's Fiberfest that I will show tomorrow.