A few things

I’m going to preface this post with a disclaimer. I’m sick with a wicked head cold and am stuffed up so bad that forming cohesive thought is a bit of a challenge. I’d wait to post but there is a Knit Daily e-newsletter coming out today and we’re featured.  Which is kind of cool.  At the very bottom of the newsletter there is a 10% off coupon code that is good from today the 3rd until September 20th.  You type in the code in the appropriate field when you place an order and our cart system will take the 10% off. 
The patterns are hard copies not downloadable pdfs.
So if you’re a Knit Daily subscriber look for it and if you’re not sign up!

We’ve also added a few new yarns and colours to the site:

Síofra a delicately beautiful infant set designed by Stephanie using our new yarn Marine Silk. Marine Silk is a silk, sea cell rayon and wool blend. It is so very soft. It makes the perfect fabric to put on that delicate baby skin. It has a lovely drape and we choose the percentages in this blend so the silks enhanced each other. I keep thinking I should have called it Marine Silky.
You can also knit Síofra out of the silk hankies.  The one Steph did like this looks like she pulled it out of a protective nest and has been used for generations.
Heartbreakingly beautiful.

It makes me almost say: “ I can’t wait to knit this set for one of my grandbabies”,but I know better than to tempt the fates with a statement like that.

Next in our line up Is Moon Struck . Yes it is finally ready.  Remind me never ever to name a pattern with the word struck anywhere near it.
As I said in a previous post about this design the original yarn is not available until October.  Sorry this is still true. Although the mill has informed me that they have put a rush on it so we’ll see.
In the meantime we have two other yarn options. You can combine Peru & Woobu and knit them together or you can try our new organic wool Gaea. it knits up beautifully in both. The Peru/Woobu combo gives you a garment with more drape than the Gaea does. It also has that halo effect from the Alpaca in the Peru.
I’m sorry and pretty embarrassed about the yarn fiasco in relation to this sweater.
It’s such a beautiful piece and fun to knit . Karen has designed for us another stunning sweater.
I’m going to knit one for my daughter Sophie using Gaea in the Spruced colourway.
She’s just going to love it.
And last but not least we’re adding two new colourways today.
Cosy, Fierce and Dirty Orange and River Rocked.

I love both of these colourways a whole lot and for very different reasons.

River Rocked. River Rocked makes me swoon with colour joy. It was my favorite colourway from the sock club last year and I’ve been waiting none too patiently to be able to offer this colour I love to every knitter gracing the planet.
I want to dye every yarn and fiber I have in it and then knit, spin or weave it. I want socks and I think I’m going to spin enough to make myself a mitten/scarf combo. I was thinking last night that maybe even in the lace weight of the Marine Silk and knit something small and lacy to wear around my neck all winter.  Sigh.

Cosy,Fierce and Dirty Orange.  Orange is not a colour I gravitate to a whole lot on it’s own and if I do it is usually the coppery end of the spectrum. I use orange to enhance or offset other tones. Orange is a big component of my favorite season, fall.  I guess what I’m saying is orange and I are friendly and have what I consider a good working relationship.
Orange is not my personal passion colour, green is. However, it is my dear friend and business partner’s passion. 
Over the years she and I have discussed all the merits of orange and I have made some colourways and rare gems with her in mind. 
When she was here last our mission, as you can and probably have already read on her blog, was to make her perfect orange, the colour of her heart.
As a dyer and colour obsessed chemist, I love learning about a hue through another person, preferably someone I love who loves that particular shade.  Walking in that person’s colour shoes.  For me this is the best way to get a holistic experience to translate into colour.
Steph and I did this with her orange. We had a massive amount of fun and learned a ton. We learned about colour, she learned some about dyeing, I learned more about dyeing ( teaching always does this for me), we learned more about each other ( Steph: That’s too much. Me: That’s not enough) and we had a blast.
So much fun
We got a whole lot of colourways out of this play date of ours.
I’m going to post a contest on Tuesday for you all to help me decide what should stay and how we should name them.
Until then, Cosy, Fierce and Dirty Orange is yours for the ordering.

Have a wonderful and safe holiday weekend.

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So if you’re trying to contact us and are unsuccessful this is why.  We are working on fixing this right now.

Please stand by and knit.

Moonstruck

You know those moments that life likes to present us with? The ones where we have to do a complete 180, change our idea or plan or heaven help us, both?
Yup those moments.
And you know after I get over my usual initial knee jerk, “are you flippin’ kidding me?” or my current fav, “ I don’t believe it.” which is really funny after all of this time and experience that I get still gobsmacked over this kind of thing going down. Nonetheless here I am. I mostly appreciate these quirky gifts life gives us, especially as a creative sort of person.  I feel that they usually push me to expand my boundaries, challenging the way I see or think about a colour, a design, a yarn, a fiber type, really all kinds of little parts of my process.
Thanks to the mill and my own unwillingness to believe that they don’t think as I do, that we’re a team, the design Moonstruck has given us such an opportunity.  The yarn ( Flopsy a lovely wool/angora blend) that we designed Moonstruck for has been discontinued. It was not a yarn I designed but one offered so this kind of thing can and does happen. Usually we’re notified when this sort of thing happens. Not the case this time.
What to do? Well, after a big ol’ hissy fit. I’m not proud but I do find that if I don’t get rid of this energy it impedes the creative problem solving process.  So we just make more right? No.  Now of course, it is too cost prohibitive, at least for this mill. So I check out other mills I work with and find that I can have it made and to my specs this time. The only drawback is it won’t be here until October at the earliest.  So that is a good long term solution but right now I also need a short term one.
Here I am in full steam ahead problem solving mode and I have one of those well… duh, moments. 
Isn’t it a good thing to have a design that can be implemented in more than one yarn? Well… of course it is. So I take myself out to the barn and snagged every yarn we had and we played one of my favourite games, fabric design by yarn combining second only to fabric design by colour combining and right up there with fabric design by yarn making.  We came up with some really wonderful fabrics. The one we like the best for Moonstruck is Woobu/Peru .  This dynamic duo make a lofty, kinda silky, warm fabric with a lovely light halo much like the original fabric. 
See

Opening the door to this problem gave us a whole realm of possibilities. We have a great fabric for this design we love by the ever charming and talented Karen Alfke. We have a new yarn due in October that we can also use for this and many other design and projects. In our search we discovered a lovely organic bulky wool we are probably going to add to our line up. I just love it when it does all come together.
The only thing I would change about this scenario is my waiting knitters and for that I’m truly sorry.
So dearest knitters, Debbi is almost done with this new sample. If we stay on track the pattern will be here next week.
I’ll keep you posted.
While you’re waitng here are the specs:

materials |
* yarn will be Woobu and Peru and those are the specs we’re waiting for.
* US size 9 (5.5 mm) needles, or size to obtain gauge
* 5 buttons, 1” (2.5cm) in diameter
* Tapestry needle
gauge | 16 sts and 23 rows = 4” (10cm) over k4, p2 rib pattern after blocking
20 sts and 22 rows = 4” (10cm) over k4, p2 rib pattern unstretched and before blocked)
sizes | women’s small (medium, large, extra large)
finished measurements |
37 (41, 45, 49)” [94 (104, 114.5, 124.5)cm] bust, buttoned
22 (22½, 23, 23½)” [56 (57, 58.5, 59.5)cm] length

Thanks for your patience!

Oh and the colourway is Downpour.

Going to go make some lemonade now!