Selling in Canadian and US $

I figured out how to sell in both Canadian and US $. When you click on Web Store it takes you to a page that lets you select the currency you wish to shop in. I hope this is a helpful feature for my customers both sides of the border. Check it out

Online - Fun Colors

I think this is a great name for a yarn for Fun Knits to sell. It just arrived today and the colours are even nicer in person than in the picture. The yarn is the same Online quality (great) I am not going to sell this yarn on eBay only at the Fun Knits Web Store. I am really excited about this. I am selling several of the yarns at the Web Store now. They are in Canadain $ and are the same price as I sell the yarn in the store, So for the local shoppers now you can shop in your PJ's and stop by to pick up your yarn. For the long distance shoppers you can still shop in your PJ's and just wait for  your parcel to arrive. If you are a local shopper and want to pick up the yarn I will refund your shipping of course. I am going to be offer more yarns at the Web Store soon but for now this is a good start. Let me know what you think of the Web Store. I will appreciate any feedback.


I also got lots more new yarn in today. Elsebeth Lavold Hempathy and her latest book full of great patterns. I see at least 6 sweaters in the book I have to make. I have all the colours in the store.
I also got in some more Malibrigo I got 4 colours, # 26,51, 65 and 113. This yarn sells quick so if you want some come in.

Second Knitting Guild meeting

Well we had a good turn out and lots of fun. Here is our happy bunch of Quadra knitters. We had show and tell a little lesson on lace knitting and a few pattern hand outs. I got in some sale yarn so they all got first dibs on the yarn boxes. If you want to see the sale yarns come in on Saturday. We will have Naturally 10 and 14 ply at a great price ( $6.50 a ball). I have colour 551 in the 14 ply and 151, 154 and 158 in the 10 ply. It is beautiful pur wool yarn. There are many other sale yarns, Kid Silk, Mohair Plus, Sublime, Cotton Freedom, Gypsy and lots more.

They are concentrating so hard on knitting they didn't even notice this picture getting taken. Our next meeting will be May 18th so mark your calendars.

Kniting Guild tonight

Tonight is our second knitting  guild meeting. We have a new dishcloth pattern for tonight Little Leaf dishcloth. This is adapted from a scarf pattern by Sivia Harding.

We are also going to start a new sock pattern. It is called Eagle's Flight by Megan Humphrey. I started it to show how the pattern looks. I love it. This is knit in Regia Cotton Surf.

I finished one of the Jaywalker socks. I love it. It is made from Opal Rosehip.

I love how this yarn looks in this pattern

Hope to see a big turn out tonight.

New Web site look

Happy Easter everyone. We had a nice Easter here and more to come. A big dinner tonight. My son Morgan was here for the weekend and he helped me get a new look for the web page.It is a start. I will be working on it for a while. I want to eventually have lots of yarn for sale on the web site. It will come in time.
For now the front page looks better with nice links.

Cotton Sale at the store

We are having an Easter weekend Cotton sale at the store. All yarns that contain cotton are 10% off. I have lots of Cotton yarns, Butterfly Mercerized cotton, Ecoknits cotton, Sari cotton and lots of cotton blend sock yarns to name a few.
It should be a fun weekend.

Show me how to cast on again Grandma

Here are some cute pictures of Meika playing with yarn.  We actually had the yarn cast on to the wooden spoon at one point but it didn't last long. I figure if  let her play with yarn she will like knitting.

Got tired of her knitting but just couldn't get away from it.

Lots to show today

Sorry for anyone who reads this regularly. I have been too busy to blog. See why, Megan and Meika came to visit. Meika is into everything now and just full of energy. She is crawling all over now, not walking yet, but she is fast enough crawling. They went home yesterday. It was a nice visit.

I have some pictures to show from the store last Saturday. I am sure these people have been checking the blog all week to see if they are on it yet. So here they are. McKenna is 2 years old and her Nana made her this really cute poncho with Noro. It is the pattern from Knitting Pure and Simple.

McKenna is a great model. She is so cute. I want to make one of these poncho's for Meika for next fall and spring.

Here is a picture of the Shy guy knitter's wife holding his latest creation. He just learned how to knit cables so he made himself a sweater and is working on one for his grandson. He is a great knitter just very camera shy. Someday he will pose for us. Isn't that a nice sweater. It is knit with Paton's Aran wool from a Paton's pattern book.

And finally here is a picture of meika shoping. She has good taste she is shopping in the Noro bin picking out her poncho colours. Can she ever mess up a ball of yarn fast. She is wearing a little sweater my Mom made with Petticoat sock yarn. Here is the pattern she loosely followed. It only took 1 ball of yarn. Mom put a contrast colour on the cuffs and button band. It is very cute.

I have been knitting a lot lately but have nothing to show you. I am half done all kinds of things. Some day I will show some fininshed items.

A note to everyone who shops at the store or with me online. I am placing an order for Lorna's Laces this week. If you want anything let me know before Wednesday. i am out of the Quadra Island  and Fun Knits colours sock yarn.

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

Haven't had much Blogging time

See why!!! Look who is visiting. We are having so much fun and getting no work done. Here is Meika playing with yarn. She loves yarn. She came on Saturday. Meika ia 8 months old now and very playful.

Here she is checking out Ming. She isn't sure about her. Prorbably wondering why she is so quiet. Notice they are about the same size now. Meika is 18 lbs.

Helen was in the store on Sat. and brought in her sweater to show. It is wonderful. She knit it with Cherry Tree Hill brushed mohair and Rowan Kid Soft. It turned out beautiful and is very soft. She looks great in it. I love the way the sweater is joined at the front.

This is going to be a busy week. The store will be closed on Sat. Feb 25th as we will be at the  North Island Sewing and needle Craft Show in Campbell River. This will be at the Campbell River Community Centre, 401 11th St. between 9am and 5 pm. Should be a busy fun day. I will have lots of yarn there to sell, Lots of sock yarn, Opal, Regia, Fortissima, Lorna's Laces, Cherry Tree Hill, plus Noro,  Mango Moon, Rowan Kid Soft, Silky Wool, Fiddlesticks Country Silk, Collinette Giotto and Isis etc...... and a great selection of Novelty yarns. I will also be bringing a good selection of Sweatermaker yarns including a new beaded yarn, and some new hand dyed merino in fingering and lace weight. Those alone will make the trip worth it to check out our yarns at the Market Place. Hope to see you there.

New knitters

Here is a picture of Deb trying on her new sock. This is her first sock and she is quite proud of it. Should be done soon. She is knitting it with Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in Java. Looks great
And this is Max and his Mom. To bad I got a picture of Max with his eyes half shut. I should learn to take more than 1 picture. Anyways Max is learning to knit and he is going to knit a scarf with Stop and Go in lime green. Once he is done that scarf he is going to learn to knit a diagonal scarf. He is so cute and very enthusiastic. Can't wait to see his scarf.

The store was great fun as always and very busy.

Want to see something funny

I was finishing Meika's socks this morning and the stitches kept slipping off my addi needles. I love my addi needles for sock knitting except for when I get to the last few toe decreases. They fell off the needles one more time then I realized I had a tray of tooth picks sitting there and they were about 2.25mm and they wouldn't be slippery. Well they worked perfectly.