Anne @ WOOL-TYME Kingston

Knitting and Art

2011-11-09T17:00:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago I found myself in Boston at the Institute of Contemporary Art with my sister, trying to amuse a 10 year old boy and 5 year old twins without paying the entrance fee. There was lots to see in the lobby, and the glass walled elevator that rose through a magnificent 4 story piece of decoupage art was good for at least 10 minutes although I could have spent an hour going up and down - what a trip!

But what free visit to a public building would be complete without a stop at the gift shop? Walking into the shop I had a sense of something familiar being out of place. On display at the entrance were a series of t-shirts sporting a ball of yarn, needles and what I recognized as transfer tools used by machine knitters and above the logo: Knitting Nation. I had certainly not expected to find t-shirts advertising knitting mania at an art gallery, but in front of the t-shirt display was an amazing array of tops that could only be considered fabric art: commercial shirts "embellished" with the most interesting swatches of knitting. It was wonderful and certainly had a legitimate place in a museum of Art.

Looking into the origins of the display, I discovered Liz Collins and her artistic performance, Knitting Nation 7 - Darkness Descends, had taken place the previous week, and Knitting Nation 8 - Under Construction , a scheduled performance will be at the ICA on Friday, Nov. 25th.

Liz Collins is recognized internationally for her use of machine knitting to create artistic clothing, textiles and 3-D installations. On Oct. 16th, she and five costumed volunteer machine knitters performed on manually-operated knitting machines for almost 6 hours. Click on the link to see the video (not in real time, of course) Her performances show how creativity in art, fashion and movement share many layers.

Liz is also a fabric artist in other areas, and her sock monkey collection is a hoot - or should I say a screech?

Then there is Daniela Edburg, a Mexican artist who was recently featured in Vogue Knitting's Holiday Issue. Her photographic collection called Knit, comprises 8 exquisitely detailed scenes in which she incorporates levels of knitting which we cannot imagine. My favourite is Miss Havesham surrounded by raw fleece, spun threads in cones, and a wedding table complete with knitted table settings and wedding cake. The jilted bride of Dickens' Great Expectations is clutching her knitting needles and skein of yarn to her breast. For the artist, any medium is worthy of exploration.

It doesn't surprise me that Daniela would be found in these pages. Many find that Vogue Knitting Magazine is a bit too out there for them but I love it for precisely the eclectic range of subjects that they bring to us. I'm not sure that the editors really think that many of North America's typical knitters will be running off to whip up the latest design patterns that they feature. For instance, if I was wearing this issue's New York /Manhattan skyline sweater in black and grey mohair, it would look as if I had raided my mom's old sweater box, reminiscent as it is to the '70's. But paired with the layered and flounced black/grey skirt on the renaissance beauty, and photographed against a shabby wall of peeling paint, it makes an interesting portrait.

For my taste, VK is always worth a read, not for the knitted pieces so much as for how they present them, how they choose them, what colour they choose to knit it in, what model and what make up do they put under and above the garments.

In this way a lot of what Vogue Knitting is doing is exactly what Liz Collins and Daniela Edburg are aiming to achieve: to have us view the movement, the product, the visual effect of the act and fabric of knitting from a more artistic and creative platform.

The creative spirit

2011-10-20T10:52:00.000-04:00

This is Ana Sokolvic, a composer living in Montreal but hailing originally from Serbia. She was featured in the Globe and Mail last week and I was intrigued by the photo of her draped in balls of yarn: not common photographic accoutrements.

Ana says: "When I lived in Serbia, I didn't want to know anything about traditional music..." Imagine her surprise, the article goes on to say, when she heard the performance of her fist piece written in Canada, and was congratulated for letting her Balkan spirit shine through.

We are who we are...we absorb that which surrounds us, often only coming to appreciate and embrace it when we are distanced from it.

My own parents are from industrial Cape Breton, and their parents were from the Acadian enclave of Cheticamp. On the northern coast of the island, it was in Cheticamp that the extremely fine rug hooking of Elizabeth LaFort and those who went before her in the early 20th century, became among the most cherished and sought after pieces of fine needle work to be found anywhere. As I was growing up surrounded by these pieces, I could only see what I considered to be the tackiness of these "doily" things that we had around the house. In my early 50's I discovered my love of rug hooking in general, and I actually made a humbling pilgrimage to Cheticamp to learn the finer points of their particular brand of traditional rug hooking with fine yarn. Not only have I come to appreciate it but I find myself compelled to hook...with yarn, no less.

Ana says that she has also drawn a lot of creative energy from the folk arts that she ignored when living in Serbia. At the recent launch of a series of concerts in Montreal featuring her compositions, she held up a pair of colourful mittens and explained that they had been knitted by her great-grandmother who also sheared, washed, carded, dyed and spun the wool. The author observes that like her great grandmother, Ana is interested in engaging with her material from the bottom up, having control over all the colours, and knitting her musical lines into a pattern that easily holds its shape.

There is no doubt that there is much to be said for youth and proximity, but it often takes time, and sometimes distance, to appreciate the beauty of that which we see every day.

Dublin - Part two and finale.

2011-10-10T16:41:00.002-04:00

ee One could be excused for wondering if any actual knitting got done on the Irish Knitting Tour when reading these blog posts. Well the answer is that yes, some of us got a fair amount accomplished but there were also games of bridge, pints of Guinness, glasses of Jameson's, shopping and just some good ol' chin wagging that had to be accomplished as well.

Here are some pictures to prove that I did take my knitting quite seriously while I was there. This is the lower body of a jacket that I'm making for my sister-in-law who turns 50 next summer. Those of you who follow this blog may remember that I have committed to knit each of my siblings and their spouses a sweater for their 50th birthday. As my youngest brother turns 50 in Dec. 2012, and he is 6'5", I decided that I would try and get a head start on his wife's sweater as his will probably take me a good long time.

I also brought one of the kits that we had in the store for one of my favourite patterns: The Ridged Baktus Scarf. I chose this one because the colours were just so darn Irish. It is made of 2 different bamboo yarns and I had not have much chance to knit with bamboo. I'm loving it, and although I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this particular scarf I might just keep it as a souvenir of these 10 days on the Emerald Isle.

On our last morning in Dublin Abbey Tours, who had done such a wonderful job of organizing all of our travel, had set up a fabulous workshop at Winnie's Craft Cafe with Pauline Gallagher to teach us the basics of Irish/Aran knitting through her pattern for the Oisin Owl (pronounced Osheen owl) which can be found on Ravelry.

Pauline's handout has an absolutely fabulous history of the Aran sweater, showing how inaccuracies and creative interpretation of half known facts lead to a world of "Blarney". It is so good and concise that our guide, Gerry asked at the front desk of our hotel to make a copy. The front office manager was so impressed that he also made a copy for himself, as he said he was never sure what to tell people when asked about the truth about these gorgeous but often misrepresented garments.

Although all of our members look like are very dilligently at work in the picture here, what you may not notice right away is the EAT sign in the back. Just to the left of this picture is actually the most magnificent array of baked goods that you can imagine, and we were all treated to a tea/coffee and traditional scone as part of the workshop. We just felt so spoiled. After all of this wonderful knitting activity everyone got to go into the store part of Winnie's Craft Cafe to do a little shopping.

Marina Hand (in white) is the owner of Winnie's. An accountant who, by virtue of the recession, was forced to make some life changes and difficult choices and now finds herself having the time of her life greeting people and helping lots of young mom's and others who come in to sit at the cafe and work on their knitting projects.

I had assumed that there was a human Winnie involved in this story somewhere but was surprised to learn from the website that Winnie has an interesting history herself:

Meet WINNIE, the Wool Wagon.

Winnie lives outside the Craft Cafe in Booterstown district of Dublin. Winnie, the wagon originally came to help Marina in her effort to bring beautiful wools and other yarns to the masses in local fairs and markets. She and Marina have now found a lovely home together, serving the knitters of Dublin.

Before I leave my tales of Dublin and Ireland, I must tell you of my most amazing discovery. On the first day of the tour I heard someone mention Tim Hortons. Gerry, the guide asked nonchalantely: "Oh, do you have Tim Hortons in Canada?" I couldn't understand the question, it seemed so odd. Then we discovered that "SPAR", the Irish equivalent of Mac's Milk, has a coffee service in many of their stores that is supplied by Tim Hortons. This one happens to be in the SPAR store just next to Winnie's, and having been so royally treated to goodies at their cafe, I didn't get a chance to try it, but I'm told that it's just like home.

So on Wednesday evening we were driven to the Abbey Tavern for an evening of traditional Irish food and entertainment. We returned to the hotel with way too much packing and organizing to do. But all got attended to and somehow all 32 of us managed, with our guide, Gerry and our faithful bus driver, John to line up for one last group picture. I'm almost reticent to see that picture as it was such a bittersweet time of parting.

It's funny. My nature and my personality is that I'm always up for the next thing. I love change, I love new things. Yet, this was a hard goodbye to a land that is struggling in the face of grave economic uncertainty with a brave and willing smile. It was an honour to have spent this time in such a wonderful land and with such a rich and resillient group of people.

The last days in Dublin - part one.

2011-10-10T15:21:00.000-04:00

I've decided to share a bit more of the non-knitterly lore that we absorbed while in Ireland, and this is one of my best finds: Banoffee pie. As you can see, it is a pie formed with a biscuit crumb crust topped with Dulce de lece or cooked caramel pudding, then a layer of sliced bananas and finished off with meringue or whipped cream. It is truly a work of genius (and this from the woman who isn't even that fond of bananas).

If you link to the recipe above, you will not come to the one pictured here, but I chose this illustration because it looked most like the piece that I had at Moll's Gap, an absolutely amazing gift shop and tea room deep in the heart of the Killarney National Park. The ingredients to make this particular Banoffee pie were a bit too foreign for what we could find here in Canada, so I opted for a more achievable recipe that I found on the UK Food Network.

I will now share with you some of the Irish Gaelic that we picked up:

As you have probably learned by virtue of repetition each St Patrick's Day, a very popular term and one of the only Gaelic words that most of us know is slainte, which is actually pronounced a lot like the French: "sante", both of them meaning about the same thing - a good wish with which friends toast each other when sharing a drink. (You will excuse the lack of accent marks as I'm not sure how to make them work on this keyboard.)

We were also told that if 2 friends meet each other, the first would say to the second: (phonetically reproduced here) Dia Gwich, or "God be with you". The respondant, not to be outdone, would say (again, take my Gaelic with about a shovel full of salt) Dia Maire Gwich, or "God and Mary be with you". A 3rd person joining the group would be greeted with the addition of St Patrick or one of the other saints being added to the list, and on it would go.

As the daughter of two Cape Bretoners, I've been exposed to a fair amount of Scots Gaelic on trips to the maritimes and immediately recognized Failte as meaning "Welcome", but I'm embarassed to say that I never learned how to pronounce it. I now believe that I wouldn't embarass myself too much if I were to say "Falcha" to a Gaelic speaker who came into my store.

And easiest of all, Galore simply means "lots".

******************************

Now back to the final days of our time in Dublin:

While planning this trip, I had made contact with members of the Dublin Knit Collective through Ravelry. We were going to join them at their regular Tuesday evening meeting at the Moda Cafe in South Dublin, not too far from the Mespil Hotel where we were staying. When they heard how many of us that there were, they offered to come to us. So at 8pm on Tuesday, October 4th, about 35 knitters swarmed the lobby of this relatively classy hotel, moving furniture, bringing in chairs from the bar, chattting, laughing and generally having a great knitting sharing session.

We met Ger, Olive, Mary, Anne and many others. It was absolutely fabulous. The most amazing thing was that although we were planted right in front of the hotel's relatively busy front desk, people checking in just simply went around us, all the while trying to figure out what this gaggle of women of all ages was doing. We actually had several other women who were staying at the hotel with other tour groups, join us too. Knitting...the universal language.

Next post will be the about the lovely time that we had at Winnie's Craft Cafe. What a home away from home. Everyone on the trip was trying to figure out how I could incorporate such a cafe in our store.

Connemara and Strokestown

2011-10-07T22:01:00.000-04:00

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I am writing these last 2 posts about our Irish Knitting Tour from home. I've been telling people that I'm being dragged back into the real world kicking and screaming, not at all ready to let go of the magic of these 10 days.

Just look at this picture taken in front of the Leenane Sheep and Wool Centre. It was an absolutely stunning drive north from Galway through sparsely populated countryside. The steep hills on either side of the road (with but a mere 4" of shoulder on either side of a single generous lane) were marked with traces of "lazy beds", the completely inappropriate name for the hand built furrows in which potatoes were traditionally planted before the famine of 1845-49.

As we arrived at the centre, we were met with the great news that all merchandise in the store was 20% off as an end of season clearance incentive. This call to retail action did not go unheeded. And although it was not a very sheepy treasure, I did buy myself a bracelet of silver and beautiful Connemara green marble. I love it!

Patricia, our guide at the museum, gave us a great demonstration on everything from shearing to weaving the wool from local sheep.

Don't you just love this magnificent piece of fabric art. It was made by a French artist for a local woolen mill from pieces of "jumpers" made by the company. When the mill closed, they asked if the museum would like to purchase the piece, and it holds a prize place at the museum's entrance. Too bad you can't see much of the detail in this less than adequate photo, but the aran fleece on the ram and the texture in the rocks can give you an idea of the detail of execution.

The next day, we made one final stop on the way back to Dublin at the Strokestown Park and Famine Museum. This is a picture of Deirdre. I don't think that it's an exageration to say that Deirdre pretty much ran the whole show while we were there. As we arrived, she was working in the gift shop and setting up displays. She led us on the tour of Strokestone House, a faithful preserving of a way of life that was coming to a shabbyish end for some of the great families of Ireland in the 20th century. It was fascinating to see, not just a hint of the oppulence of their glorious past, but the sad decline as times and resources changed.

After the house, Deirdre introduced us to the only museum in the Republic that houses the few remaining documents of the years during and after the great famine. What was particulary impressive was the link that was made between the conditions that led to the famine in the mid 19th century and its dire consequences, and the famines that plague different areas of the world today.

Then we went to the centre's most excellent cafeteria where I had a tuna salad with real fresh tuna, that was definitely the product of false advertising...they absolutely should have noted that it was Salad For 4! Amazing. Oh, I forgot to mention that Deirdre was on the cash register in the cafeteria and then ran back to the gift shop when all were served. She was a wonder, and a beautiful one at that.

After lunch I took a walk through the walled garden of Strokestown House. Since reading The Secret Garden as a child, I've always wanted to see a real walled garden, and this one is a prize. Again in keeping with Strokestown House's commitment to portraying life as it really was at the end of the era, the garden has been allowed to grow beautifully wild around the perimeter while the croquet lawn in the centre is immaculately groomed by the full time gardener.

Just before leaving for the airport, we found out from our very favourite bus driver on earth, John, that we had completed 1800km of driving in the 10 days in Ireland. Now you must realize that only about an hour of that was at our habitual North American speed of about 100km/h. I figure that the distance of 1800km probably represented about 30-35 hours on the roads. That which kept us cheerful and sane were the stories that our guide, Gerry, shared with us as we passed different points of interest. History, geography, botany, geology, current events, all manner of Irish lore and a good crash course in Gaelic were what we were treated to. Gerry knew it all.

So we were a little surprised when we drove through Longford later in the day and Gerry commented: "Ah, yes, the town of Longford...What can one say about it?...Not much actually." But then he remembered about a lovely young woman from the town who moved with her new husband to Chicago (I think) and had a son before they moved on the Australia. They named their son after the patron saint of the Longford: St Mel. You guessed it. Mel Gibson's mother came from Longford. Unfortunately, St Mel's church burned last year and they are in the middle of a campaign to rebuild it. You would think that it's namesake would foot the bill.

The last post will cover our wonderful time in Dublin before we headed back to Canada. I'll try and get to it tomorrow, before my brain gets too pulled back in to the swing of the old life and loses touch with the magic.

A knitter's Mecca: The Aran Islands

2011-10-05T06:50:00.000-04:00

This was one of the days that we were all awaiting with great anticipation, the Aran Islands being the birthplace of traditional Irish knitting patterns. But it really must be said that the Aran knitting tradition must be one of the most myth surrounded types of knitting ever. We really weren't sure what to expect on Inis-Mor, the largest of the 3 islands steeped in Gaelic tradition.

A few interesting details that we learned from our local guides:
-It isn't too difficult to buy land on the Island but in order to receive a permit to build on the island, you have to have lived there for 7 years and be a fluent Gaelic speaker.
- Unlike many of the areas of Ireland, they recycle and reprocess almost everything that can possibly be recycled right there on the island. The small amount of waste that doesn't fall in to that category has to be transported to the "mainland", which of course is the island of Ireland.
- Dun Aengus is the largest of the prehistoric stone forts left on the Islands. Our guide helped us situate it in time by saying that it predated the "Braveheart" area.

And there can be no question that stone is their most plentiful resource. Here are pictures of the countryside with uncountable kilometers of "dry stone walls", incredible feats of engineering whereby rocks from a field are piled strategically to create a freestanding division of fields to keep animals enclosed to protect the adjacent grazing lands.

As we drove by that former pub, we were told that it was now the local KFC outlet.

This picture shows what appears to be a palm tree in the front "garden", as they call it here, but it's actually a form of Australian Yucca tree which flourishes in this weather but does make a rather odd sight

As for the shopping part of the journey, there were a few sweater outlets, including An Tuirne, where we met Rose (how I wish I had had the presence of mind to take a picture of her) who is one of the youngest traditional knitters left on the Island. We may have left our mark on the Aran tradition of knitting by introducing Rose to Ravelry and showing her a few of our Canadian interpretations of the Aran traditional knitting. It might be a portal through which young Aran residents can be enticed to become knitters.

Down by the ferry docks there are a series of shops, including the Aran Sweater Store where Jen displays what appears to be a replica of our Block Afghan back at WOOL-TYME Kingston. We were amazed!

There is no question that one has to be very careful when choosing a sweater to buy. Like in any other tourist centre, there are different levels of authenticity and quality offered in some of the shops, but without question, the real McCoy is easily available on the Island.

Anyway, all in all it was a "grand day", as they would say, and we had a "good crack", mixing with folks from all over the world on the ferry and on the walk up to the fort, then lunching with the locals at Ti Joe Watty's pub , with the best seafood chowder that I have ever had.

Bunratty to Galway

2011-10-03T10:21:00.000-04:00

The problem with having more fun than you believe possible is that it leaves very little time to get on the computer to blog about all the fun that we're having.

Here we're at Durty Nellie's pub, (est. 1620) just outside of Bunratty Castle. The unusual thing about Bunratty is that unlike most of the ruins of ancient castles and forts that we passed along the way, this is a fully restored "tower home" which shows how the family would have lived over 500 years ago. Most of the furniture is actually from that period, and unlike many curated exhibits, most of it is still in use and fully available for visitors to investigate. The concept of sitting at a 500 year old table really boggles our relatively young North American minds.

Making our way towards Galway, which we will use as a base for the next 3 days, we stopped off at the Cliffs of Moher. Absolutely stunning, and the "access ramp" that was along side the 300 odd steps to the top was a bit of a joke. I couldn't imagine any electric wheelchair or human pusher who could make it up those hills. We did however see a fellow with a golf cart, which explained that what we took for a "ramp" was more likely a small track for the few motorized vehicles on patrol.

Besides being distracted with exciting activities that keep me away from my blogging duties, the only other problem that we are encountering are that our guide, Gerry and our bus driver, John have completely spoiled us for any others who will ever try to fill their shoes on future tours. They have both gone way beyond the call of duty when it comes to being flexible about changing routes and plans. And add to the mix that they're both as funny as can be, well, we're trying to figure out how we can kidnap them and bring them home with us. It was particularly wonderful to have them join us for a REAL Medieval Feast in a 17th century castle where King Jason and Queen Tammy presided over the company.

The Ring of Kerry

2011-10-01T03:14:00.000-04:00

Killarney is a wonderful city for tourists: it's small and gentle enough to feel wonderfully welcoming and authentic, populated with locals who love to meet people from away, yet it offers everything that you could imagine. Here we are visiting
Muckross House , a typical grand home where Queen Victoria visited for 2 days in 1861. It took 6 years of work to complete the preparations for her visit, including the weaving of 2 rugs for her bedroom suite.

The Ring of Kerry is Ireland's version of the Cabot Trail in Cape Breton, but as I mentioned in an email back home, the road through Killarney National Park
makes our Canadian trail look like the 401. This is a picture of one of the wider stretches of road. As they don't have snow to plow here, there are barely any shoulders to the roads, perhaps 18 inches. This view shows cliff rock on either side, but just around that bend is a sheer drop of hundreds of feet on the outside of that tiny road edge. And remember, this is a wide section of the Ring's roadway.

One of our group asked the guide if there was anywhere to camp in the National Park. He was completely perplexed at the question; what on earth would possess anyone to want to pitch a tent on this land?

Kinmare is the home of the world famous Kenmare Lace, a tradition established by a convent of nuns who spent a good part of their lives learning and creating these beautiful details. The curators of the exhibit found a prize book with a note to the Mother Superior, who was astute enough to recognize that to promote the sale of their magnificent work, it was important that it be seen in competitions around the world. The note in the book said that as the sisters were not interested in receiving the prize medals for their work , would they accept this commemorative book.

While in Kinmare we did some shopping in a wonderful Irish craft store. I was speaking with a lovely young lady there who told me that she had come to Canada for a visit when she was ten. She went on to say that they first arrived in Hudson's Bay at Churchill, Manitoba. I was thinking: "How sweet, but she must have made a mistake." She then went on to explain that they were on a "cruise" that went from Iceland to Greenland into Hudson's Bay, then they "paddled" (she said) on to Vancouver. I was amazed by visions of this little 10 year old with her family, paddling voyageur style through the waterways of Canada to the West coast. I was relieved when I realized that she must have meant that the cruise ship brought them around to Vancouver. What an experience either way.

Waterford to Blarney

2011-09-30T13:06:00.001-04:00

After leaving Dublin, our bus driver was a real trooper in accepting to do a little detour to Cushendale Wollen Mills. Well, actually it was more than the bus driver who was a bit inconvenienced. Imagine the mill owner receiving a call at about 4:55pm to warn him that a bus load of Canadian knitters was on its way for a visit...when he generally closes at 5:30!

I bought some of this interesting fibre. It's cut from the edges of the woven mohair blanket/shawls from Cushendale's. I'm not sure what anyone else would do with it, but I made a scarf in literally 10 minutes by making an open chain stitch of the entire 140g of it, then I cut the chain in 3 equal lengths and tied the ends in to a large knot and braided it very loosely. Voila!

In Waterford, we toured the showroom of the Waterford Crystal factory. When I first saw the details of the tour that our travel agent, Pam had put together for us, I was thrilled to see that rather than being a retreat, exclusively for knitters, there were many quintessentially Irish attractions that had been built in that would appeal to anyone, the tour of the crystal factory being one of these activities. Consequently we have enjoyed the company of 4 non-knitting spouses and a non-kniiting sister, all of whom seem to be enjoying themselves tremendously.

Here is a picture of one of the prototypes of pieces being worked on at the Waterford plant, which will be used as gifts during the 2012 Olympics in London.

At Blarney Castle a good number of our stalwart gang actually climbed the 140+ stairs up to the top of the castle to hang upside-down over the side in order to position themselves to do the requisite kissing. I took pictures from below looking up at their gymnastic efforts but they didn't turn out very well. I decided to share instead this nice picture of the castle (which, through the magic of digital photography and photoshop, I was able to straighten the towers so that they would be perpendicular to the ground, and not leaning as they seem to do in real life. )

This beautiful garden on the grounds is deceptively peaceful looking. In fact it is the Poison Garden with signs like the one below posted everywhere describing the poisonous properties of each of the plants featured, including Mandrake of Harry Potter fame.

My favourite part of the Poison Garden was the giant iron web which enclosed but 2 little poppy plants. I was confused, especially when I read the horticultural sign, which identified the exhibit as cannibis. Then I read the other sign that said that the marijuana plants had been confiscated by the Garda (police) and they were hoping to replant the exhibit next season when the licensing issues had been taken care of.

In Dublin Fair City

2011-09-28T18:44:00.000-04:00

Here we are in Ireland on the first day of the 2011 WOOL-TYME Kingston Irish Knitting Tour. 32 of us from Montreal to Hamilton are on the tour, with Gerry, our guide and John, our bus driver.

A lovely flight and a busy first day, especially considering that most of us got minimal sleep time on the overnight flight, but we had a great time today anyway.
First of all, let me tell you about the serendipitous situation that happened with Lisa, from This Is Knit, the only and loveliest yarn store in central Dublin. I had made arrangements several weeks ago for us to see Lisa and her staff in her shop then on Saturday, she emailed me to say that due to some odd circumstances they would be moving their store on the very day we would be arriving, but that we would still be welcomed and she would keep the traditional Irish section of her "old" store intact for us to visit, which we did. We also got to stick our head into the new digs which opened at noon today. It's absolutely wonderful and happens to be next to a fabulous tea room which we also visited. What a feat to have accomplished their move all in just a few hours. Link here to their blog to see more pictures and read about it.

Here are a few other things that we discovered about Dublin on this first day:
They LOVE beer, which is synonymous with Guinness here.

They are a bilingual country, with the Irish Gaelic appearing everywhere above the English on their signs.

They love their stories and folklore here, as seen in the statue of Molly Malone, of song fame, and the street musician sitting at her feet, and in this other beautiful sculpture at the Garden of Remembrance where the Queen, during her historic visit to Ireland earlier this summer, laid a wreath to remember all those who died in the conflicts with Britain in the past.

On to Waterford.

MAGGIE JACKSON is coming soon to ONTARIO

2011-09-21T17:31:00.000-04:00

For those of you who aren't able to join us this year on the 2011 Irish Knitting Tour, here's a great way to console/treat yourselves and get a bit of a taste of what the new Irish Knitting is all about.
Linda from Rose Haven Farm has arranged for a whole weekend of activities and workshops with Ireland's knitting queen, Maggie JacksonThree days of immersion into Maggie's world is a very special treat.

The following is the full scoop and registration form. Don't miss out.

...Big news for knitters and fibre artists. We have Irish knitting diva, Maggie Jackson of Maggiknits, here for a Fashion Show and 2 days of workshops in October from October 7 - 9. Mark these dates if you wish to have a fun knitting experience. This is her first time in Eastern Canada. See www.maggiknits.com.
Maggie will be coming to our shop in Picton for 3 events. You can come for any or all them. All will be held in our shop. For those who wish to stay over night we can offer accommodation ideas, although we have tried to schedule the events so you have options.
Maggiknits Fashion Show & Wine & Cheese ~ Maggie Jackson, October 7
Fashion Show with Wine & Cheese: Friday, October 7, 4:00 – 8:00 p.m.; Fashion Show at 5:30 sharp. Wonderful opportunity to see and try on many kinds of Maggiknits garments and to share time with Maggie herself. Check out the books, materials, kit options and which work for you!
Cost: $20.00 including wine & cheese. Max. 50.

See over for the 2 days of workshops.

Registration Form (pre-registration by phone, email or email is required)

Name: ________________________________________________________

Address: _______________________________________________________

Phone #: _______________________________________________________

Email: _________________________________________________________

Please indicate which event you wish to attend. Payment can be by VISA/MC, cheque, or if in the shop, debit or cash. The 2 workshops will have a $30 deposit on each required to insure attendance. Should you wish to attend all 3 events there is a savings, as the package fee will be $200.00.

Fashion Show with Wine & Cheese $20.00 ____________

Workshop 1 Oh No Not another Scarf with materials $100.00 ____________

Workshop 2 Wearable Art with materials $100.00 ____________

Package – all 3 events $200.00 ____________

Please make cheques out to: Rose Haven Farm and mail to Rose Haven Farm Store, 187 Main Street, Picton, ON K0K 2T0. Call for VISA / MC 613-476-9092.

Workshop 1 ~ Saturday, October 8 Oh No Not another Scarf

Garments will be available during the day.

10:30 - 4:30, ½ hour lunch break

Cost: $100 includes class materials. Max 20

By the end of this class Maggie hopes the piece you will make will NOT go towards a scarf but one of the other design options she shows in a table runner, a pillow, a purse, a shawl, a wall hanging, etc. Maggie will have you thinking "outside the box" by making holes in your work, joining her renown tubes and working a Ladder stitch. She will show some finishing techniques for the project and give advice on what she learned from being a Fashion Designer doing Ready to Wear for 25 years selling to emporiums such as Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom and having 45 knitters. Samples of these stitches will be shown on garments to stretch your creative thinking.

Needles 4.5 - 5 mm, preferably wooden, bamboo or plastic to work with the linen and others (as metal needles are slippery). Scissors, darning needle.

Workshop 2 ~ Sunday, October 9 Wearable Art

Garments will be available for viewing during day.

10:30 - 4.30, ½ hour lunch break

Cost: $100 includes class materials. Max 20

This class is a combination of various small squares which can be put together after class to make a scarf or towards a larger project. We will make knitted and fabric bows on a square, a ruffle stitch with a tube and 2 coloured picot tube, knotting yarns to make a loopy stitch, to name a few. Samples of these stitches will be shown on the garments to stretch your creativity.

Needles 4.5 - 5 mm, preferably wooden, bamboo or plastic to work with the linen and others (as metal needles are slippery). Scissors, darning needle.

Please note that refreshments will be provided but lunch will be at the cafe of your choice in Picton. We will provide a list of nearby places. Food may be brought back to the shop. All events will be held at the shop.

EXTRA EXTRA, Read all about it.

2011-09-07T16:59:00.001-04:00

Who says that summer is a slow time for knitting? We've been busy all summer with new customers discovering us, tourists and cottagers making their annual pilgrimage to see us, stocking up on some of their favourite yarns.

The press also seem to have caught on to the impact of knitting. Or could it be that it has just been a slow news summer? Of course not, it's because the most important thing happening in the world during the week before Sunday, Aug. 7th was the 2011 Sock Summit in Portland Oregon, which found its way to the front page of the Toronto Star on that day.

Quoting people like Stephanie Pearl-McPhee and Anna Zilboorg, reporter Kenneth Kidd proclaims that sock knitting is dorky, absurd and silly, but 6000 knitters still showed up at the convention to share their love of sock knitting with others. Designer, Cat Bordhi had a cute way of expressing it. She sees sock making as the sports car driving of knitting: "A sock is like a curvy mountain road. You can't see around the corners."

Then we have the rather odd situation of the duel going on between Margaret Atwood and Mayor Rob Ford about the relative importance of libraries to Canadians. At one point the author suggested that she would knit a likeness of the mayor as a form of protest, I believe.

I wasn't quite sure what the meaning of knitting a person's likeness was, but it did seem significant in the way that she phrased it. That being said, you can link here to the interview she gave to Canadian Living some time back where she speaks a bit about her knitting.

A bit later in the summer, we had a chance to take some holidays out west and upon arriving in Victoria, my brother gave me a copy of the Monday Magazine that he had just picked up, which featured a cover story about the coolness of knitting.

The pair in the photo are Ryan Davis who I met on my trip out west last year, and Stephanie Papik, co-owners of my favourite knitting shop in Victoria: Knotty by Nature. (Don't you just love that name?)

The article included something that I've never seen in print before...a list of tips for those who are hoping to continue being on the receiving end of a knitter's gift. Here they are:
-Treat the gift with the utmost respect- Don't lose a mitten or get a hole in the sock. (I would add, being the fallible sort myself, that you should act at least as horrified as possible if you do misplace or overuse said gift.)

-Thank the knitter profusely for their time and effort. I asolutely agree that only people who appreciate the real time cost should receive such gifts.

-Don't look at knitters in public like they're lost and can't find their way back to the nursing home.

Now, here I take exception. The author of this statement, a cute little 20 something who is pictured knitting in a local cafe, goes on to say: "I think the biggest misconception is that knitters are all 50-year-old women. There's this stigma attached to it. It's really fun and it's modern and vintage at the same time."

WELL! I can only hope that there was a typ0, and that she was not suggesting that 50-year-olds aren't cool and belong in the nursing home. I knit in cafes, I can be cute, if I try. These young'uns...

I must leave you know, my walker needs oiling and my dentures need a bit of polish too.

Fit to Flatter - Amy Herzog

2011-08-05T10:02:00.000-04:00

Everyone, I'd like to introduce you to Amy Herzog, my very own Oracle at Delphi when it comes to choosing styles that look good on a given body. Doesn't she look marvelous in this lovely blue deep V-neck sweater with the elbow length sleeves and the subtle horizontal striation in the colouring. There's a reason why Amy looks great in a garment incorporating these design elements, and you too can discover these secrets and make them work for you.

So, before I end up sounding too much like a late night info-mercial, let me explain that I was introduced to Amy's on-line tutorial, Fit To Flatter, through the latest edition of Knitscene Magazines. I was hoping to, once and for all, eliminate some of the styles that I shouldn't even look at when clothes shopping. What I found was the true motherlode of fashion sense, and 123 pages of how to feel good about and work with your body, whatever its shape and/or size.

In Amy's words, these tutorials cover basic principles of knitting to flatter your figure:

•Determine your body’s inherent shape
•Discover how the visual elements of clothing alter that shape’s appearance

•Choosing patterns and making modifications to those patterns that will change the appearance of your shape in the ways you desire

•Achieving a custom fit.

This is a comparison picture of Amy wearing her good sweater and a bad sweater, which looks a lot like one of my choices over my knitting career. Read on:

Having developed my own "fashion sense" based on my adolescent shape, which was more like a bottle of Perrier than a bottle of Coke, (look them up, you'll see what I mean) I resolved that my image would be best served by covering everything up with an army jacket, a poncho or very loose fitting tops, which - I kid you not - sometimes had fellow passengers on the subway looking at me sympathetically, and asking when the "little one" was due. At 23, I lost 40 lbs but never did develop the bust or the curves that most people consider desirable when choosing their fashionable wardrobe.

At 12 when I knit my first sweater for myself, I was probably not as big as I felt that I was, but the concept of fashion was way down on my list of goals for this project. Completion, cost and coziness were prime. Every Saturday I would take the bus to Freeman's on Rideau St in Ottawa and purchase another skein of bulky royal blue pure wool to complete the next segment of my sweater. I can't remember how much wool went into that sweater all together, but it did take up most of my babysitting money for several months. The result was that I achieved all 3 of my goals, but it was obvious that fit had not made it onto that list. I would guess that the finished chest was close to 55" and my brother and I could easily have fit in it if we were standing back to back. But that was of no consequence...I wove a long red shoelace through the cast on edge to give it some sturcture, and proudly wore my sweater whenever I was cold in the house. (I think that I realized that it was not a design worthy of sharing with the public, no matter how proud I was of its completion).

This experience taught me 2 very important lessons that I've used both in life and in knitting over these past 35 years: Go head first with what motivates you. And don't ever be disappointed - there is always a way to fix results, or at least perceive them, even if it isn't in the manner that you expected.

Well, that led to a life of knitting for other people: family, friends, and eventually for the store. As recently as last night at knitting class, I justified this situation by affirming that I prefer to knit for others because I get to see the finished project more than I would if I was wearing it. I believe that is probably a cover up for the fact that in the venn diagram of my knitting life, what I like to knit and what I like to wear have very little overlap.

I can justify the time that I'm spending learning these fashion precepts by calling it professional development. At the store, we are often asked for opinions as customers choose patterns that may be gorgeous on the model, but it would be nice to have some sense of confidence in discerning whether it will suit the intended recipient.

But truly I just want to feel a bit more confident in my own choices. I don't have time to be knitting sweaters that I don't want to wear once they're finished.

A word of warning...You will notice that I mentioned that the full tutorial runs 123 pages. I have been studying each of the first 30 of those pages that I've printed off to carry with me to review and ponder as I stop for a coffee, or go through the car wash for a couple of weeks already.
In other words, this is not the on-line version of a little magazine article. There is information there that I'm sure is spread out over semesters of design study at any good college. But for me, and I'm sure for many others who would like to take the time, it's time and $10US very well spent.

Don't have time for the full "kit and kaboodle"? If studying 123 pages of excellent but intense concepts is a bit overwhelming, come and join Deb White's class, KNITS THAT FIT YOU! at WOOL-TYME Kingston on Wed. Sept. 28th, from 6:30-8:30pm. Deb will be teaching how to make the knitting pattern that you choose work for you with particular attention to "tweaking" the original to make it fit the way that you want it to.
Call the store at 613-384-3951 to register.

The Creative Process

2011-07-13T10:41:00.009-04:00

THE CREATIVE PROCESS
at Blueroof Farm

Showing works of the past 50 years by Kim Ondaatje

Until Oct. 31st, by appointment: 613 374 2147

My blog and what I write is not just about knitting. It's about what I find interesting in the world around me, and what motivates me to keep searching for the best possible way to enjoy my life. This task obviously includes running my knitting store with the most fun, enthusiasm and creativity that I can muster.

I don't know about you, but every now and then I look at my life and have a sense that everything that I've lived has led me to this particular situation. All my experiences (well, those that I can remember anyway, being in my 50's) are feeding how I see the world, how I respond to it, and what I bring to it creatively.

This is exactly the point of Kim Ondaatje's exhibition at her magnificent Blueroof Farm, near Verona.

Kim is one of our faithful customers, and she is the first to tell you that her patronage has nothing to do with her skill or love of knitting; we, at WOOL-TYME Kingston just happen to be the logical source for her most recent medium of choice...yarn to knit afghan blankets based on the colours of the four seasons, the collection of which is on display during the show.

This is how Kim describes the presentation now on at the farm until Oct. 31st:

The Creative Process

Certain experiences - even moments - in our lives cling to us like burrs. They drop into memory, a storehouse for our imagination and inspiration. If we are creative, they find their way out into our music, writing, performing or visual work. We are often unaware of this process.

Years may pass before we realize where the inspiration and feeling in a particular work originated. As an octogenarian, I realize that the longer we live, the more we understand what we did and why...

In the 2009 Kim was honoured with the Governor General's Award. In the awards catalogue, then Governor General Michaëlle Jean states, ”It is that collection of signs left by artists and artisans, both tangible and intangible that constitute the timeless heritage of humanity”.

Now if that wasn't reason enough reason to head out up Hwy 38 to Bellrock Rd to immerse yourself in the beauty of all that you too can be, once you get there you are surrounded by the magnificence of Kim's greatest work of art: BLUEROOF FARM.

Acres of beautifully landscaped terrain, with the greatest respect of an artist working with nature. Any of you who are willing to own up to a creative bone in your body, owe it to yourselves to make the short trek. Link here for details of a VisionTV feature episode of Recreating Eden, featuring BLUEROOF FARM.

When Kim first told me about the show she said: " Don't come alone. Find an artistic friend with whom to share the experience. But do come." What a great idea. Furthermore, as Kim notes, she is of a certain fine "vintage", and recognizes that she isn't likely to be on the farm for many more years. This is an opportunity of great value that we have been offered. I can't wait to get out there in the next couple of weeks.

Only in Anchorage, Alaska you say?...Pity.

2011-06-24T07:47:00.010-04:00

"Three-year-old Stevie Primera hangs onto a sheep during the Mutton Busting event at the 2011 GMC Truck Rodeo Roundup presented by Rodeo Alaska at the William Clark Chamberlin Equestrian Center in Anchorage, Alaska." photo by Bill Roth/Anchorage Daily News/AP

This is an example of why I now love the Globe and Mail newspaper.

A couple of years ago we received a call from the subscription office at the Globe and Mail in Toronto, extending an offer that we couldn't refuse. They were reaching out to small businesses as a way to increase their distribution numbers and looking for a wider readership per newspaper delivered. Since then, we've been getting the paper at the store every weekday morning. By the time I get in to work, bring the paper home and get to read it the following morning, most of what's on the front page is old news but there's still lots to read that is current.

One of my favourite features is a daily photo pick (backed up by on-line notes of why the photo editors picked that particular picture). Mutton chops, pictured here, was Wednesday's feature that I had to share with you. Don't you love the kids face? Can't you just picture Sarah P. off to the side?

Here's another picture that I have spoken of previously in this blog but until recently Icouldn't find. Well here it is - a picture from October of 2000. That's me with my "little" brother and my Mom. I'm wearing a Kaffe Fassett inspired sweater that I made during the 1994 Winter Olympics. (It just goes to prove that knitting Olympics was around long before the Yarn Harlot so cleverly turned the idea into an international avalanche of mutual supporters) I remember one of the actual events as my 3 1/2 year old commented while she watched Tonya Harding performing one of her figure skating routines, that she didn't like her, as she pointed to the television. "She looks mean." From the mouths of babes... You will remember Tonya resorted to some pretty nasty tactics to lessen the competition from her team mate Nancy Kerrigan.

Needless to say that Tonya and Nancy's spat has little to do with my sweater, or does it? It is a rather strident looking garment, don't you think?

In my defense, I remember that we didn't have a real yarn store in Cornwall, where we were living at the time and I had to resort to cobbling together yarns and colours that were available to me in a chunky weight. I also remember that winter I was feeling a need for BRIGHT colours as the winter dragged on. In hind sight, I believe that one of the reasons that I wore the sweater sparingly over the years was that I had to feel in a very out-going mood to sport it as it was the kind of garment that had people looking at you.

You will notice that my mild case of ADD is apparent in that I seldom knit the sleeves to match the body of a sweater in those days. My point being that I was usually bored with the body pattern and wanted something easier and/or more interesting for the next part.

As for fit, well, we did like our clothes baggy in those days, but that one was a bit excessive. I loved the coziness of it, but I do believe that it measured out at 62" chest. (I filled out about 40" of it.)

As for what I've been doing lately in knitting, I'm having a great time assembling first the actual afghan for our upcoming BLOCK AFGHAN PROJECT, which is going to be a sort of on-going Knit Along, featuring a series of knitted squares of different stitch patterns. The squares were knit by a couple of my faithful knitters, then I got to put it all together...all 25 squares. I love it.

The kit will be available (for delivery beginning Sept 1st) in 3 sizes from shawl/baby blanket dimensions to a full 25 square double bed size. It can also be done in CASCADE 220- pure wool, in Cascade's brand new PACIFIC 40-60 wool/acrylic blend (which they say absolutely cannot pill), or in Patons DECOR.

It's a big project - even now that the assembly is complete I'm working at putting the pattern booklets together and organizing the promotion for it, but this is all part of what I really enjoy of having the yarn store (and a good example of what I'm doing when you don't see me in the store.)

A little support?

2011-06-08T10:42:00.005-04:00

You know that the really nice summer weather is here when the halter tops come out.

I found this one on a walk through downtown Kingston the other day, near Skeleton park.

And while we're on the subject of support garments, although they may be the same colour, these socks below are definitely not your granny's support hose. They are featured in the latest edition of Vogue Knitting Magazine.

Designed by Alexandra Richards, these toe-up knee socks with brioche stitch designs are absolutely exquisite but I would definitely need some support if I ever decided to take on such a project - the kind of support that we get from friends and family when accepting the challenge of running a marathon for instance.

By the way, this edition of VKMag has been designated "early fall". I sure hope that they mean that they are offering suggestions for knitting projects appropriate for the early fall, because after the month of May that most of us in North America have just lived through, I for one am prepared to protest forcefully if we are suddenly jettisoned into early fall before we get our due summer.

And as we await Game 4 of the Stanley Cup finals, how can we possibly talk about support without mentioning Tonya Raworth's Ultimate Canucks Fan Scarf, available on Ravelry. To be fair, I tried to find an equally committed project in support of the Boston Bruins, but alas, Ravelry didn't have anything. I did however find a vintage Bobby Orr pom pom toque on Amazon for $27 but it seemed like a poor subsitute for the real thing from the fan's hands.

By the way, we often have customers coming in to the store looking for a scarf pattern that shows off team names. I love how Tonya has done this one, using garter stitch for most of the scarf then graphing the letters to be knit sideways. She uses stocking stitch to work the graphed stitches, but I'm sure that the garter stitch could be used for most of it, employing the few purl stitches necessary to hide colour changes yet keeping the scarf from curling at all. Way to go Tonya!
By the way... Go Canucks!

Doing what you do best...then combine it with something else

2011-05-31T15:55:00.008-04:00

A couple of months ago I was contacted by Robin Hunter, whose blog: How to Become a Professional Knitter has been gaining popularity. One of the features of Robin's blog is that she does interviews with people in the yarn industry, asking a series of questions about their attitudes towards the present and the future of knitting as well as about how they came to find themselves in this field. I was happy to be asked to participate- and the interview and my answers can be found here.

Robin subtitles her site: a knitting blog about career transition, personal development and the search for fulfillment. I love it.

When I was teaching school, I spent most of my career telling my Grade 8 students to prepare for a world that is unlike their parents' world. There will be very few single career lives anymore, they will have to be flexible, creative, open to change and able to see value in unexpected situations. Although I had had many different jobs before coming to teaching, I really assumed that it would be my career for the rest of my working life. I never suspected that having joined those ranks at 30 that I'd be getting out at 42. But truly, as I look back on it now, I AM A TEACHER. No one will ever be able to change that about me. It just happens that a lay off notice in 1996 pushed me to follow the lessons that I'd been passing on to my students for 12 years: Be flexible! Embrace Change!

So it would appear that Robin, like so many others including me, has done the career shift and has realized that it's not a matter of exchanging one hat for another, of wearing many different hats - sometimes simultaneously - sometimes in succession.

Maria Offin approached me this winter to do a photoshoot at the store. Maria is a knitter who was wanting to expand her photography portfolio at this new stage of her life. And like so many of you, Maria recognizes the beauty of fibre and she was wanting to incorporate it into some of her photographic business. I was thrilled and have some great shots of the store to use including this one of me, that I must say, I quite like.

Frankie LeMonde-Meunier is one of the featured artists from the Kingston Fibre Artists on display at the WOOL-TYME Kingston store this month. Don't you love her crocheted garden? Frankie's Fibre Art is usually more of the needle-and-thread-and-fabric-and beads type. Here, she let herself go into another whole world of crochet crazy colours grouped together in a giant wild and wooly bouquet.

Finally, let's hear it for Alicia Peltsch whose knitted brain was a very special gift, incorporating her grounding in neuroscience and her love of knitting. Here's how she describes it:

When I graduated with a PhD in neuroscience I wanted to give my supervisor a non-traditional but special gift that was more “me” than the traditional bottle of scotch.

Since I basically knit my way through my PhD to keep my sanity intact, I thought it would be only fitting to knit him a brain. He LOVED it! He even brought it to work the next week to show everyone.

I’ve finally attached the free pattern - enjoy!!

Each of us, Robin with her knitwear design and blog writing, Maria with her developing (pardon the out of date pun) career in photography, Frankie with the beauty of her crochet bursting into her other artistic media, Alicia with her statement of combined commitments, and me - taking the plunge all those years ago to opening the store into a world I love, have had to spread our wings over new territory, incorporating several aspects of ourselves that we know we're good at and developing a link between them. How lucky we are to be able to play in the same garden where we work!

The Knitted Legacy

2011-05-11T15:12:00.006-04:00

A couple of weeks ago I was listening to a noon hour call-in show on the radio and the question was: "How have you kept the legacy of a loved one alive after their death?"

There were lots of calls about recipes, treks through mountains and so on. Then a call came through that had me nodding to myself.

The caller's mother had begun a knitted baby blanket for the first grandchild who was expected within a few months. This soon-to-be grandmother's terminal condition made it difficult for her to work on the blanket for long periods of time but she did what she could. Predictably, the caller told us that her mother died before she was able to finish the blanket.

I thought back to all the similar stories that I've heard at our store. Seldom a month goes by without someone bringing in a project left unfinished by a loved one. Sometimes the pieces arrive ...well, in pieces, moth eaten, dust worn. Sometimes they're wrapped in a tea towel, sometimes in a plastic garbage bag, sometimes in blue tissue paper. The bearer sometimes just wants more material to finish it themselves. Sometimes they would like to pay us to do it for them. And seldom does it work out.

As any crafter knows, it's almost impossible to pick up someone else's project and complete it to anyone's satisfaction. Often there's a very practical crafting reason why the person stopped working on it: the pattern got lost, torn or was just too complicated or boring. Sometimes it becomes painfully obvious that there won't be enough yarn to complete the project: try finding yarn to match a 30 year old product or colour! And even if everything is in place to complete the project...who has the precise tension of the original person or the time to develop it in order to achieve a beautiful finish?

And let me tell you, it's heartbreaking to have to tell these people that there is very little likelihood that we can help them achieve the finished product that will live up to their hopes and expectations. I have a personal reason to feel bad for them as my grandmother, the one who taught my brother and I to knit by creating those great Mary Maxim sweaters for us when we were little, and who made beautiful hats and mittens galore for us, left as her knitting legacy to me but a single pair of really ugly socks in a crystal blue plastic-like worsted weight acrylic yarn. She never knew that these would be the only things that I still had of hers that fit and hadn't worn out - probably because I never wore them.

All this was going through my head as the caller relayed her story...which then took an amazing turn. After her mother's death, her father decided to learn to knit in order to complete the baby blanket. His skill was that of a beginner, but he did finish it and the baby has a wonderful momento of a grandmother that he never met and a grandfather who went above and beyond the call of duty. I think that as a knitting teacher, I would have been so proud to help this man in his quest.

I do not, however, plan to take up woodworking in order to complete any of my husband's unfinished projects in his shop. I value my fingers too much to put them that close to something sharp that is whirring that fast.

Presenting WOOL-TYME Kingston's IRISH Knitting Tour 2011

2011-05-04T09:51:00.009-04:00

This time last year, I was on the train heading for the west coast, traveling through northern Ontario on the only rainy day of the whole trip. But what did the rain matter, I was watching the amazing wilderness roll by from the comfort of the club car, knitting on my first toe-up sock. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed the whole experience, and every time I hear the sound of a train I reaffirm my resolve to make travel a part of my life for a long time.

On the right are a couple of young ladies that I met in the observation car. They too had brought handicrafts to pass the hours, showing off their model airplane. It was all just too much fun for words.

And in just a few months, I get to strap on my traveling shoes again and head to Ireland with WOOL-TYME Kingston's very own tour, organized in conjunction with Service Guaranteed Travel.

From Sept 26th to Oct 6th, 2011, you can join us on a tour of that most fabled land of glorious knits, visiting castles, cathedrals, pubs, abbeys, a sheep and wool museum, capped off with an authentic Irish knitting workshop which will include learning all about Aran knitting.

You will touch down in Dublin, Waterford for the crystal factory, Cork, Kerry, Killarney, Limerick, the Aran Islands, Connemara, Galway and back to Dublin with lots of time in each location to gain a sense of the flavour of the area. All this in the luxury of a modern motor coach with driver and a guide, offering a half day tour of Dublin, a ferry trip to Inishmor (and back, of course), breakfasts each day, a medieval banquet, and 4 other dinners along the way. And all of this for the very sensible sum of about $2500. Truly a travel bargain.

With a local guide to shepherd us around the country, my job will be to act as your knitting support, on deck to answer any and all knitting questions, help with patterns that befuddle, pick up stitches that escape and generally be your knitting "auntie" for the trip so the experience will be as fulfilling as possible in all ways.
Link here or on the tab at the top to go to WOOL-TIME Kingston's IRISH Knitting Tour 2011 page to keep abreast of new information and to get further details.

For just $250 you can reserve your spot for this wonderful knitting experience of a lifetime.
Don't miss out.

TICO 50013205

Let's hear it for the Volunteers!

2011-04-15T10:53:00.006-04:00

When I heard that April 10th-16th has been set aside to recognize the work that volunteers do in our community, I naturally thought about Project Linus and the thousands of blankets that we've distributed to children in the greater Kingston area, blankets that have been kindly made and donated with yarn that is often donated too. When WOOL-TYME Kingston took on the role of coordinating the local chapter of Project Linus, we were collecting about 10 blankets a month. Now, through the generosity of so many contributors, we are up to about 50 blankets each month!

Then that got me thinking about volunteers in general.

In sorting out the yarn donations that we receive regularly at the store, there is some yarn that isn't of use for the purpose of making children's blankets so I have a list of about 7 or 8 other charities who are always ready to accept the baby yarn, the Phentex, the fancies to make projects for their own fundraisers. Furthermore, each location to which we deliver the Project Linus blankets: Children's Aid, Almost Home, Interval House and Dawn House and many others, all have their own group of dedicated volunteers who are committed to their own work.

Being a business, we frequently receive requests for donations to fundraisers. This week alone we were privileged to receive a request from the Canadians for Women in Afghanistan for their upcoming Gala and the Andrew Tru deau Memorial Golf Tournament raising funds for the Mental Health Assoc. and for projects working against impaired driving.

Then my friend who is a nurse working in palliative care sent me a copy of an article about the "Izzy Dolls" ,which originally gained popularity being made for children in war torn areas, but from her perspective, my friend says that they are invaluable for calming people who are stressed and/or suffering from dementia. In an upcoming newsletter, we'll be offering the link to the pattern and a bit of encouragement to our customers who would like to make some to be distributed locally.

Finally, I started thinking about my own humble volunteer cap that I wear (figuratively speaking) and I'll let you in on the secret that I've discovered to feeling great about any volunteer job that you choose to do: BRING FOOD! Every time I show up at the local shelter for which I've been making sandwiches for at least 8 years, I'm greeted by staff and residents alike with appreciation and actual joy (especially when there are some cookies or other treats accompanying the sandwiches).

Twice a week I deliver these sandwiches made of white bread, margerine, processed meat and mustard (at their request). Except for the mustard, we wouldn't probably have any other these other products on our regular shopping list, but although salami sandwiches are not my cup of tea, I DEFINITELY understand the value of comfort food to someone who is going through a rough patch. So I started calculating the output and by my estimation I've buttered 16 000 pieces of bread to make 8 000 sandwiches over the past 8 years. And of course my only wish is that they weren't needed but while they are, I plan to keep it up.

ARANWARE POTTERY

2011-04-08T10:55:00.005-04:00

So this is my new Aranware pitcher. Don't you just love it? One of the things that I find particularly fun about being a yarn store owner is that you get to be official Head Cheerleader for absolutely anything that has to do with knitting, sheep, fibre, and just about anything else of interest to our customers. When I was researching Irish knitting for the March newsletter I came across Ann Mullan-Karakatsanis, the creator and designer of Kara Irish Pottery, inspired by Aran Irish traditional sweaters with patterns that reflect elements of Celtic art. I loved the pictures of all the pottery so much that I had to get a piece to show off at the store, as an example of how beautiful knitting can inspire so many other art forms. When I picked up my pitcher last week, in the box I found a copy of a magazine article from TEA, A Magazine, Spring 2003 which featured an interview with Ann. They explained that one of the greatest challenges of the production was that the pieces originated from a factory in Derry, in the predominantly Protestant Northern Ireland AND the only other Irish pottery, in County Cork in the Catholic South. Derry however is predominantly Catholic and the home of the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland so an accord was forged and we are the beneficiaries. Also included with the article was the following side bar. It sounds relatively authentic and dependable but I'm always suspect about any "definitive" stories about traditional origins of any kind. For what it's worth, here it is: "The true story of Aran knitting was discovered by knitwear designer, Rohana Darlington while in Aran during the summer of 1984. She searched for Mary Dirrane, said by the islanders to know more about knitting than anyone else. Mary told her the tale of when her mother, Margaret, and her friend Maggie O'Toole had gone to Boston, Massachusetts, in 1906 with the intention of emigrating. They stayed on "some islands off Boston" and learned from some "foreign immigrant woman" how to do cable, moss stitch and trellis or lattice patterns. In 1908 they returned to Ireland, blending their new knitting skills with what they saw sailors wearing, and experimenting with patterns." Now that I have you all gung ho about getting your own piece of Aranware pottery, the bad news is that at this time, Ann has difficulty shipping to Canada as the products, being from offshore, are not covered under NAFTA and consequently are subject to duty and all the shenanigans that that implies. But if you have friend or kin south of the border who can accept your order (as I do) Ann is happy to do that for just $5 shipping charges. karairishpottery.com 1-800-430-2008

The Mag Browse

2011-03-21T16:14:00.007-04:00

My own knitting life is sadly quite boring at the moment.

I've been going through physio to put my shoulders back in some sort of sensible condition after 40 years of knitting several hours per day. All is progressing relatively well, but it means that while I'm knitting, every time I feel any sort of twinge from mid back to the top of my head, I drop the needles immediately and take a break, walk around the living room, stretch limbs and neck, then try and figure out where I left off in my pattern.

Needless to say, this little exercise protocol every 15 minutes or so doesn't lend itself to any sort of fancy work, nor to much knitting at all. So to keep inspired, I have turned to my other great love: reading. And in this case I've been specifically reading some of the knitting magazines that I don't have regular access to at the WOOL-TYME Kingston store.

Last Saturday before going to work, I brought my mags to Starbucks and was greeted by the barista who exclaimed as I paid for my tea: "Oh wow! You have knitting magazines. I love knitting, I do it all the time with my friends." It's not often that women of a certain vintage inspire such a reaction from a girl in early twenties. My selection included the most recent edition of Love Of Knitting (a newish American publication), the Spring/Summer issue of Vogue Knitting, which sold out at the store before I got back from my week away early in March. The last of the magazines, which at $13.75 CAD was quite an investment but I'd heard good things about the publication, including the fact that one of our customers had recently sold them a pattern, so it was worth a closer look: Yarn Forward a monthly magazine from the UK.

What a quality publication! I wouldn't say that I'd be lining up at Chapters for the next issue each month, but as a knitter I certainly felt that I got my money's worth for the information, techniques, innovations, and excellent variety of patterns.

So here is what I discovered about what's hot on the knitting scene both here and across the pond:

-Citrus colours...and blue, especially soft blue with a bit of green.

-Cables everywhere, in pillows, throws, bags, and in garments, to accent the shape: "Vertical cables are very flattering for most body shapes. They help to create han hour-glass figure, drawing the eye down to the waist." Anniken Allis, designer of the Selina Jumper in Yarn Forward.

-And the latest trend in knitting "must haves"... Yarn bowls. I saw them featured and advertised in all 3 magazines. How cute, but is it really a "must have"?

I also learned that in the 1940s, women incorporated the finest of lace or cable patterns into their knitting to perk up the dreariness of the colours that were available, but they would only add these at the yoke, to save precious yardage. In the 1950's with the end of rationing, knitwear designers seemed to have gone hogwild, with dolman sleeves flared and lacy knitted skirts and swing jackets of the widest proportion.

I learned that Alice Starmore has a new book called Fishermen's Sweaters which I have serious doubts about the number of fishermen who would get a chance to wear these magnificent and intricate Aran designs, especially to work on a smelly boat.

Finally Nicky Epstein has come out with a smart thing to do with the miles of "corking" that kids can produce, using it to embellish store bought pillows - we'll have to do up a sample of this fun and easy craft for the store.

Snow Day.

2011-02-02T19:12:00.004-05:00

This was a snow day and I was at home all day.

Actually most Wednesdays I get to spend a good portion of the day at home working at the computer, but somehow with all that snow blowing around outside, and my husband home from work, it felt kind of special. Like I couldn't do anything outside the house even if I wanted to, so I might as well have fun and finish up/get along with some of the knitting projects that have been hanging around for a while.

The first project to tackle was the meter of I-cord that I had made over the Christmas Holidays, using some linen that we've had at the store which didn't seem to be saying anything to me. Then I saw an article in the winter Vogue Knitting Magazine that showed how I-cord could be twined into a beautiful celtic knot and worn as a necklace. Isn't it beautiful. Tomorrow I'm off to look for a clasp to sew onto the ends of it.

Next was finishing the last few rows of the TUL scarf. TUL is the newest frill type scarf yarn from Katia, made of combed cotton and nylon. It's beautifully soft to work with and comes in lovely spring colours. I can see it for cuffs, neck trims, bag adornments as well as scarves. Now, that's project #2 down.

WOOL-TYME Kingston's first ever Knit-Along featuring the February Lady Sweater got underway last night at the store with a great turnout despite the weater and sadly, without me. As I was backing out of my driveway to go to the event, I rammed right into a giant snowbank and there sat my car until it was too late to make any sense of heading in to the store. That actually doesn't have much to do with anything except the fact that I'm pouting a bit for having missed the kick off, but it also serves as a segue to the next project that I was working on today: an afghan square for next fall's proposed Knit-Along: a Blocks of the Month Afghan.

Last week I wrote of how I enjoyed working on afghans so much, and although I've got 2 great knitters and friends working up most of the squares that we intend to incorporate into this project, both of them are working on their F. L. S. for this Knit-Along, so it seemed as if it would be a good opportunity for me to do a couple of the squares myself. This is called a Loop Stitch Rib and is really easy yet quite impressive looking.

Later in the day I got a chance to go through some of the new books that just arrived on Monday. What a surprise to find that Nicky Epstein's new book: Knitting Block by Block was a perfect summing up of all that I got to do today.

Nicky is known for her amazing creativity and for seeing knitting in a very 3 dimensional manner. This book of knitted blocks includes just about anything that you can imagine as shown on the cover: I-cord, beads, pieced work and good old stitch variations. Each of these blocks can be used by itself as a pillow cover for instance, or in combination in a shawl of an afghan. I particularly loved the applied I-cord squares. Perhaps I was just trying to figure out a way to use the rest of the linen I-cord that I have left over from my necklace.

Anyway, it's a lovely book. Every page had me thinking of applications for each of her great designs. So many ideas...so little time. But it sure is fun to look at them and let them settle in my brain. Maybe one of those ideas will hatch a concept for Knit-Along 2012.

The Season for Blankets

2011-01-27T10:08:00.003-05:00

I've been seeing a physiotherapist for the past little while with some shoulder issues and she suggested that I take a 2 week holiday from knitting. I realized that the main problem was probably not the knitting when my immediate internal response was: "Thank God she didn't say 2 weeks away from the computer." But I digress.

I'm a good girl and always do what I'm told, so I've mostly put away the needles for a while and last weekend did some work assembing this sampler afghan that we're designing for the store. I realized very soon that it's been years since I've worked on a blanket. I had forgotten how much I like it and I really believe that it's one of the most therapeutic types of knitting. When my partner and I first got together back in the late '70's, he was in BC and I was in Montreal for the first 6 months. During those months we racked up some heavy phone bills, but on the + side, I completed 5 full sized afghans during that same time. (Would you call that therapeutically obsessed?)

At the end of Dec. the Ottawa Citizen featured an article about a group of hockey moms who have put their arena time to making blankets for Project Linus, an organization that many of you know that we coordinate locally, which provides hand made blankets for kids who are going through a difficult time. Then within a week, we received a flyer from Bernat Yarns offering support for Project Linus and free pattens for other fundraisers.

Project Linus, in addition to doing wonderful work, is one of the best organizations that I've ever been associated with. From their beginnings in 1995 it grew so much in the first year with chapters world wide that an executive decision was made that they would either have to expand to include paid staff...or...they could simply trust the goodness and integrity of the people involved and completely let go of the reins of power. Having chosen the latter way, each chapter is loosely associated with the larger organized non-organization, meaning that there is support but absolutely no paper work, no reporting, only proper and important work getting blankets to the kids who need them.

WOOL-TYME Kingston has been involved since 1996 and to date, I think we have distributed, through the generosity of our customers, over 3 000 blankets in the Kingston area, extending to Napanee and Gananoque.

That being said, if any of you know of a local group who works with kids when they are going through a difficult time in their lives and would like to have some blankets to help make their time easier, please let us know. We'd be glad to share what we have with you.

So grap your needles or hook and work up a blankie for yourself or someone you love. (And considering that we just found out about 2 family weddings coming up this summer, I'm sure I'll be taking my own advice in the near future...as soon as I'm off the disabled list.)

Perfectionism and the Bull.

2011-01-19T07:46:00.004-05:00

You may remember a few posts back I mentioned about discovering work by Kingston's own yarn bombers on display on lower Princess St. Well as in everything else, NYC knows how to do it BIGGER.

This is the Wall Street Bull. The underlying statue is itself a work of guerrilla street art as artist, Arturo Di Modica placed him in the centre of New York's financial district without permission in 1987. Zoom ahead 23 years and you have New York yarn artist, Olek, doing her bit to add some colour to the financial district on a cold December night. Isn't he beautiful? I remember when I first saw this picture I was awestruck at the perfection of the fit, especially around all those fine curves of the feet and the horns. How could anyone possibly accomplish such precision...in secret, no less?

Then I watched the video of the assembly which took place this past Christmas Eve in the middle of the night in 20 F weather. (One must suffer for one's art). What struck me was that although art may look perfect at the end, it's creation involves a series of adaptations, decisions, reworkings, evaluations to achieve that illusion.

Here are some of the things that I love about her process - in relation to the work of those who have learned to improve their knitting skills with me:

-The artist was obviously well prepared in that she had all the pieces that she knew that she would need to cover every square inch of the bull, but from the way she has to tug and pull to make it fit, she proves that she is able to work with what she has, even if it isn't perfect to begin with.

-She isn't shy about sharing her work and her adaptations with the passers-by, even if it means that they see it as a work-in-progress .

-She takes huge delight in her work, especially when it's completed. We should all feel like doing a little "Rocky" victory dance at the end of a big job, knitting or any other task.

I have some issues with perfectionism myself. I think that I just don't have the make up to even pretend that anything that I do can possibly be perfect so I'm absolved of even trying.

Last week I was listening to the radio while working on my latest rug hooking project and heard Dr Brene Brown speaking about her book: "The Gifts of Imperfection" and felt so relieved that I no longer needed to feel guilty because I wasn't prepared to tear out an entire flower because one section wasn't exactly as I planned it, or rip back the entire sleeve of a sweater because I saw a mistaken in the crossed cable near a cuff.

That being said, like Olek, I have learned that in order to maintain the quality of my work, I better develop the skills that I need to deal with the errors and issues that might arise that keep the work from being the best it can be. So over the years I have learned how to use sewing thread to camouflage small inconsistencies in tension; I have added bands of knitting on both sides of a sweater under the arms to give it a bit more room if it's too small; I have removed ribbed bands and worked down to lengthen a garment; I've knit the back a smaller size than the front of a sweater in order to give more ease for those of us who might need it in the front and have "fudged" or eased the armholes to make them work together. And most importantly, I have learned, as Olek knows, that a good tug, especially when doing the final blocking of a piece can make a world of difference.

All of these tricks and the confidence to use them have come to me over 40 years of knitting and being too lazy or practical to start over. When a class member comes upon a major stumbling block in her project, I will offer possibilities...some based on the "do it over" model, others based on my more random attitude towards fixing the problem. I totally respect that some people would abhor the concept of a mistwisted cable in their garment but I also appreciate when product and process find a good happy medium and can coexist without making the knitter a slave to either one.

Very gingerly, let me say a few words...

2011-01-12T07:44:00.003-05:00

I suppose I could explain my absence from this bandwidth for the past couple of weeks as being a byproduct of my holiday revelry and the madness of retail at that time of the year but it would only be partly true.

Last week I got an email linking to Mags Kandis' website announcing the end of the licensing agreement for Mission Falls Yarn, meaning that it will not longer be produced, and therefore when the stock is sold out, will no longer be available. Like all other fans of this beautiful product I was sorely disappointed, especially as I had just brought in the line of their sport weight wool just last spring. What an unfortunate loss - a wonderful product which was conceived, designed and actually spun here in Canada. But alas the world, knitting and otherwise, will keep on turning no doubt.

I don't mean to say that I was so prostrate with grief at the thought of losing a yarn line that I couldn't bring myself to write a blog post. I was however quite shocked by fall out and assumptions that this announcement brought with it and had to think about what I wanted to say. These assumptions originated with the following lines from Mags's original post:

Sad news:
As of today, the Mission Falls brand is no longer.
Happy news:
As of today, the licensee has begun liquidation of Mission Falls products. Yippppppeeeeeee for all you yarnie makers!

I have to commend Mags on her post that day. After 15 years of her life being invested in building such a great brand it must have been a difficult one to write and to word properly. Unfortunately the yipppeeee has perhaps given a wrong impression.

As a yarn store owner I had a very different reaction to losing a yarn that is of such great quality. My first thought was: "I sure hope that they have lots in stock so that the transition to other options can be made more smoothly." It never occurred to me that it would be sold off at fire sale prices.

Mission Falls wool and cotton is still a very valuable commodity, made all the more valuable in the eyes of fans and those who have partly finished projects of Mission Falls yarns by the fact that there will be no more of it coming off the spinners. Why would I devalue it for that exact reason?

On a chat in Ravelry where they were discussing this very topic, one member said that she couldn't understand yarn stores that sell discontinued yarns at full price. Let me say that from this side of the counter, a product is worth exactly what a customer is willing to pay for it. And a beautiful yarn will not lose its quality or value just because no more will be available in the future.

Now don't get me wrong. Full disclosure here...I am a major bargain hunter. I have never seen a Clearance sign that I haven't investigated. And as a yarn store owner, many of you will know that we seldom have an empty section in our Bargain area of the store. But these are yarns that make it to my clearance table by virtue of their overproduction, or outdated colour, or their "orphanhood" being the last few balls of a dye lot. In my store, it all comes down to real estate: does a specific yarn deserve its place in the full price section or should it move on at a discounted price to find a better home under some deserving customer's roof.

Another thing that I want to say is that I really have appreciated CNS yarns' work in continuing and expanding the Mission Falls brand over the past few years. Yes, we all know that it isn't EXACTLY the same, but it was darn close to the original product that Mags offered us for so many years - and it remained a fully Canadian product. I for one think they did a really good job.

As for the cotton, in case you don't know of it, we started stocking Cascade Yarn's LUNA a few years back to complement the colour range of Mission Falls cotton. It is as close to the real thing as you can get in terms of texture and has been a very popular addition to our midweight cotton lines.

To sum up with my best wishes:
-Good on ya, Mags. Enjoy the next phase of your life.
-Thanks CNS - for continuing to bring us these great yarns for the past 5 years.
-And customers, a bargain is a great find, but good quality yarns are a bargain even at full price.

My Gift to You

2010-12-20T14:51:00.005-05:00

We have a satelite dish at home and I often hear people asking how it's possible to have reception of 200+ channels and there's still nothing on TV.

Lately, I've taken this on as a challenge. Believing that there has to be something interesting or worthwhile on at any given point of the day, I'm willing to invest a few minutes to find it.

A few weeks ago on the Documentary channel I came across a great 65 minute film called LAUGHOLOGY which truly changed my life (for the time being anyway).

What an extraordinary look at the science behind laughter and how therapeutic and contagious it can be. The film brings us through many segments and stories, but my favourite part was the when we are introduced to Doug Collins, the man with the most contagious laugh in the world. This title apparently came about when Doug was randomly selected to take part in a segment of the Comedy Barn, and to the host's helpless surprise, Doug actually stole the show by doing nothing more than lauging...And the rest is history in that the YouTube segment called Dad at the Comedy Barn now has been seen by 21,035,246 viewers and with good reason.

I can't begin to count how many hysterical video doors are opened by Googling Doug Collins laughman.

And what a joy it is to spend some time with Doug. Not only is his laugh unstoppable, but he seems like such a genuinely nice man that you want to visit him often, and you always come away feeling refreshed and joyful.

My wish for each of you at this hectic time of the year is that you receive and give in turn all the benefits that the joy of a great bellylaugh can bring. And give yourself the gift of spending a few minutes with Doug. You'll not regret it.

A couple of distractions to check out.

2010-12-13T15:00:00.007-05:00

So have you ever noticed that the crazier the pace of our lives becomes, the more we look around for things to distract us from the very tasks that we should get done to keep things from being so crazy??? I prefer to think of this as a simple trait of human nature and not necessarily a bad thing. After all, this nose to the grindstone is quite overrated in my opinion.

That being said, if you're looking for a few distractions to break from the pace in these last few weeks before the Holidays, here are a few that I'd suggest:

Wander through Downtown Kingston where there's a special treat awaiting your fibre sensibilities in front of Tara Foods/Vandervoort's Hardware on lower Princess St. Fun loving crocheters have decorated some of the bike racks there with colourful swatches of Granny Squares.

And to show that they aren't ashamed of their stitching obsession, there's even a little card attached to each asking you to send fan email messages to Outlaw Wool Lovers.

It's fun to think of a little bit of subversive stitching going on right here in our own backyard.

Or you might want a bit of diversion delivered to you through your computer:

A few weeks ago, we received the special 100th issue of Knitters Magazine, also celebrating their parent company, XRX's 26th year in business. This double issue of the magazine contains a full 50 patterns and is a great buy, but the cool news is that they are actually making this edition available for free to any Mac, PC or iPad user. Link here to receive your free digital copy of the magazine and spend a few relaxing hours dreaming about projects that you can make for YOU after the holiday rush is over.

Or if a little fun knitting is the sort of distraction that you're looking for, what do you think of this great little Holiday knitting project? Isn't it the cutest, although I'm not sure that the avian world would actually classify this little fellow as a partridge to go along with the pear but it would be fun to put on the tree anyway.

Find the free pattern to make these lovely ornaments in Patons on line newsletter.

Meanwhile, I'm off to leaf through a couple of new rug hooking books that I just picked up...and perhaps sneek a peak at the Julia Child/Jacques Pepin cookbook that Alana brought in for me to browse through. We might either have Blanquette de Veau with Pomme de Terre Dauphinoises or grilled cheese sandwiches for supper, depending on how distracted I actually get.

In the 2 days since the newsletter went out...

2010-12-03T14:21:00.002-05:00

It's good to have this edition of the newsletter "put to bed" and I can only say that much as I enjoy writing it, I'm certainly glad that it's a monthly deadline that I have set myself and not a weekly one. By the way if you aren't signed up to receive it regularly through email, you should be.

But as life would have it, no sooner did I hit the send button but I received an email from a customer telling me about her participation in the Ravelry Advent Lace project. What a great idea: you access a different part of a lace scarf pattern for each of the 24 days before Christmas. When I went on line to check this out I was surprised to find that there are actually 2 such projects through Ravelry. Both seem to be from German knitters who appear to be equal opportunity designers, recognizing that the world of lace knitters is divided very strongly between the chart people and the written instruction group.

The one pictured here is by Unikatissima and the other one, cleverly hiding any photographic representation of the finished project is by Kristen Benecken. Now I'm the first to admit that I don't have the concentrated time to do a lot of lace knitting but I was pretty awestruck at the concept that a person on this planet would have the time during the month of December to accomplish each of the 24 sections on each of the next 24 days. What a challenge it would be and it will be fun to check in on the groups to see how people are keeping up with the pace. They don't even have hours of dedicated television watching to fill as we do during the Knitting Olympics.

We've had a good response so far to our first Knit-Along, scheduled for Feb. 2011 when we will knit the wonderfully versatile February Lady Sweater, including some responses from customers outside of our geographical area who want to participate on-line. This could be really fun. If you would like to learn more, link here.

Also, in that same Inbox batch of messages, I got one from Elizabeth McCarten letting me know that she had a new free download through Ravelry of a reversible cable scarf called Tumnus, a lovely design to try for someone special. By the way, everyone should check out Elizabeth's blog to see her wonderful photos of the city as seen through the eye of an artist discovering her new surroundings. If you are a Kingstonian you'll see the common through a fresh set of eyes. If you're from away, you'll be seduced to visit our great downtown area.

Frills

2010-11-15T08:34:00.007-05:00

Do you remember the Eyelash yarn?

To be quite honest, we had eyelash yarn in the store for a year and a half before the craze caught on. We used to have it in a little basket, with about 2 balls of each of the 7 or 8 colours that we carried. We had one customer who loved it and made quite a few projects of all sorts with it. It seemed as if she was the only one who had any interest in buying it even with the cute little bolero jacket that we had on display.

Then the TSUNAMI of popularity hit. It was not uncommon on a Saturday to have a half dozen customers picking up 30 balls of this yarn, not to mention the 30 customers who were there to pick up a half dozen balls. There were some days when we could have auctioned off 2 balls of black FUNNY that were returned for 5 times their regular price.

My favourite business story in the 14 years that I've had the store is of an older woman who won the Best in Show prize for knitting at one of the local fall fairs where we had donated a $25 gift certificate for the prize. She had never been in our store and arrived with 2 of her adult daughters to see what we carried and to spend the gift certificate. They all fell in love with the eyelash yarn and I finally lost count of how much return we made on that "donation" but between this lady and her friends and extended family at least 250 balls of eyelash yarn were purchased that season.

Enter FRILL SEEKER and the other frill yarns that have taken over.

Again, we had an identical yarn in different colourways 2 years ago in the store, and again we had one forward thinking customer who loved it and was responsible for about 75% of the sales that we made when we carried SOLO in the store. But for some reason it just didn't catch on until this season.

And predictably, there just isn't enough stock. How can anyone predict what will go "viral" in the knitting world, or any other aspect of life for that matter?

I was at the distributor's warehouse last week and heard that they had invested $6 000 to air ship a tonne of FRILL SEEKER yarn to Canada. That is one heck of a lot of frills. Last week we received 32 bags of that lot and have but a few balls of just 3 colours left. More is coming later in the month, this time by ocean freight (sensibly), and yet another shipment is expected with new colours to arrive before Christmas.

It reminds me of the Cabbage Patch Doll craze, where my mother, God bless her, fought the crowds at the Bay on Rideau St in Ottawa to get one for Christmas for our oldest daughter, who drew on the doll's face some time in early January. And bless her in turn, Catherine just wasn't a doll kind of kid.

Anyway, this new one is a fun yarn and a nice gift. (Apparently, FRILL SEEKER scarves were spotted by one of our customers in Mont Tremblant fashion boutiques and are selling for $50.)

At right is a picture of RIZOS, by Katia, another version of the frill yarn and a bit more sophisticated. We will have a bit in stock but I had to fight to get 2 of the last 4 bags in the warehouse where it is housed. The knitting world can be a tough one. It's good to know that our customers appreciate the battles that we face to get the yarns they want. LOL.

A bit too much knitting, perhaps.

2010-11-03T15:37:00.006-04:00

I've loved knitting all my life. I was quite young when daydreams often consisted of how to make a knitted swirl go around a sleeve. But I have to say that even for me, the wallpaper in this hotel room might have been a bit overwhelming.

Joanne, one of my customers, brought this photo back from a trip to Ottawa recently where they stayed at the Hotel Indigo. Having recovered from the shock of finding an entire wall covered with a mural of a sweater that I owned in the '70's, I was intrigued as I'd never heard of this hotel before, having worked at the Chateau Laurier in my early twenties, and Ottawa being my second home.

When I looked it up on-line, I was taken aback on several fronts. First of all, it would appear that this pretty upscale "boutique" hotel has this type of mural wallpaper in all their rooms. The ones that they feature on the web site have you sitting in a forest of birch trees, or in a much-larger-than-life field of wheat.

Secondly, I was blown away when I realized that the Hotel Indigo is actually the latest incarnation of what used to be the old YMCA, which is right across the street from the old YWCA, and is the corner where my brother, Andy and I first found our Independence when we were but 7 and 9 years old.

We were the oldest of 5 kids and with one car and a Mom who never did want to have her driver's license, we were shown the way then allowed to go to swimming lessons by ourselves, taking the 35 minute bus ride over from Hull in Quebec, getting off at the Chateau Laurier, walking along Wellington to the front gate of Parliament Hill, then turning south on Metcalfe St and walking down the 6 or 7 blocks to our respective Ys. We never looked back. Andy has traveled extensively in Asia and has been on just about every continent on this planet. Although I haven't been as far afield, I have an instant sense of comfort in any city that I've ever visited, and independence is my middle name.

But can you imagine? Today, I believe that allowing your 7 and 9 year olds to take the bus alone to another province is considered a chargeable offense. Children's Aid would no doubt have something to say about it.

Everyone at the class was pretty amazed by the Hotel Indigo wallpaper and wondered aloud what percentage of the people who were assigned that particular room were knitters? Could you actually request a room with a particular scene? Anyway, in the way that life would have it, Alana came across this other version of knitted wallpaper the very same week that Joanne brought us the picture. I'm not big on a white on white colour scheme for my house for obvious reasons, but I must say that there is something much more appealing to me in this warm and balanced MEGA ribbing.

A weekend of "I'd love to have the time to..."

2010-10-18T07:43:00.007-04:00

DH and I have just had a weekend that I've often dreamed of. I actually extended it to include Friday as I wasn't scheduled to work in the store, and Monday which is my usual day off anyway.

The only criteria for what we were to do this weekend was that at some time we had to have said something like: "Someday we've got to..." or "I heard about this place we should try some time..."

And here are some of the places we visited and things that we did on our staycation weekend:

- Supper at Fasoolio's on Gardiners Rd. Amazing!

- Found Schroeder's restaurant on HWY 62 in Prince Edward County that features wheat free baking (hooray) and great food in general.

- Visited the Cidery at Waupoos and fell in love with their Cabernet Franc wine as well as their premium cider. Unfortunately at $24.95 a bottle for the wine, we left it until a more memorable occasion and took home some of the cider.

- Were directed, by Janet at Wilton Fibre Mill, to Fifth Town Artisanal Cheese store, also in Waupoos where I discovered yet another reason to love sheep. Bonnie and Floyd, their award winning sheep cheese is absolutely fabulous: somewhere between a mild cheddar and the pungency of a hard goat cheese. I still can't figure out how it's possible to combine the characteristics of such different cheeses but I can only guess that sheep are all about comfort , even in the cheese that is made from their milk.

- Stopped off at Lake on the Mountain park where I believe this picture of the Glenora Ferry was taken, which we crossed on to head back to Kingston.

-Had a great Chinese supper at New Henry's on Montreal St, a restaurant that we have passed almost every day for the 16 years that we've lived in Kingston but never tried. The food was really great. "Henry" the chef, said that he'd been there for 39 years, open each day from 9am to 10pm but when it's not busy he closes at 8:30pm. His day off? He takes Christmas day and lets his kids cook for him. The decor (velvet flocked wall paper and wood panelling with an array of the healthiest plants I've ever seen) is probably original and immaculate, as if kept to museum standards: an authentic piece of the '70's.

-Went to Fort Fright at Fort Henry...how fun.

- Attended the Empty Bowls fundraiser for Martha's Table. That one is on my calendar to get tickets for next year.

As I reread this, it sounds like my Dad's recounting of any excursions that my parents have taken: "...Then we ate here...Then we picked up some bagels there... Cheesecake at this place..." But why not? It was so fun.

And just so you don't get the idea that we did nothing but eat all weekend, we watched a DVD of an African movie called "Beat the Drum", (beautiful but sad), and a golden not-so-oldie: "The Rain Maker", and a tear jerker "The Painted Veil". And to round things out with a bit of action and gunfire, we went to the Cineplex to see RED with Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovitch and Helen Mirren. I loved it: The Geriatric A Team.

We also read and read and read, which for me included getting caught up on magazines and emails that I'd been wanting to go through more carefully. That's where I found this fabulous offer from Interweave Knits introducing their new line of ebooks. The one that I liked was : Knitting for Children. 8 terrific patterns from different Interweave publications including designs from Norah Gaughan, Ann Bud, with a felted frog purse, a sock pattern in any gauge to fit any kid's foot, a trio of earflap hats (shown here) and unspun roving mittens made of our lovely hand painted pencil roving.

I got to go through my latest of copy of A NEEDLE PULLING THREAD, the extraodinary Canadian needlecraft magazine that is now included for FREE to all members of the Canadian Guild of Knitters. I was delighted to find a lovely design by our good friend of WOOL-TYME Kingston: Sherri Bondy. Her Art Deco Cowl is beautifully classic, as all art deco designs are.

I also got to work a lot on my latest rug hooking design and really do love that art/craft as much as anything I've ever done.

All in all, it was a great weekend and it was a bit like having Thanksgiving all over again without the turkey, being grateful for the time and the company and the wonderful things that our area offers.

18 more days to Halloween

2010-10-13T16:22:00.005-04:00

I just got an email from PolarKnit advertising their free Halloween themedpatterns on-line and was intrigued.

Before going any further, here is the link so you can start planning right away.

I saw the PolarKnit yarns at the recent trade show that I attended and loved the feel of it. It is made of actual polar fleece and comes in good colours and is nice to knit with.

BUT... Why didn't I bring it in?

This brings up a topic that actually came up in conversation earlier today: what are the criteria that we use in choosing a particular company to deal with or a specific yarn?

Generally, I use a series of questions that I ask myself, the first of which revolve around ease and dependability: Is this a company that I can rely on to deliver enough yarn on time? Do my regular suppliers have something comparable that I can include in my regular orders? Does the shipping from its place of origin cause me any issues? PolarKnit appeared to be okay in these respects although the representative wasn't actually there to ask questions of, so that made me a bit nervous.

The second batch of questions are more customer centered: Will my customers be able to work well with this yarn? Will it inspire project ideas for them? Will they recognize its value in relation to the price? And there I found the elements that made me pass up this yarn for this year, anyway. I'm sure that PolarKnit is a great yarn to work with; I'm a fan of polar fleece, why not in a yarn? But because of its very special composition, I guess, it makes it really expensive, especially considering the yardage that is in each ball. For that price, I want it to be REALLY special.

The other issue is that for some reason, they consider 12 stitches over 4 inches to be a Chunky weight and 16 stitches to be a Worsted Weight. This is much heavier than any other yarn on the market. It would drive a knitter crazy to get all set up with their yarn and a "chunky" pattern only to realize that they would need much more yarn than they expected AND they would have a terrible time trying to achieve a typical chunky gauge.

All this to say that each LYS has a different focus and set of criteria when choosing yarns. Each shop owner has their own priorities, preferences and penchants in style. I'm sure that PolarKnit yarns will find a good and happy home in many stores. It just occured to me that readers would probably find it interesting as an exercise, to hear a bit about why some yarns that I see make it in to my store and some don't.

I was however so pleased with the fun patterns like the one above and this skull beanie, both available as free downloads, but I do advise customers to be very careful and look at the pattern gauges closely before choosing a yarn, or 18 days won't be enough time to knit it twice to get the right size!

Having "Fun" with the Solution Sweater.

2010-10-04T19:39:00.011-04:00

This is the story, in point form, of the sweater that I've made for my brother's 50th birthday. I call it the Solution Sweater as my way of seeing it as a wonderful learning experience redefining all of the interesting challenges that this darn thing has presented, and the solutions that were handed to me along the way.

1.About 2 years ago, I had chosen and put aside a gorgeous discontinued brown Noro Aran weight yarn for this purpose. Anthony, the brother in question, mentioned that he always wanted a green Aran sweater. Solution: Alternate the chosen brown yarn with rich green Manos del Uruguay. It looks great...just like the forests of Vancouver Island where he lives.

2. A hood, said he. I'd really like a hood. Or maybe not. Could you make it with a hood that can come off?

3. Sure, said I. Solution: a hood with a series of small buttons around the bottom that can fit in the holes on the inside of a double neck band.

4. Oh, said I. You'll have to have a zipper at the neck or it will look like a little kid's hoodie. (As I'm saying this, I realize that if the zipper is worn open it will show the tacky inside of the zipper.) Solution: Make a second band on the inside of the sweater and slide the zipper between the 2 layers. Picture at left.

5. Make a swatch to check for colours and designa compatibility. This next picture is proof that I did a swatch last December. (Check my Flickr account. I really did do this swatch before beginning.) More about this later.

6. Knit 2 sleeves to make sure that tension is really okay. Sleeves come out fine. More about this later.

7. (Full disclosure, and a little bit of a spoiler alert: I did get some help here from one of my knitters to do the back with armhole shaping to accomodate a set-in drop sleeve, according to my directions. Also had her do the front to the zipper opening and armhole shaping.)

8. Picked up and finished the front to include the zip opening but forgetting that the back had armhole shaping. Solution: Rip back the back of the sweater to the armhole shaping which is then redone to match the front. (I was not about to do all that front neck shaping again.)

9. Design hood. Knit part of hood. Run out of green yarn. Solution: Find that the emerald green of Topsy Farm's wool is almost exactly the same colour, if a bit thinner. It's okay for the bit that I have left.

10. Sew the sleeves in. Discover that the sleeves have a depth of 8". For those of you who sensibly rely on patterns, 8" is the sleeve width of a fine lady's sweater. A man's jacket type sweater needs at least 10". (You do remember that I made and measured the sleeves in step 6 and they were fine when I made them.) Solution: If you look carefully just below the little red line triangle of the blocking board on the picture here, you will see a band of knitting where the stripes are going perpendicular to the rest of the sleeve. (we'll call it a design feature of some great ingenuity and importance to the integrity of the entire piece). These are bands of short rows that I picked up along the inside of the arm on each side to add the missing couple of inches.

11. While knitting these bands, finish the skein of brown yarn that I wound a couple of weeks ago. Go to the stash and retrieve another, knowing that because this was the original yarn that I intended for the entire sweater, there was plenty. This is a picture of the first of 7 skeins of the beautiful Noro yarn that was destroyed by mice and/or moths over the past 2 weeks. Solution: Turn blue while holding my breath as I examine the 8th and last skein of the yarn. Silent prayers to the knitting gods are answered; the last skein is intact.

12. Sew the sleeve extensions and side seams. Lay the hoodless sweater on the floor to admire the rough beauty of a finished garment before it's blocked. Try to ignore the nagging optical illusion that makes it appear to be smaller than I expected it to be.

13. Flatten out the sweater and measure one last time to reassure myself. Scream. (Remember the swatch from step 5?) Breathe deeply and remind myself that the evil knitting gremlins could not possibly have stolen an inch from each side of the sweater, making it 4 inches smaller in total than it had been when I measured the pieces before sewing them together. This is simply not possible. Solution: Put the whole thing away until the morning when I get up and soak it in a bath of water and Eucalan (to relax the fibres) and block it on the board to the exact size.

14. I am planning on sewing the buttons to the hood tomorrow and HOPE that the idea works and that the effect is a good one. I'll let you know.

All this to say that despite the ...INTERESTING...aspects to this project, I've really enjoyed it as it has given me a chance to "build" a proper sweater from the beginning, refining some of the skills that might have gotten a bit rusty lately and learning as I go along. Meanwhile here are a couple of pictures that also show how nicely the colours work together and how the corrugated ribbing from the bottom of the sweater worked to tie in the blended colours.

I'll hang the finished piece at the store until mid November when the birthday guy comes to town. All in all...it was a lot of FUN.

How to have fun - Part 1

2010-09-27T19:30:00.006-04:00

Over the past few weeks I've been both surprised and delighted at how fun my life is lately.
It could possibly be that I've been reading Eat, Pray, Love and the author's life swings from such desperation to elation that I'm just glad to be little old me having a good time.

The first opportunity that I had to notice how much fun I've been having was when I found myself at the "Knit Trade" Show organized by the ladies at Cabin Fever, where LYS owners were invited to meet with smallish yarn/knitting related product companies who wouldn't have the opportunity to visit all the stores.

Here is some of the fun stuff that I got, much of which came from the booth with the dynamic pair of dye divas from Dye Version.

I had made a small note to myself before going to the show that I wanted to check out the price of their bamboo/lycra sock yarn as it seemed like something new that I thought would work well in my store. WELL, was I dumbfounded when I saw their line up...And I have the MasterCard receipt and the products in my store to prove it.

Not only did I come away with a good selection of the Bamboo/lycra sock yarn (in amazing colours), but I also picked up 2 other lines: their fingering weight 100% bamboo which runs through your fingers like water, and the most amazing sock yarn that we have ever carried, being a gloriously hand dyed blend of merino wool, silk, nylon and (wait for it...) sterling SILVER filament.

Honestly, the Dye Version ladies said that they hadn't actually heard of anyone who really made a pair of socks with this to-die-for yarn, but with the nylon content I guess it would work...but who would want to? You would end up walking out into traffic, while lifting your pants above your ankles so you could watch the silver flecks and the colours as they moved in the sunlight.

I also brought back a whole pile of other fun things including knitting key chains, glittery mohair, and oodles of books and 2011 calendars. COme on in and check them out.

Later that evening I got to spend the night with my daughter and her new "J-ug" (being a Jack Russel, Pug cross) puppy, Zoe. I was also introduced to the indescribable joyful cuteness of an urban park full of dogs and puppies of every shape and size, congregating for a good old fashioned run and fetch. It doesn't get much more fun than that.

In Part 2 and 3 of these How to have fun posts, I will discuss the joys of teaching a class of lovely ladies who absolutely want to learn what I have to teach them about toe-up socks, and my experience with the Solution Sweater that I'm making for my brother's 50th birthday. I call it the Solution Sweater as during its creation I was presented with a whole series of challenges, problems and mistakes to be fixed (without resorting to starting over from scratch) and the solutions to these dilemmas were Eureka provoking and thankfully received.

Meanwhile, fall always makes us happy at the yarn store. Lots of new products, lots of new and returning customers, lots of work to keep us out of trouble.

Life is fun.

More later.

Meet Perri Klass

2010-09-21T19:19:00.002-04:00

"I love to knit, I love to read, and I love to read about knitting." Perri Klass

That statement only begins to cover the things about which Perri Klass is passionate. I'm sure that many of you know her name but for those who haven't run into her in print, I'll list the "hats" she wears that I can identify in just a few minutes on the internet:

Pediatrician, professor of Journalism and Pediatrics at New York University, literacy advocate, regular columnist in Knitter's Magazine, knitwear designer, writer of knitting books many articles and papers and books in any of the above fields plus pieces on travel and food topics to boot. AND she has 3 kids of her own!

Well imagine my surprise when I was going through the stacks of the library recently and came upon her recent non-knitting, non-medical, non-literacy related NOVEL. I think that I just saw her as a regular SuperWoman before but finding this book: The Mercy Rule, which I believe is her first real work of fiction, really hit home and made me ask with a true sense of exasperation: How Does She Do It?

I know the hours it takes to slog through the multiple drafts of 250 pages of fiction, when 5:30am is considered sleeping in. It took me the better part of 3 years and I only had 1 job! Does this woman never sleep? Is she like Hermione Granger who experimented with time shifting in order to accomplish all she needed to do during one year at Hogwarts Academy of Magic?

Maybe they should make a Movie of the Week of her life, or more likely an HBO series as no one could cram all the things that she excells in during a 2 hour movie.

Check out her website and see if you just can't tell from the tone of her knitting articles and by the arenas where her life has taken her, that she has just got to be a really nice person too.

Having begun this post with a quotation from the internet, I shall close the same way and you can picture me sitting tall at my computer desk, secure in the knowledge that if it hadn't been for all the time that I wasted with my head in the toilet bowl during 3 x 9 months of morning sickness that I too could have accomplished as much...NOT!

"She (Perri Klass) also wrote, in the New York Times Magazine, about the experience of having a baby while in medical school" Wikipedia

Made it through the first week of school.

2010-09-14T07:34:00.003-04:00

I've been out of the school teaching business for 14 years now. My youngest "child" is in 3rd year University. The only real connection that I have to the ebb and flow of the scolastic year is in the school bus's return to pick up the kids next door. Yet every year I still walk through those first few days after Labour Day with a fondness, excitement and sense of relief at the approach of that first Friday which signals the end of the first week.

I've been pondering memories of my own student days, remembering the grade 7 teacher that I had who taught us, literally next to nothing in the entire year, except how to knit a spiral hat much like this one that I found on the net.

Now you can imagine that although she was no Socrates, that woman was to be commended for her attempt to have 30 12 year-old girls of varying levels of dexterity, interest, hormonal upheaval, and ability actually complete what I now recognize to be a relatively intricate pattern. For the first time in my life, I realize what a gift that teacher gave me and how much I learned about math and its relationship to structure in general and the construction of knitting designs in particular, never mind that I spent the year focused on how much work we were avoiding by knitting for a good portion of every day.

Having spent last week touching down mentally into the schoolyards of my past, I was delighted to receive this video link by email from my sister. I have declared it to be my favourite music video of all time (for this week anyway.) Kristin Andreassen's Crayola Doesn't Make a Color for Your Eyes.

I absolutely challenge you to watch it and see if you aren't humming the tune for the rest of the day, feeling a lot more hopeful about the future of our world, and harbouring the coziest memories of wonderful teachers that you have had in your past. (I wanted to run away and join her that grade 2 class).

Such Role Models

2010-09-07T19:02:00.002-04:00

Next Sunday, the store will have its 14th birthday.

One of the very best gifts that I've received during those years has been to observewhat it means to grow older for many different people.

We all grow older, some people just do a better job of it than others. Aside from having a really good example in my parents about how important it is to take care of yourself, to stay active and keep connected with friends, I've learned so much from the people that I see every day, month in and month out, year after year, who change as we all do with the passage of time but never seem to lose that spark that keeps them learning and interested in life around them.

A friend of mine from the Tai Chi days and who is now a good customer was in to the store today telling me about the trip to the north where she had been with her parents who are pictured here: Don and Katy Lou McLauchlan. Don was an RCMP officer in the north for decades but had spent 3 years in the tiny centre of Aklavik, which was celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. The interesting thing is that Don himself is only 2 years younger than the community.

Yes, that's right. Don at 98 and Katy Lou at 92 made the trek to the high north this summer to help celebrate. This would be quite a trip under any circumstances for these folks but it's important to note that Aklavik has no hotel, B&B, restaurants, roads, telephones...nothing of what might make one feel a bit more comfortable in our southern ways.

Read all about the trip and some of Don's recollections here and think about some of the amazing elders that we have among us. I know I feel so priveleged to be surrounded on a daily basis by people of all ages who are such great examples of living and learning.

Oops

2010-09-06T15:20:00.003-04:00

I received an email recently of this picture along with several other examples of humans being taken advantage of by animals.
It really is quite a funny series and I thought that my oldest daughter would get a kick out of the pictures as she is presently working for a Humane Society as an animal protection officer.

Her response to my email was as follows:
It says a lot about my upbringing when I see buddy at the end getting knocked out by a kangaroo and one of my first thoughts is “nice Aran sweater”.

I guess my children were a bit more immersed in the beauty of handknits than many others would be.

Get togethers are great!

2010-09-02T09:49:00.005-04:00

CALLING ALL CRAFTERS who like to hang out together with others who share your enjoyment.

Do you have a group of friends with whom you share some regular knitting, hooking or regular crafting time and would be open to having your group visited or joined by others of the same persuasion? Please let me know the details. I'd love to be able to share the information here on the blog, in our newsletter, on our Ravelry site, or just when people call us to see what's going on in the crafting community of Kingston.

This picture was taken a couple of years back. It shows our regular Thurs. evening gang that meets at the store from 6:30-8:30. This group has been going on for the better part of 10 years with an obvious ebb and flow of participants. It began with the class regulars outgrowing the need for instruction but still looking for the fun and companionship of a regular "class time" with or without the actual class.

As I was working on my "To Do" list this morning I realized that next Wednesday, the 8th of September we will be restarting the bi weekly rug hooking get togethers at the store (the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of the month.) By the way, this is the piece that I was working on for part of last year and finished late in March, but the Reindeer that I was hooking when we left off last spring has not been touched since then. How typical!

The feeling of anticipation reminded me of when I was a kid and I looked forward to my first Brownie meeting of the year, or swimming lessons starting up again on a Saturday morming. There's something really great about the rhythm of returning to an activity that we enjoy on a regular basis.

Here we notice at our regular on going classes that so many of the people who attend form real bonds that sometimes extend beyond the knitting store; there's the fun of getting together with people of like mind who may be from very different backgrounds, age groups, and life experiences but still share our love of learning a new skill. If someone has been away for awhile, they're welcomed back with questions about family, pets as well as the progress of the knitting project.

Please consider joining us on Thursday evening whenever possible. It's free and fun and we'd love to have you.

How to value your knitting.

2010-08-24T16:48:00.007-04:00

This afghan (which was made by my husbands great aunt for her sister in the early part of the last century) is a perfect example of a project that can only be considered an absolute labour of LOVE as it is knit entirely of garter stitch sections in FINE, 4 ply fingering weight yarn. When it comes to placing a value on reproducing such a knitted project, it is without price (as most of us would die of boredom long before it was done).

We have so many amazing knitters that we meet each day, and also many who are extremely competent yet all of these craftspeople and artisans often feel shy about answering this rather sensible question asked by those who don't know about such things: "What would you charge to knit....(whatever) for me?"

Despite the fact that anyone who would even consider taking on a knitting or crochet project for money must absolutely LOVE knitting, and be fairly enamoured with the concept of a bit of a challenge in their knitting, it shouldn't take away from the reality that you are giving up a substantial number of hours of your skilled work to produce something for someone who absolutely must realize how valueable that work is.

What I'm saying is: don't be shy!

The people who are asking you to knit something for them usually fall into one of 2 categories: the first might remember the beauty of the handknit article that they received in their past and recognize how rare it is to have someone care enough for you to produce such a garment and are willing to pay accordingly. The second group is associating your work/ability and the finished project with the pair of mitts made of sayelle left over from 1973 that they saw at the church bazaar last fall for $3./pair.

My advice is don't even consider the project unless the person is willing to accept the fact that it requires good quality yarn. You deserve to enjoy the feel of what you're doing. Then when it comes time to charge for your labour, you should at least receive the equivalent price of what was paid for that good quality yarn. (I can almost guarantee that it won't net you much more than $1/hour but at least it's something.) If the pattern is in anyway complicated, altered, hard to understand, boring beyond belief or inordinately time consuming then you should charge twice what the good quality yarn is worth for your part in the process.

A group of women in the UK have really gotten it right and came up with a great way of dealing with this dilemma in forming Grannies, Inc. a company that knits and sells custom designed beanies to the hippest of the young skiers, snowboarders and other hipsters on the British Isles. The company charges (and charges well, I might add) for their hats and the ladies don't need to be embarassed.

Keep it warm. Their latest product, which is this collection of tea cozies inspired by favourite TV shows in Britain. The cozies cost 45pounds (pardon my lack of familiarity with the symbols on my keyboard) but you can order and download the pattern for just 2.50pounds.

Take pride in what you create and share that enthusiasm and pride with those who don't have the skill, knowledge or time to do it for themselves. You deserve to be recognized as the skilled artisan that you are.

The Fall Line Up of classes.

2010-08-18T13:13:00.011-04:00

We have a wonderful list of classes for the next few months, most of which were suggested by our customers.

Take the time to go through them and contact us to register or if you have any questions. Registration for any of these classes can be made in person, via email wooltymekingston@gmail.com or by phone: 613-384-3951

The fine points: Classes must be paid in full at time of registration to ensure your place.

Refunds will be issued only if the class must be cancelled. Should you not be able to attend, a credit can be issued for a future class.

2 Dates to choose from:
Sat. Sept. 11th 10am-2:30pm or Sat. Nov. 27th

SOCK-IN-A-DAY

If you can knit and purl then you can learn the techniques required to knit socks in any size, using any weight of yarn.
$45. Includes all materials.

2 Dates to choose from:

Sat. Sept. 18th, 1-4pm or Sat. Nov. 20th 1-4pm
Traditional RUG HOOKING

Learn the basic techniques of beautiful traditional rug hooking using yarn, fleece and cut strips.

$45. class $45 material kit.
Students must bring a 10"-14" hoop or frame.

Sat. Sept 25th, 1-4pm
OTHER SOCK TECHNIQUES
For those who are familiar with knitting on 4 needles this class covers a simple, practical "toe up" method and "afterthought heel" so you can expand your sock repertoire and make socks that fit every time.
$45. Material list available at registration.

GET 2 CLASSES IN ADVANCED SOCK KNITTINGFOR JUST $75. READ ON.

Sat. Nov. 13th 1-4pm
THE MAGIC OF CIRCULAR KNITTING NEEDLES
Everything you ever wanted to know about using circular needles for all of your knitting projects. Use long needles for small hats, mitts and socks with the "Magic Loop" method. Learn how 2 circular needles worked together can make any project in the round a breeze. Try out the different materials in circular needles including Addi TURBOs in regular and lace styles, Chiao Goo PREMIUM RED series, and Clover BAMBOO needles.
NOTE: $30 for "OTHER SOCK TECHNIQUE" participants. $45. for others.

Fri. Oct. 1st 6:30-8:30 and Sat. Oct. 2nd 1-4pm
SWEATER BOOT CAMP -I
These Part I weekend sessions are for those who are ready to go beyond the knitted scarf and want to develop the confidence to select the right yarns, choose the right size and learn to read patterns correctly.
$45. class. $20-$40 materials to be purchased on Friday evening. Material list available at registration.

ATTENTION -- GET BOTH CLASSES FOR $75.

Sat. Oct. 16th 1-4pm

SWEATER BOOT CAMP - II

Part II will show participants how to finish their cardigan begun in Part I. Button bands and button holes, sewing seams and inserting sleeves will be covered.
NOTE: $30 for Part I particiants $45 for others.

2 dates for this very popular workshop.

Wed. Oct, 6th 6:30-8:30pm or Wed. Nov. 17th 6:30-8:30pm

FINISHING WORKSHOP

Bring your finished sweater pieces and learn the best way to pick up stitches, sew seams and give your garment that professional finished look.
$25. Sign up early, space is limited.

Wed. Oct. 20th 6:30-8:30pm

BLOCKING 101

Learn the techniques used to block knitted pieces and the best way to achieve a beautiful polished look to your project.
$15. Bring your knitted pieces for demonstration.

Sat. Oct. 30th, 1-4pm

DROP SPINDLE

This most basic of techniques for spinners is a great introduction for fibre-holics into the satisfactionof creating your own yarn. Surprisingly easy and fun.
$45 class $10 materials.

Wed. Nov. 3rd 6:30-8:30pm

FAIR ISLE KNITTING

Learn how to achieve beautiful colour work by stranding 2 yarns of different colours. THis class will include an introduction to "continental knitting" in order to achieve the two handed Fair Isle knitting method. Chart reading and finishing tricks will also be covered.
$30. class Material list available at registration

Sat. Nov. 6th 103pm

INTRO TO RAVELRY

Those who are feeling uncertain about finding their way around the internet for knitting help will love the workshop introducing RAVELRY the site that has it all. Free Patterns, yarn descriptions, technical help, friends, informatio of all kinds.
$30. class No materials necessary.

Introducing the class for which we've had so many requests:

DESIGN A SHAWL OR BLANKET

Part I Sat. Oct 23rd 1-4pm

Part II Sat Dec. 4th 1-4pm

In Part I you will learn the beginning skills of designing your own patterns by incorporating the beautiful stitches found on-line and in stitch dictionaries to create your own unique shawl or baby blanket. Basic knitting and pattern reading skills required.
$45. class Material costs will vary.

Part II will teach the basics of finishing your beautiful blanket so that it is equally appealing on the front and the back. Picking up and finishing from a provisional cast on will be covered as will working a crocheted edge.
$30 for Part I participants. $45 for others

Knitting Designers

2010-08-05T09:51:00.011-04:00

So I've been really lazy with the blog this summer, having fun on a trip to the Maritimes and getting things organized for the fall.

When I was preparing the August Newsletter I was so impressed by the designs of Laura Chau, a wonderful knitwear designer from Toronto, and we're really pleased to feature some of her patterns in the store. They've been going well. Alana discovered this new pattern from Laura that's now available through Ravelry called Cityscapes.

Then I started thinking of some of the knitwear designers from the Kingston area who have had patterns published over the past couple of years and I spent spent some time browsing the Kingston Group of knitters on Ravelry and came up with these examples. Hope you like the line up (and this is just a few of the talented artists in our area).

Cathy Broughton's Diamond in the Rough

Stephanie Earp's Deplhine

Deb White's Silk Bathrobe from the book: No Sheep For You

Rachel Bearse's Small Fox Sox

Maria Leigh's Picnic Cardigan

Carolyn Barnett's Zing jacket

Robin Hunter's
Pinwheel Cardigan

And our latest addition to the group of Kingston-connected knitwear designers, Elizabeth McCarten will be featured in the next edition of the Twist Collective with this gorgeous men's zipped cardigan called Sandridge.
Link to her blog and you'll not only get the inspiration that contributed to the creation of this sweater but also see the cleverly reinvented version of it as a lady's coat with a flattering A line silhouette (also available on Ravelry).

Knitting in public for a week.

2010-06-29T19:34:00.008-04:00

During the week of June 12th to the 19th I chose to conduct my own little knitting social experiment in conjunction with World Wide Knitting Day/Week. It was a great experience in that it gave me a chance to just sit and observe the world for 1/2 hour each day while I also got to work on my lovely blue sock (made from left overs of On Your Toes Bamboo sock yarn and Tofutsies sock yarn).

Day 1 was at the very beginning of the World Cup and was the day when the UK and the US would be facing off again for the first time in something like 50 years. I could hear the hoopla coming from Jakk Tuesdays, the Sports Bar next to the store, while the Sock in a Day class was going on, so I was really looking forward to seeing the 2nd half of the game while working on my sock. Well... BORING! Obviously all the excitement took place in the 1st half when we could hear everyone cheering. Never mind...I did notice that when it's the 3rd game of the World Cup of soccer, and you're knitting in a sports bar - NO ONE CARES.

The next day I went to City Park at the corner by Bagot St. We lived about a block from this park when we first moved to Kingston about 25 years ago. How lovely to dig up the memories of the swings on a summer's night, with my much younger oldest daughter. I sat in the "Walk at City Park", a memorial garden sponsored by Hospice Kingston, offering a lovely treed shelter and fountain, surrounded by bricks, benches and other features dedicated to loved ones who have passed on.

The bench across from me said: "For the enjoyment of all, from the dog friends of Grace Howard." How sweet of dear Grace's canine friends. At my feet was a brick that mentioned that Robert (Bob) Snider had passed away on Sept. 12th, 2001. Not only is this the day after such a memorable date in North American history, it was also the day that Ernie Coombs, alias Mr Dressup, died.

Day 3 had me knitting at Loblaws after picking up some groceries where, continuing with the dog theme, I found this fellow to pose with my sock.

Day 4 I went to Progress Fitness (and I blush as it was the first time in about 3 months that I'd made it to the gym. )

Day 5 which was Thursday I like to go to the library for an hour or so before going back to the store to teach on Thurs. evening and Sockie came with me.

The next day I had to have the oil changed in my car and I sat in the waiting room at Edwards Ford.

On the last day, Saturday the 19th, I wanted to do something in solidarity with the knitters who were gathering in Cambridge Ontario to make an attempt to beat the Guinness World Record for the greatest number of knitters gathered together plying their craft. So off I went to Chapters and propped the sock up on an abbreviated edition of the record book that didn't seem to have much information at all about knitting except that the fastest knitter was from the Netherlands and the longest needles were BIG (I forget the exact dimensions).

So what did I learn from this experiment?

I observed that the only place that anyone even gave me a second glance was in the park, and there I actually had 2 people who stopped to talk to me, both of who had fond memories of mothers knitting in their past.

I've tried to come up with some reason why this was the only place where my knitting would attract any attention, and I believe that it has a lot more to do with the frame of mind of the people passing by than anything else. Most of these other venues had people who were there for their own specific purpose, and that it would take an awfully strange activity indeed to keep them from completing their task in the most efficient manner possible.

I must note that the park was also the only place where I actually noticed that people were less prone to scowl. Even at the library, the determination on the faces of the patrons surprised me as they focused on the search at hand. To me, it says a lot about the value of our green spaces and how we should maybe take the time to enjoy them a bit more.

Why I could never knit a true Alice Starmore design

2010-06-23T09:59:00.005-04:00

As I was approaching the end of my Knit In Public week, someone at the store asked how my socks were doing and I said that all was on track - IN FACT, I was finishing a second pair of socks that weren't due until September. Hurray! 2 out of 3 WIPs (works in progress) nearly done!

I reflected later on that I was quite proud of this September pair of socks as they were the first project in many years that I had followed the directions to the letter. I did precisely their toe beginning (3 times on the 1st sock), I slavishly measured my gauge and did the precise calculations. I followed the techniques to the letter. I NEVER follow anything to the letter, but it seemed like an interesting experience and a challenge worth pursuing during my month of learning while I was away in May.

Boasting is not a good thing to do. It calls the gods down to laugh at you.

On Saturday evening, I finished the "afterthought" heel exactly as they described and voila: a sock that doesn't fit! I couldn't believe it. My daughter who will receive these socks has about the same size feet as I do and we both have tried them on along the way, to the extent that one can try on a tube before it's "afterthought heel" is put in. All seemed well, until you take in to account the fact that the human foot has an instep.

The way that you can tell that the sock doesn't fit without seeing the sweat on my face from wrestling it over my heel is the fact that the "bull's eye" effect of the heel has its centre under the heel, and by the tiny hole that I was going to secure when weaving my final ends in, which has blossomed from the strain over my foot into the size of a giant blueberry through which skin could be seen from across the street.

So much for my effort at following someone else's directions. I have since separated the leg from the foot at the "afterthought" line and will proceed to knit the feet with a regular heel and finishing with a perfectly lovely and acceptable Kitchener toe.

I don't follow direction well in most endeavours. It's not that I don't get what I'm being told. It's more often that I think that I know a better way of doing things. Or in the case of a recipe, I may not have the time, tools and/or specific ingredients to do it exactly as the chef prescribes. I can usually wing it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

I do however appreciate that there are times when it is wise to just follow the leader. This lesson was learned by me in a most wonderfully humbling way with the rug that I hooked using my nephew's painting at right. He was 8 years old when he painted this, and his mom sent a beautiful copy to my parents. I was so taken by the flow and colours and the simplicity of the design, I wanted to do it in another medium.

As I got going with the rug hooking I believed that I would adapt it, to add some more warmth to the textures that the wool would bring to the piece...remove the black outlines around the bottom sections, change some of the colouring of the rocks to add more depth. Once again HA! The artistic gods and no doubt, my nephew, Andrew's innate sense of what works, put me in my place and I ended up changing back every modification that I'd made and the rug is a pretty faithful reproduction of the original - cause everything I tried wasn't as good as what a very talented 8 year old had already done before. I love it.

So the reason that I could never do an Alice Starmore design, such as the Mary Tudor shown below, and that I'm reading about in Adrienne Martini's book Sweater Quest, is that people who put the time and effort into taking on such a project actually want to make it exactly as it was designed, remaining as true and faithful to the colours and styling as is humanly possible.

When I knit, I usually have discarded a half dozen details in any given pattern by the time I get the cast on row finished.

It's not that I think I know better...well, maybe it is. What I mean is that it's more that I know myself and know what I'll put up with, or what I have the time to accomplish, or the money to purchase, or the inclination to complete. I know better what is possible for ME. And the unbelievable dedication to the cause required for such a mammoth project is beyond my scope or discipline.

This picture of the Mary Tudor sweater was taken in January of 2009 by it's owner, Irene who had begun it in 2004. Irene's blog is not a usual knitting blog in fact Irene and Man Yung's Tango Blog isn't usually about knitting at all. But who would know that behind all that Latin passion involved in their tango lives, Irene is an incredibly accomplished knitter who has more dedication than many of us can lay claim to. Check out this post as the pictures of the inside of the sweater are amazing.

Hats off to all of the consumed knitters how decide to pay homage to such talented knitting designers that elevate our treasured hand craft to an art form.

2010-06-17T08:11:00.006-04:00

I'm a few days into my week of knitting for 1/2 hour in public each day and it's been an interesting experience. On day one, last Saturday, I spent my allotted time at Jakk Tuesday's, the sports pub next to the store (how convenient) where I knitted my way through the 2nd half of the US vs UK game. I'm actually a bit surprised at not hearing more of our customers coming in to pick up a specific soccer watching project. I'm sure that during the last World Cup there were more dedicated purchases, but actually most of the conversations with our customers are around the Inventory Sale so perhaps they are using their sale yarns, or maybe they aren't watching the games? I am.

While trolling the internet this week I came across these guys. Aren't they wonderful?
The pattern comes from a site called the Evesham Dallimores
named for the Dallimore brothers who live in Evesham, England; I have yet to figure out why they have a website but they do have a friend and "knitting expert", Marion Kinchin, who has written a simple pattern to knit the monkey (who is actually based on the star of a PG Tips tea advertising campaign in the UK). The pattern is designed to be made by children with some adult help. You can find it by linking here.

More about the other days of knitting in public later.

By the way, I love what an equalizer the internet is: after posting about Sweater Quest, the book that I'm reading, I received a nice little email message/comment from Adrienne Martini, the author of said book. Very cool. (Funny that I didn't hear from Stephen King when I wrote about reading his book: On Writing - one of my favourites and the only book of his that I've had the courage to finish.)

Sweater Quest

2010-06-16T17:34:00.004-04:00

"I knit so I don’t kill people." —bumper sticker spotted at Rhinebeck

Sheep and Wool Festival

If you haven't heard of Adrienne Martini's book: SWEATER QUEST, My year of Knitting Dangerously, you are in for a treat.

Martini is funny. No she isn't Canadian, and she isn't the Harlot, but she is funny and writes very well.

This is the story of a woman in throws of young motherhood, who is trying to reclaim a small corner of her life where she might have some control. Much like Julie Powell of JULIE AND JULIA fame, Adrienne is not satisfied with any old run of the mill challenge. She has taken on the search, rescue and reclamation of the Holy Grail of the knitters pantheon: the "Mary Tudor" sweater pictured above on Alice Starmore's out of print book: TUDOR ROSES.

Now let me tell you my story about Tudor Roses. When I first brought it in to the store about 12 years ago, it was a very expensive book compared to others that we stocked. I believe it was about $30, maybe a bit more. I would order a copy and BANG, it would sell, despite the fact that the purchaser openly admitted that they would probably never make any of the sweaters; it was like a sirens call to buy the book that couldn't be ignored. So I would order another one and the same thing would happen within a few weeks so it wasn't just a couple of seduced spenders who were lured in.

You have to realize that aside from the price, each of these sweaters named for one of Henry VIII's entourage is made of fine "jumper weight" yarn - which translates to the thickness of a 4 ply sock yarn, which is comfortable and achievable for a pair of socks or baby clothes, but not the choice of many knitters at all for an adult garment, never mind a sweater of the intricacy of "Mary Tudor".

When things were slow in the store, or if we just wanted to show off what some crazy woman on a remote island off the coast of Scotland might dream up in her extreme need to keep her brain active, we would thumb through the Tudor Roses book. As an exercise one day, we decided to calculate the number and value of the fine pewter buttons on one of the sweaters: a beautifully cabled thigh length swing coat. I forget it's actual name and neither I don't remember the exact number but I do know that in 1999 Cdn dollars, the price of the buttons was $120!

As a great admirer of any breathtakingly beautiful piece of knitting and as summer reading demands a bit more levity, I thought that this would be the perfect time to share some of Adrienne's journey. So far so good, I'm really enjoying it.

I had bought the book at Novel Idea as a going away gift for Hillary, our Saturday student staff person and I thought I'd get myself a copy soon but was beaten to the punch by a buddy who has leant it to me. Book sharing friends are so nice. I'm sure that Chapters and Indigo probably have it too. I'll keep you posted as I make my way through her hear long quest.

Playing with my new camera

2010-06-09T10:04:00.005-04:00

For 16 years now, I've been passing the sheep in the field at the top of our hill and often thought that it would be fun to go and take some pictures. So last night I set out with new camera in hand to see if they would pose for me. Well, sheep being sheep, one of them looked over at me and as soon as she did that, the rest of them looked over and started to move away. This picture is taken at the extreme zoom level and really fast before they all took off out of range. I was impressed.

One solace of having your things stolen, as my camera was on the last day of the train trip, is that you sometimes get to replace that which was taken with something even better. Last spring I took a short photography workshop and was pleased to discover that my old little point-and-shoot Kodak was actually not too bad but more important, I learned about the potential of other cameras that mine just nodded at. This new camera is just a step up from the last one, and I'm having a great time playing with it.

In another vein, I'm looking forward to Knit In Public Day/Week which for me will begin next Saturday, June 12th teaching the Sock in A Day class, then heading to the market Downtown to knit in the square for 1/2hour. I hope to keep up this knitting meditation in different places throughout the city for the week.

Under most circumstances, such a fun opportunity to knit for 1/2 hour each day would call for a special new project so I looked up a pattern that I had seen in a couple of the LYSs in my travels: The Travelling Woman shawl. I found the Free pattern up on Ravelry and was all set to take on the relative challenge of knitting a small lace shawl while sharing the benefits of knitting with strangers as they pass by.
Then the sensible angel on my other shoulder asked me precisely what I thought I was doing, beginning a new, unknown to me pattern when I already have a sweater and 2 sets of socks on the go, all of which I feel perfectly comfortable knitting while talking to passers by, AND all of which need to be finished for birthdays over the next couple of months.

So, properly chastised by my good angel, I will be working on these UFO's but encouraged to complete them so that I can get on with the Travelling Woman Shawl with one of our beautiful sock yarns that I haven't had the opportunity to try yet.

Cowichan Knitting in Vogue Knitting, Early Fall 2010

2010-06-03T13:17:00.007-04:00

I always love to see the new magazines when they arrive at the store, and I had been forwarned of the latest issue of Vogue Knitting. Everyone who had it was asking me if I'd seen the article on the Cowichan sweaters.

Well, things being as they are when one returns from an extended time away, sitting down to peruse the latest knitting magazine was not at the top of the TO DO list, but I did make a point of checking out the article this week. What a lovely surprise: there they featured Emily Sawyer-Smith who was the lovely lady that I was speaking with during my trip to Duncan B.C. She is also the lady that I gave my copy of the Japanese book: Cowichan Sweater Hat and Small Goods pictured above. Link here to the latest WOOL-TYME Kingston newsletter where I describe my visit with Emily.

While searching the net for a nice picture of Emily to include in this post, I came across the best blog post on the Cowichan knitting tradition that I've seen so far, written by Ouno Designs of Vancouver who describe their blog in this way: "This is a long, messy, eclectic photo essay on design." It's actually a really interesting peephole into modern culture and certainly worthy of a good browse.

Among other rare pictures, they featured this amazing one of Canadian WWII officer Cecil Merritt in a Cowichan sweater sent to him by relatives in Vancouver – he’s photographed here in a Nazi prisoner of war camp along with fellow officers.

Don't you just love dawdling along on the internet, there are just way too many fun things to discover.

A great month

2010-05-31T16:22:00.002-04:00

So here I am last week, returning to Kingston after nearly 3 weeks on the road.

I have certainly felt worse, and don't think that I look too bad in this picture.

I spent this last week of my sabbatical month working from home, consolidating some of the information that I'd picked up out west and working on the rug. And below is a picture of how it ended up as of today, Monday May 31st. I also got one of the toe up socks finished and began the second. I would say that I definitely accomplished what I intended to do.

All in all, I'm so grateful for this time away from regular life. I've always been a person who can do a lot, but of different things in smaller quantities. My motto should be "In diversity is happiness." I really thrive on a change of scenery, which is strange as I'm a cancer, and cancers are supposed to be homebodies I thought.

So to sum up I learned a lot from this trip. I learned that the word Quinoa is pronounced Kin-Wah. That there are many business that have survived and thrive by combining interests and branching out. That for a long trip, if you can afford the time, the train is definitely the way to go. I discovered that I like asparagus, and halibut is a beautiful fish. I realized that a bit of mist is what makes the west coast particularly beautiful. And from a business perspective, I've come home with lots of fresh ideas and a refreshed attitude.

Now for next year...

Heading East Part II

2010-05-25T08:29:00.003-04:00

It's a little weird, getting on the train at 11:30pm as we did in Winnipeg heading for Toronto. Everyone is tired and just wants to settle in as quickly as possible. But consider for a minute that traveling by coach in a train is a lot like camping (without the bugs and elements, I say thankfully). Imagine arriving to your tent at 11:30 at night and having to get your nest for the night established, especially when you find yourself, as a few of our fellow passengers did, stuck up beside a stranger. All things considered, it's surprising how quickly everything becomes quiet.

On Friday morning, we woke to a slightly grey day in northern Ontario. It was nice to see a more familiar territory. I brought out my rug hooking stuff and my fanny pack with essentials and valuables, and headed for the dome car to watch the scenery go by.

About twice an hour the train would stop along the tracks. We never knew exactly why: sometimes it would be to bring on supplies, sometimes for passengers, sometimes to let a freight train go by. About 5 minutes after one such stop that morning around 7:30am, the club car below the dome where I was sitting was invaded by a gang of very loud and playful guys. We could hear the card decks being fanned, backs being slapped, guffaws all around. Those of us who could hear it all yet couldn't see anything were amazed that anyone who had slept on this train could possibly have so much energy at this hour of the morning.

Then a couple of 20-something guys who joined us in the dome car explained what was going on. This group of 18 men from Madison, Wisconsin had been coming to the Allenwater River for a week of fishing at the end of May for decades. They had driven up and parked their cars in Savant Lake, boarded the train which would bring them to their fishing camp (accessible only by float plain or Via Rail which crosses the wilderness of Northern Ontario) 40 km down the tracks.
20 minutes later, the train stopped again, the gang got off and from where I was sitting I could watch them unload their gear from the baggage car: a mountain of beer cases, two dozen coolers of every size, lots of sleeping bags and a few small knapsacks. I'd say they guys had their priorities well defined. In my amazement I took a picture of the gang of them as we passed their cabins. When we crossed the Allenwater bridge, pictured here, someone pointed out that all the wives had probably gone to New York City.

This, unfortunately, is not the picture that I took. I borrowed this picture of the Allenwater Bridge from flickr and hope that it's owner understands my need: I put my camera on my small pack at my feet and continued my rug hooking for a bit then returned to take a nap. When I woke up I realized that I'd forgotten my fanny pack in the dome car...needless to say it wasn't there. It actually was a bit of a surprise as people left their bags everwhere as they went to get a coffee or pick up something back at their seat. But truly, this was my own fault...I might as well have put a sign that said: Take Me, as leave the camera on top of the bag.

All that to say I had no credit/debit cards, cash ($20), phone nor camera. But I did have my ticket from Toronto to Kingston and enough food to get me through the next 24 hours and was hoping to connect with daughter #2 in Toronto.

As it turned out, the train was reaaallllyyy late, and we barely made the connection to the cramped oversold commuter train from Toronto to Montreal. I was tired and hungry for the last leg of this journey, but I did have internet access so I was at least able to email my daughter's blackberry to let her know why I didn't show at the station.

It occured to me that the entire trip was an almost euphoric experience. So many chance occurences, insights, lessons, fun times, reconnections. How could I possibly complain about losing a couple of things and the inconvenience of waiting for a new credit card? My experience on the train, up until that point, was so perfect, that I might have been tempted to run away from home and become a railway bum.

Anyway, I arrived back home to a perfect Victoria Day weekend with the neighbour's traditional camp fire and some down time before tackling that which awaits me at home and at work. Life is Good!

Beautiful days in Winnipeg

2010-05-20T23:12:00.008-04:00

The weather and the city have been beautiful during the past couple of days here in Winnipeg. It is predicted that the "MOSQUITOS" are 3 to 5 days away...quite early they say, brought on by a wet winter and very warm spring weather. It would appear that Winnipeg MOSQUITOS really do deserve a whole set of capitals. I'm glad I missed them.

This scene made me feel right at home. It's a clematis in full bloom around a light standard. Winnipeg is built, as Kingston is, on a bed of limestone which accounts for our wonderful blooming clematis, but full bloom on the 20th of May is a little incredible.

I'm here in Winnipeg with my daughter, Catherine and her boyfriend. As he grew up in Winnipeg, we have a great guide. Yesterday we went to Assiniboine Park, home of one of the best zoos I've ever been to. This is a picture of Catherine who was thrilled to meet a new friend except that the turtle got one of her last clean shirts dirty, but he (the turtle) was very cute and posed well for the camera and so was forgiven. We know that it was he as the keeper explained how you can tell the difference between the boy and girl turtles: the boys have concave undershells, and the girls have flat shells.

Day 2 in Winnipeg had me meeting up with a friend from my teens whom I hadn't seen since 1976. How fun! We might look different but inside, we're all pretty much the same.

Then I got to do the yarn store tour. First to Ram Wools Yarn Co-op which has recently moved up Portage Ave from downtown. Many of you will remember Ram Wools and their gorgeous catalogues. For years, we at WOOL-TYME Kingston were the unwitting recipients of the excitement that always followed their mail out. I knew that they had stopped publishing the glossy catalogue a few years ago and had gone strictly to on-line marketing in addition to their storefront, but I was surprised and intrigued upon entering their store to see the addition of the "Co-op" in the name. I went on-line to discover that a worker owned cooperative has been established to keep growing this highly respected fixture on the North American yarn scene following the departure of Inge Gaspard, its founder and driving force.

On to WOLSELEY WARDROBE, a really fun store that has found a couple of great overlapping markets in the lovely Wolseley neighbourhood of Winnipeg. Check out the website and see how they delightfully blend a quality second hand clothes boutique with a lovely little yarn shop. Both the clothes on display and the selection of fine yarns show that quality and fashion are where this business has made it's commitment.

One of the great things that I've seen over and over in the past few weeks of meeting business people of all stripes, from my brothers' friends, Schnepps and Kathleen in Victoria who spend winters in Asia purchasing beautiful jewelry to bring back and sell at markets all over Victoria area, to the folks at Knotty By Nature in Victoria, is that it takes a LOT of resources to start up and continue a small business at the best of times. If you don't have a LOT of money at your disposal, then you have to rely on other resources: friends to scavange from, barrels of creativity and great ideas, and a certain chutzpah and commitment to keep you on track for as long as it takes. Book store/cafes, yarn store/picture framers in Sidney, farm/residential care centre/ general store owners in Glenora, and now Wolseley Wardrobe in Winnipeg...all of these people have found their multiple niche-S that have supported them and enriched their business lives.

Heading East - part I

2010-05-18T22:59:00.003-04:00

Heading back east again, with a stop over for a couple of days in Winnipeg.

This is the train as we stop in Blue River B.C. for a smoke break/fresh air break. How beautiful this little town is. This is very long for a passenger train (about 20 cars) as we pick up 2 tour groups in Jasper. By the way, Blue River is home of the oldest store in Western Canada. It's just a little storey and a half frame house that now sports a somewhat weathered sign that says "Janie's Convenience Store."

While stopped here, I found this spike. I'm not sure why I decided to bring it with me, but it just seemed like a fitting souvenir of this wonderful trip, to have a real piece of the railroad...it just looks so old!

The time on the train really does remind me of a lazy visit to a cottage. You mozey along doing whatever you feel like doing...reading for a bit, napping for a bit, going to the dome car to enjoy the scenery for a bit, playing cards or Scrabble or just socializing with others in the club car while you feel like it. We had a lovely little passenger on this trip named Coco. She's just 3 months old and was on a trip to visit her great grandmother. Coco's mom was more than happy for any help and so we all got to play pass the baby.

On the trip west, you miss out on the true visions of the prairies as the train goes through this area at night. There aren't nearly as many of these great horizon views as you get on the Trans Canada Hwy further south, but just enough to remind you of the effort that the early settlers must have put out to claim this land. I had lunch with a couple who had come from Britain 50 years ago and settled in Kamloops. They were struck by the stories of the trains of war brides who came through this territory after the war. I would think that many of those young women might have been horrified at the thought of the remoteness that faced them.

So, after day 2 on the train, here is the rug hooking sampler that I've been working on. Some of the same passengers from my trip west are back on the this train and recognize me from our trip out because of the rug.

By the way, I ran into a customer of mine who had moved last year to Edmonton and was coming back east for a family get together. Also played Scrabble with a lady from Kingston with whom I share a dear mutual friend. It is a small world.

Now in Winnipeg, I'm looking forward to a visit in Neil Young/ the Guess Who territory. Although it would appear that Winnipeg has another reason for being famous that isn't so great: Coco's mom says that it's the home of the largest swarms of mosquitos in the world (or so she remembers from her childhood). I don't do bugs well. I'm hoping that it's too hot for them...we're expecting 30 degrees tomorrow.

Last few days on the Coast.

2010-05-17T18:51:00.006-04:00

A few notes about the last couple of days on Vancouver Island, as internet time is very limited. (I can't believe that I'm actually here answering emails and working on the computer while standing in the train station in one of the most magnificent towns in North America - Jasper, that is).

One of the reasons that I wanted to go back to Vancouver Island was to try and discern the origin of our store mascot: this beautiful Cowichan sweater. I did locate it's store of origin (Sasquatch Trading Co. on Government St) and was even able to get a couple of likely possibilities of knitters, which is quite a feat considering that the people in the know in Duncan figure that it was knitted about 30-35 years ago. I'll be getting it back on display early in June and hope to keep researching from home based on the info that I got here.

This is Anita. She is by her own account a "fanatical knitter" andd is selling her beautiful socks as the Moss Street Market on most Saturdays. I had to get a picture of her with her LOOOONNNGGG double pointed needles. She explained that her family is Dutch and always knitted while supporting one needle under their arm. So obviously to do that with dpns, they too must be very long. The other lovely thing that I discovered when speaking with Anita is that she's originally from Napanee and will be visiting Kingston this summer. Hope to see her then.

The reason that we got to go to the Moss Street Market was that for the first time in my brother's very long history on Vancouver Island, the foot traffic tickets for the ferry to Saltspring Island were sold out when we arrived at the terminal on Saturday. Oh well, all the more reason to hope for a return visit in the near future.

This great little shop The Button and Needlework Boutique between Trounce Alley and Bastion Street caught my eye and imagine my suprise when I went in expecting a million buttons and nothing more, to be met by a wonderful selection of yarns and exquisite array of knitted sample garments. In speaking with the owner, he explained that they decided to take on the knitting world a couple of years ago to offer a broader selection to their needlework customers and to bring in a few more new customers. It's a great location, a lovely and friendly shop...and I love the button.

On Sunday morning, the day I was leaving, I took one last walk into the downtown area and was browsing around when I met this lovely lady. Victoria is full of interesting people of all ages who are "living the dream". This lady explained to me that she went shopping for a scooter for her friend who had been recently diagnosed with cancer. As she entered the store she saw this lovely pink scooter that was designed to support Breast Cancer Awareness. She never did tell me if her friend got a scooter but she said that she fell in love with this model, and despite the fact that she is able bodied, she bought it as a convenient and safe way to get around the city and carry groceries, etc. She then dressed it up with pink and black Skull and Crossbones and is quite a noted figure around town.
I love to be inspired by seniors who are thoroughly enjoying their life.

Victoria at its fibre finest.

2010-05-13T12:05:00.008-04:00

I had decided that I wasn't going to be too cliche and put in all kinds of pictures of the beautiful flowers in Victoria as with our mild spring back east I actually got to see some lilacs beginning to bloom in our neighbour's yard before I left on May 4th! Unheard of.

I resisted the seduction the few roses that I've seen in bloom but there was something about this gorgeous peony struggling up beside the reconstruction of the sidewalk beside my brother's place that I just couldn't resist. Isn't it lovely? A few more weeks and we'll have our own back home to admire.

This is the gate to Chinatown in Victoria. Although Chinatown here is but a couple of blocks of great restaurants and a few grocers and oriental trinket shops, it does have the distinction of being Canada's oldest Chinatown. The other reason that I thought it interesting to mention this area is that both of the knitting stores and the main quilt shop in the city are all within 2 blocks of these gates...I have no idea what that means or why that is but I found it very interesting.

The Beehive Wool Shop has been a fixture on the Victoria fibre scene for many years (from 1906-2010 to be precise...now that's longevity). This felted hat is from a display that customers are treated to as they walk in the front door. It's from a collection of Everett Wong, a young fine arts student at UVic whose grad project was to design the costumes for the main characters of Alice in Wonderland. Can't you just see this top hat at the tea party. I was hoping that there would be other pictures available on line but alas, no.

I found an extremely interesting home in Knotty By Nature the newest fibre arts store in the city. Link to the site and be patient as it's not exactly obvious how to navigate - the concept is fantastic: lots of beautiful yarns (many that we carry) tastefully displayed and supplemented by fantastic attractions (like this knitted bicycle) and a wonderful selection of items for sale on consignment from the many wonderful fibre artists in the city. It's lovely to read the "about us" page on the site although the site itself doesn't do them justice. It a fabulous store and it says a lot that I plan to return tomorrow to learn more about this great young couple.

A big walk down memory lane.

2010-05-11T13:04:00.005-04:00

Yesterday I got to take the day in Duncan and area where we lived when we were first married over 30 years ago. This is the 1st house where we lived: it was a camp that was owned by the Diocese of Victoria on Shawnigan Lake but because of size and liability issues, it was no longer being used as a kids' camp.

Imagine my surprise to see that everything was exactly the same...30 years later, including the young carpenter who was working on the main house, who reminded me so much of my husband, apprentice that he was in those days and who was probably the last person to have worked on those front stairs.

Then up the highway I went to WhippleTree Junction, a wild west era shopping mall...actual buildings from the turn of the last century and before were transported to a site just south of Duncan and were turned into retail space. At that location is The Loom, which is one of the knitting stores where I began my knitting career when we lived here, making samples for the store. It seems a lot smaller than I remembered it, but just as vibrant.

The irony is that my husband's cousin Ronald Woodall, whom we have never met, is the artist who created these lovely pieces of "disappearing architecture", which includes a piece entitled "Old Chinatown" I believe (bottom left), which is how the stores at WhippleTree originally looked before they got gussied up.

Later in the day, I got lost and literally drove into (the parking lot of ) a lovely little case of serendipity. This is a picture of Andrew who works at Glenora Farms' Weavery. Link here to their site to read more about this wonderful community just south of Duncan BC. The Glenora Farm community refers to itself as: "A place where special needs are met..." Andrew is an amazing weaver and I bought 3 of his cotton and linen tea towels. His fine wool scarves are also greatly prized. He told me with great pride that he loves to bake too and often makes his special lemon loaf which is sold at the Glenora general store. It's wonderful to think that lovely people like Andrew have found a warm place to live and be productive, within the confines of their special needs. Isn't it fun to get lost?

This is Victoria?

2010-05-10T14:45:00.006-04:00

Victoria is just as beautiful as ever. For Mothers' Day, my brother, Anthony, took me to Hatley Castle, now part of Royal Roads University. There was a craft fair on the front lawn and the castle and its gardens were open to the public. Absolutely amazing.

While we were there we met Wendy Mitchell of Sea Bluff Farms in Metchosin, near Victoria. Wendy is the creator of Barbie here, she is a papier mache sheep who has been dressed in a cardi and balaclava that were knit by Wendy of locally grown sheep's fleece that she spun. Wendy had called her creation Barbie and one of the guests at the castle suggested that Barbie could be Barbie Dollie in honour of Dollie, the cloned sheep.

Wendy is hoping to encourage knitters from her local fibre arts guild and crafters across Canada to donate knitted clothes to Barbie Dollie's wardrobe. You will notice the colourful leg warmers that she now is wearing but she could certainly use a hat or scarf or tail warmer, or shawl from other parts of Canada.

If anyone would like to help clothe Barbie Dollie, please contact Wendy at wendyncmitch ell@shaw.ca

P.S. A hat to fit a medium adult or large sized child would suit the bill perfectly.

Nearly There...

2010-05-08T13:34:00.006-04:00

Arrived this morning at the Vancouver station. By the way, for anyone who is interested: this trip is absolutely amazing. And much to my husband's eventual dismay, I've discovered that there are similar rail services all over the US too. I think I'm hooked...oh yeah, I do have to go back to work at some point.

So here is a picture of one of the first mountains that we came upon just before Jasper. How pretty, but I realized that although I was impressed, mountains don't actually do anything. If you've seen a picture, you've seen a mountain. BUT at 5 am this morning, we rode through the Fraser Canyon. WOW! How sad that the schedule doesn't allow for travellers to see it unless they are chronic insomniacs like me.

This is a lovely knit and quilt shop that I got to visit in Jasper. I noted the coincidence as my store is called WOOL-TYME and one of the customers in the store said: "Why, I've been to WOOL-TYME!" It is a very small world. After my visit came the best part of our 1 1/2 hour stop over in Jasper: I dropped $40 plus tip for a shampoo...and worth every cent.

I've come along a bit on the toe up socks. The pink stripe is the waste yarn for the "afterthought heel" which will be added when the rest of the leg is done. Any observers, knitters and non knitters alike, had great difficulty visualizing the afterthought addition of a heel.

Off to get the bus/ferry/bus to Victoria where I hear that there is a giant rally/parade for earth day and protesting the local fish farms. My brother says that they planned it for today as they knew I'd be arriving. I think not!

The Assiniboine Valley is too beautiful to waste on a straight highway.

2010-05-07T08:35:00.006-04:00

For some reason, I've been really surprised by the friendliness of all the passenger and staff on board. But if you think about it, spending 80 hours together is a bit like being on a cruise where people will start chatting just to satisfy their curiosity about each other.

At first it began with the younger ones getting together and staying up way past when the rest of us had tried to get some sleep But as we passed the half way point between Toronto and Vancouver, we all started looking at each other as potential chat buddies. These girls had brought some very creative activities to pass the time in the dome car. This was their balsa wood model plane. Later in the day they brought out wax crayons and mini colouring books.

Needless to say, the toe up socks and the rug hooking that I've been working on have attracted some attention along the way but now people are stopping to watch and ask about what I'm doing instead of just shyly passing and mentioning that they liked it.

A young woman from the Niagara area, whose boyfriend had borrowed my scissors the day before while they were working on woven friendship bracelets of embroidery floss, was telling me something interesting that she has learned during her Midwifery program where she is enrolled at McMaster U. It would appear that there is a nurse-midwife in Britain who has made it a part of her practice to knit during the labour and part of the delivery of her patients, only putting down her needles in an emergency. The theory is that by knitting, she creates an atmosphere of calm and mild detachment, believing that nature is capable of leading the way and assuring the mothers that they will able to follow what their bodies are prepared to do.

Her success and satisfaction rates are apparently phenomenal. It puts a new twist on Elizabeth Zimmerman's perennial edict to: "Knit on with confidence and hope, through all crises."

This is a picture that I took of a little girl that I saw during our stop over in Winnipeg. What first caught my eye was her little white coat which actually has a sheep hood and is a cute as can be. But then I saw her beautiful fingering weight leggings. The Mom said that her best friend made them for the little one and although she herself can't knit, she certainly appreciated the knitted gifts that this good friend likes to send.
We can't all be creators. Grateful recipients are important too!

Day 2 on the train

2010-05-06T09:10:00.004-04:00

We've arrived early in Winnipeg and it's one of the few times that I'll have internet access along the trip so I'm making the most of it.

For the full 16 hours of daylight time we rode through deep forest that I'm sure no amount of the most super powered insect repellent could protect one from during the buggy season.

I've driven across Canada several times and have taught Canadian Geography and neither experience prepared me for the amazing vastness of the wilderness in northern Ontario. Aside from the occasional dirt road and a few villages with nothing higher than a 2 storey dwelling, there is very little of human intervention to be seen from the train for hours on end.

When people asked me why I didn't just fly to Victoria if I wanted to go to the West Coast, I told them that I wanted a working vacation, and that this would be like a cottage that could also move me to where I wanted to go. After a day, I realize that a better comparison is like being at a vacation resort with really nice staff to help out and lots of interesting people to meet. And sitting on the "porch" of my chalet is like watching a really long episode of National Geographic: Astounding for its magnitude and beauty when you glance up from your work, but you wouldn't want to have to pay constant attention to it for all 16 daylight hours.

Here is a picture of the socks that I was working on yesterday, and that's the boreal forest in the background. I actually started the toe at home as I'm not ultra confident in toe-up techniques and I didn't want to have the stress of trying to get it right enough to give as a gift when I'm working on a moving train.
As it turned out, it was a good thing that I did that as it took me 3 tries to get it right-ish.

The bulk of my crafting time yesterday was spent on the rug hooking project that I've designed. I had wanted to learn more about shading with yarns, so I created a mosaic of 9 "tiles", each containing a flower from The Rug Hookers Bible. I did the blue one at home as a test run to see if it would be a feasible project. The wild roses I did yesterday. I'm going to try and complete the majority one flower each day that I'm on the train. I'll keep you posted.

Vancouver Island or Bust!

2010-05-04T18:49:00.002-04:00

After 15 months of planning the final hour has arrived and I'm on the train to Toronto for the shortest leg of my ultimate trip to the West Coast.

From what I can tell from the Via Rail website, this jaunt from Kingston to Toronto is likely to be the least comfortable of the trek as we (the other travelers who are heading west and I) will be boarding the "Continental" just a bit before midnight tonight, which should arrive sometime on Saturday morning in Vancouver. From there, I'll make my way by bus and ferry to Victoria where I'll be meeting my brothers for a week of visits, yarn shop searching and a day at the Cowichan centre to try and connect with some of the Native knitters there.

At left is a picture of Victoria in full bloom a few weeks ago. Not all that different from what I'm leaving here.

This is what we have to travel through on the way across Canada: what Albertans are hoping to be the last of the spring storms. Very pretty but I had been hoping to see SPRING on the prairies. A lot can happen before I get there.

I have packed a whole suitcase of knitting, rug hooking, books, note books, this laptop, my MP3 player and a whole lot of snacks. I was assuming that I'd have a chance to blog a fair bit while on the train but have discovered that it's only on this leg of the journey that internet access is available on the train. It appears that I'll have to wait until I can get off in train stations for a bit of a break, once or twice a day in order to connect to the station's access. All that to say, I'll be keeping some notes and pictures along the way but it might only get posted every second day.

Be back with you soon.

Anne

The Ultimate Knit and Chat Weekend on Amherst Island

2010-05-04T14:59:00.003-04:00

is incredibly excited to offer

THE ULTIMATE KNIT AND CHAT WEEKEND on Amherst Island.

Isn't this the lodge where you would love to spend 2 nights, enjoying 6 gourmet meals,and a series of knitting workshops, a yoga class for knitters and all the Knitting and Chatting that you can handle.

Save the dates on your calendar now:

Friday. Sept 24th (for supper) to Sunday Sept. 26th (after lunch) all for just $350*.

Or if you can only spare a day, take the ferry and join us on the Saturday from 10:00am to 4pm for workshops, a delicious lunch, lots of fun for $50.

The goal of this weekend retreat is to relax and get away to this lovely island setting and enjoying the company of new and old friends, while picking up some great knitting tips.

The knitting theme of the weekend will be "Going Around In Circles".

-Friday evening we will have a pot luck snack fest while having the opportunity to try out a wide range of circular knitting needles. Bamboo, nickel plated, lace tips, 9" sock needles, "Clicks" (interchangeable ends).

You name it, we'll have it there for you to try and compare.

-Saturday after breakfast we'll welcome our daytime participants and have the first of 2 workshop sessions that you can choose to attend. Likely themes for these sessions will be:

-Converting a regular pattern so it can be knit in the round: the pros/cons, and how tos.

-How to use circular needles on smaller projects: magic loop, 2 circulars, small circulars.

-Moebius knitting a la Cat Bordhi: lots of ways to use this interesting technique.

Needless to say the exact schedule and content isn't firmed up just yet, but we'll keep it posted here as things solidify.

-Saturday afternoon will have another workshop and/or free time to walk the shoreline or sit on the beach.

-Saturday evening will be movie night/ chat night/ "P.J. party with knitting" night...whatever.

-Sunday morning we'll have Jackie from Yoga to Go come and visit us to share some gentle yoga techniques, specifically helpful for knitters. Then you can catch up on the knitting class that you didn't get to participate in by chatting with the teacher.

We'll finish off with a great Sunday luncheon and a last walk on the beach and head to the ferry in time to be home for the lovely dinner that your family will have prepared for you...

Some of the nitty gritty details:

Registration: To save your spot for this exquisite fall getaway just call WOOL-TYME Kingston at 613-384-3951 and we will be glad to save your spot (for the full weekend of the day.)

A $150 deposit is required at registration ($100 refundable until Aug 31st.) for the weekend and a $25 deposit is required for the day registration.

The rest of the payment is due by Aug. 31st. Cancellations after this date can only be made if we are able to find someone to take your place.

Where: The Lodge on Amherst Island is just a 2 minute drive/5 minute walk from the ferry terminal. As parking is at a premium, (and who wants to pay for the ferry anyway?) we can meet in Millhaven and car pool from the ferry dock.

*Note The price quoted above is based on double occupancy (2 beds per room), consequently if you prefer not to share your accommodation, the fee for the weekend is $450.

Other details will appear here and in email posts to you as specific plans gel together.

Don't delay. Registration is on a first come, first served basis.

Anne

Be kind to wounded knitters out there.

2010-04-06T10:49:00.004-04:00

I was just watching a DVD series where actor, Ewan McGregor, and his real life buddy are riding their motorcycles from London to NYC, called "The Long Way Around", that is to say through Europe, Russia, flying across the Beiring Strait and down through Alaska, Canada and across the USA.

While visiting a children's shelter run by Unicef, Ewan asked the kids if they had learned to knit. They replied that they did knit, and did it quite well. Ewan then related the very sad story of his 9 year-old self knitting a scarf for a beloved uncle, emphasizing the time and patience that it took. When he presented the gift, his uncle laughed..."And I never knit again," were Ewan's final words on the subject. But you could tell that it was with some very real regret that he put the needles away.

Let me tell you, I hear more than my share of stories of people who have had such experiences. They find the courage to come to the store and shyly ask about taking lessons, feeling that their previous experiences with frustrated teachers and/or inapproriate tools mean that they are, as they've been told in the past, "not very good" at knitting.

Coming up in June is an opportunity for all knitters to go out and find some wounded knitters and extend the hand of friendship and encouragement to them. June 12th to 20th is World Wide Knit in Public Week.

One great way of celebrating this fact is to get together with friends at a local cafe and knit, but I'm planning on doing something a bit different this year.

It will be an exercise in building up knitting karma: I plan on spending 1/2 hour each day, knitting by myself at some different location in the city. The idea is that I'm hoping that people will come up and ask about what I'm doing, or will share a bit about their knitting history or memories. It should be fun...and who among us would not want to have a reason for sitting down to knit for 1/2hour each day, no matter where or what the circumstances?

I plan on keeping a record with pictures and will keep you up to date about the results. Do you have any plans? Let me know and we can share them with each other.

Yarn Theory...science meets craft yarn.

2010-03-31T11:47:00.007-04:00

Last week I heard on CBC Radio that the winner of Britain's Diagram Prize for the most unusual book title of 2009 is: Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes by Daina Taimina. Daina was a mathematics professor at the University of Latvia for 20 years and has now been at Cornell University for the past 10 years. She also crochets objects to illustrate hyperbolic space and makes truly appealing books about them. Follow this link to see more examples of her technical/beautiful work.
http://www.math.cornell.edu/~dtaimina/hypplanes.htm

So, living as we do in a world where every piece of information is about 2 minutes away with the help of GOOGLE, I wondered what other math and science minds had turned their techno brains to yarn crafts and WOW, what a treasure chest is out there.

The Yarn Theory Project was an art exhibition in 2009 which explored the relationship between knitting, crochet, mathematics and science. It operated out of an old public school, turned into a community art gallery, bringing art to the city and the city into the studio.

In areas of Britain, breast feeding clinics had found themselves short of expensive models of breasts for demonstrations. They issued a plea to knitters and patterns were made available for breasts of varying shapes and sizes from the Lactation Consultants Association of Great Britain. This is a picture of Audrey Horncastle who at 84 has found a whole new way to make her crafts valuable to the community by knitting "boobs" for the group.
Where there's a will, the knitters have a way of solving any dilemma. Link here for the pattern.

Follow the link below for more examples of the collisions between craft and science, such as a knitted brain, a view of the nature of the chaotic system with 25 500 stitches, a womb, the digestive system.
http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/science_blog/090127.html

And most beautiful of all, is the Crocheted Coral Reef Project, which will be exhibited at the Science Gallery in Dublin until June 2010.

From the Crocheted Coral R eef site here is a description of the project:

"One of the acknowledged wonders of the natural world, the Great Barrier Reef stretches along the coast of Queensland like a psychadelic serpent, a riotous profusion of color and form unparalleled on our planet. But global warming and pollutants so threaten this fragile monster that scientists now believe the reef will be devastated in coming years. As a homage to the Great One, IFF directors Margaret and Christine Wertheim instigated a project to crochet a woolen reef. The sisters, who grew up in Queensand, have been spearheading the project since 2005, quiety watching as it has morphed into an unexpected and far-reaching wordwide movement. "

Check it out. It's almost worth the trip to Dublin just to witness how our lovely yarns can be made to emulate nature.

I thought that it was supposed to be a LION and a lamb that lay down.

2010-03-29T18:51:00.005-04:00

So this afternoon I was going through my email and had received notice of a new book being published in Britain on the social history of knitting in the past decade or so. Interesting as that could be, the subject matter paled in comparison to the picture that they featured as part of their book. It showed an adult elephant wearing a knitted (or perhaps crocheted) coat, similar to a dog's coat.

Now, as I am committed in this blog to find and share things from the knitting world that I find of interest, I couldn't let the elephant coat go. So I started searching Google for the original picture for some background from where it might have come. Well, I guess I'll have to buy the book as I wasn't able to come up with anything...but look what I found: Themba, the elephant and Albert, the sheep. Follow this link to read about their strange friendship and to see more pictures. http://geniusbeauty.com/cute/baby-elephant-adopted-sheep/cute/baby-elephant-adopted-sheep/

Also, while looking up "knitted elephant coat" I came up with this dishcloth pattern, which can be purchased for $2. at http://digknittydesigns.blogspot.com/2009/07/elephant-knit-dishcloth-pattern.html

And although I didn't find the actual picture of the elephant wearing the coat, perhaps we have a clue in this cartoon as to who the crafty lady was who produced it? Papa elephant doesn't look to happy about waiting for his new knitted garment.
http://www.agoodyarn.net/KnitImages2.htm

Enough about elephants: Google being what it is, I could spend the rest of this year telling you about 212,000 pictures that I found in .11 seconds that referred to "elephant knitting."
This is the other activity that has been keeping me occupied for the past few weeks. This is a picture of a basket of "Goodie Bags" that we've prepared to bring to the spring conference of Ontario Hook Craft Guild members, taking place at the end of April in Cobourg. We made up 300 hundred of these bags, each containing 5 strands of fun yarn that can be incorporated in a rug hooking project.
The idea is to let the rug hookers of Eastern Ontario know how much fun it can be to have a world of spun fibres at your fingertips, ready to be worked in to their latest creations and also that WOOL-TYME Kingston is now offering a whole array of rug hooking supplies.

So for those of you who think that the life of the staff at a knitting store is the essence of creative bliss, consider the 12.5 person/hours required to cut and assemble 1500 of these skeins, the sheer blind confusion of trying to sort them into groups each containing 5 coordinating colours, and the extra 10 hours to bag and tie them and get them ready for transport to Cobourg next week. But I'll let you in on a little secret: I love this kind of mindless drudgery...Reminds me of the years when we (my kids and I) would fold, address and mail over 1 000 copies of the paper newsletter at least 3 times a year.
According to an article in the March issue of O(prah) Magazine, a Harvard affiliated study found that "repetitive motion and focus of needlework can elicit what's known as the relaxation response, a calming meditationlike state." Perhaps it refers to the repetitive motion of putting little skeins in bags too.

Interesting knitting blogs

2010-03-16T08:18:00.009-04:00

It has taken me a while but I finally got around to reviewing the links to other blogs that I have on this site and was thrilled to discover and rediscover some fun things.

First, the discovery: Lynn One, Purl Two is a great
little site written by Lynn Cullen who, with her Mom, runs Mary's Yarns in Unionville, just north of Scarborough, ON.

Lynn represents what so many of our younger custoners would love to have: a good excuse to spend the majority of her day in a yarn store, knitting, designing, blogging and all the other fun things that this job offers.

Above is a picture of Lynn's thumb holding up a book from Japan that a friend brought her, showing a cozy sweater knit for together couples. Check out the blog, it really is fun.

The redicsovered blogsite is a lovely story. In January 2007, Th e knitnotwar 1,0o0 project announced its intention to mount an art display of 1000 knitted, felted origami cranes by late 2007 in Portland, Oregon.

Their latest post dated Feb. 19th, 2010, announces that they are just 60 cranes away from the 1000 target. This says so much to me about commitment: achieving a goal 3 years after the anticipated deadline to my way of thinking would require much more tenacity than achieving the original goal on time.

And besides that, they also announced that the Peace Promotion Division of The City of Hiroshima will be hanging the final project in one of the booths (for displaying folded cranes) surrounding the Children's Peace Monument after it has been shown in Portland. What an honour for them.
I do believe that linking here will get you to the pattern if you'd like to try it. Aren't the cranes lovely in this picture? I'm sure the group would be thrilled to have any of you join them in their last efforts.

And finally, just in case any of you think that the only interesting knitting stuff comes to us through cyberspace, this is a picture of a real fellow in Jamaica selling his wares and knitting caps from his table, not on etsy. It's a picture taken by the sister of one our customers who actually met the real live guy and didn't even need to go to a website to get his picture.

2010-03-08T08:52:00.004-05:00

What a great city Montreal is, yet not one where people usually choose to spend a spring break. But it's close and Mother Nature was ridiculously kind to us with magnificent sunshine all last week, and there is always lots of great food and beautiful things to see.

You will all be glad to hear that the concept of knitting is alive and well in the city. Witness one of the "knitted" toques which adorned many of the bus stops. Actually it isn't really knitted (are you surprised?) but an extremely clever design of black stitching on a padded fabric that looked a lot like stitches. Notice they even took pains to shape the ribbing around the bottom, although the stitches didn't change to represent the knits and purls which we know produce this indented effect in real knitting. But they get major points for trying.

Actually the whole toque-on-the-bus-shelter thing was part of an ad campaign for milk and a comforting evening of entertainment coming up soon. The poster pictured here, which is in fact a picture of an actual knitted piece, is really impressive for the quality of the reproduction and the persistence they show in getting their message out there: The ad campaign is EVERYWHERE throughout the city. But the most impressive version of the poster that I saw was an entire subway car covered with a reproduction of the knitted fabric. It made me wonder how long a real knitted "metro car cozy" would last at those speeds.

We also got to go to the Museum of Fine Arts which was featuring a presentation of the stained glass work of Louis C. Tiffany, son of the great Mr Tiffany from Tiffany and Co. of NYC and consequently "Breakfast at Tiffany's" fame.

I saw this beautiful piece that I've pictured here, and it was my one little glimpse of real spring flowers in these magnolias. What surprised me most when examining these pieces of stained glass up close is that the individual pieces of glass are not flat. Some can be up to an inch thicker in some sections than the piece next to it, or even from one part of the same piece to another part of it. I guess it's part of what makes the amazing textures and colours jump out at us.

Well, back to the store today. It's nice to have work that one is glad to get back to after a holiday.

Our Littlest Customer

2010-02-23T07:21:00.003-05:00

We really should look into what is required to claim a record with the Guinness people. I'm sure that our newest customer would qualify. Mira Margaret is pictured here in her mom's arms, complete with knitted Wagnerian headguear just hours after her birth at 1:46pm last Thursday. Little Mira dropped in at the WOOL-TYME Kingston Knit and Chat later that same evening for a visit on her way home from the hospital when she was just 5 hours old.
My guess is that with her costume, she might even show up to watch the Olympics with us at Jakk's tonight. Who knows?

DAY 7 Knitting Olympics

2010-02-18T09:11:00.007-05:00

Last Saturday I was lucky enough to take a wonderful workshop on digital photography aimed specifically at artists and crafters who are needing to take accurate yet appealing pictures of their projects and designs. The picture at left is actually very accurate for colour, and despite the sombre tones and mixture of 2 multi hued yarns, it still shows up the cable designs relatively well. And I was able to achieve this effect in about 3 minutes of picture taking and 5 minutes of uploading and "tweaking". All the knowledge of the world is out there, just waiting for us to find the time to take advantage of it. How fun...

Actually aesthetics aside, this is a picture of the first of 2 sleeves that I had set myself to finish during the Olympics. I'm about 1/3 of the way through the second one, so I may even shoot past my mark. Would that be like a downhill racer who makes it across the finish line and keeps right on, barreling through the crowd? Or the short track speed skater who continues doing laps until they are dragged from the oval? Oh well, whatever gets me to the ultimate goal of finishing the sweater before the summer.

It's a sweater for my brother who will be 50 in September. He lives in Victoria and likes the outdoors. I love the brown/green mixture of blending the 2 yarns, and how it makes the cables almost a secret that you have to look for and follow to fully appreciate.

Speaking of the West Coast and the Olympics, is it just me or is the coverage a bit less exciting this time. On the other hand, have you ever heard O Canada with such force as it was sung at the ceremonies for Alex Bilodeau's gold medal?

My daughter had to tell me that this strange couple who do the interviewing in the morning on CTV (she looks like she just walked off a shoot for Vogue and he looks like he's trying to channel Roy Orbison) were actually meant to be funny. I just thought they were silly for real.

Well as I'm committed to a certain amount of television watching in order to complete (and perhaps exceed) my goal, I was channel surfing last night and came upon the coverage on APTN (Aboriginal Peoples' Television) and was delighted to hear that one of the Canadian men's hockey games this weekend will be broadcast in Cree. At 8pm they switched from English to French reporting and they said that they were thrilled to be presenting the women's curling between China and France (I think) and they were predicting a great match. It reminded me of the episode of the Mary Tyler Moore show (for those of you who remember it) when the newsroom hired a lovely young woman as a sports announcer who glossed over NFL scores and gave maximum story time to an up and coming young female diver.

That to me is what makes the remote control and satellite television such a bonus, you can find interesting coverage where you can hear hockey broadcast in Cree and see how China interprets Canada's second favourite sport: Curling.

For those who haven't made it in to the store for our SWEETHEART SALE, there are still a few days: Buy 4 balls of any of our regularly priced yarns and you get the 5th ball FREE. It's a great deal on whatever you want. Hope to see you before Saturday.

SWEATER BOOT CAMP -

2010-02-02T08:15:00.003-05:00

We're always looking for new classes and workshops to offer at the store. Alana and I have been working together with the regular Tuesday/Thursday on-going classes, and she was mentioning how she would love to offer a class where many of the questions that we answer each week get covered. Basic but extremely important questions like how to choose size and yarn weight, how to "pick up and knit", why there are different types of decreases and increases, etc.

So in the spirit of our insanely popular Sock-In-A-Day class (the next one of these is on March 12th by the way) we came up with the idea of a SWEATER BOOT CAMP - a 3 class/2 week course where participants would begin by planning their project, get the guidance needed to complete the 5 requisite pieces for the project cardigan (shown above), and come back 2 weeks later to learn about putting it all together.

Obviously there is only so much knitting that can be expected of a person in 2 weeks which is why the project chosen is this cute little baby jacket knit in bulky weight yarn. Seriously, the back can be knit in just a couple of hours.

The idea has been extremely popular so far and seems to be offering people a chance to build their confidence by challenging them to a simple/no frills design that serves as a basis for any future sweater knitting projects.

See the second last post for date and pricing details. Do consider this class for yourself or to recommend to a knitting friend who is ready to go beyond the hat and scarf; it should be lots of fun. And as after any BOOT CAMP experience, I'm sure there will be a few weary muscles and brain cells, but it will provide some great memories and a real sense of accomplishment.

The Events- Knitting Olympics 2010

2010-01-23T08:18:00.006-05:00

Well folks, I'm not sure about you but I'm getting geared up: 18 days to cast on! Oops, to the Opening Ceremonies I mean.

I've been a big fan of knitting while watching the Olympics since 1992 when my youngest, then 2 1/2 years old, watched the women's figure skating event and announced that she didn't like HER, pointing to Tanya Harding in close-up as she awaited the judges marks. Astute, I would say.

Below, I've listed the official 2010 Knitting Olympics events as compiled by the International Ravelympics Committee ( the IRC, not to be confused with the IOC) in which you can participate (pick 2 if you're ambitious and have lots of viewing time.)

For those who aren't familiar with the origins of the Knitting Olympics, it all began a mere 4 years ago when Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (bless her heart) mused on her Yarn Harlot blog: wouldn't it be a cool idea to challenge ourselves as knitters in the spirit of the Olympics, choosing a project to complete during the 2006 Games that would stretch us as crafters? She also (foolishly) offered to register everyone who signed up and their chosen project. From that excited little musing, thousands of knitters agreed that it would indeed be a "cool idea" and joined the cause. To hear Stephanie tell it, she spent the next several weeks in her pyjamas, half crazed, trying to keep up with the never ending supply of excited knitters who wanted to get on board.

The rest of us, who were a bit slow off the mark, have been waiting for the last 4 years to get on board this time.

So here are the events that you can choose from. Remember - choose wisely, realistically, and with a commitment to the challenge.

Aerial Unwind - Bag Jump - Beading Biathlon - Bobsled Cable - Cross-Country Charity - Curling Designer - Biathlon Designer - Original Dance Designer - Pattern Skeleton - Downhill Dyeing - Felting Freestyle - Fleece to FO Long-Track -

Flying Camel Spin Free Dance - Giant Slalom/ghan - Hat Halfpipe -

Holiday Jumpstart - Skiing Junior Olympics - Labyrinth Weaving - Lace Luge

- Mittens Moguls - Nordic Colorwork - Combined Platter Lift Samalong -

Machine Skate - Scarf Super-G - Short Track Shawls - Single Skein Speed Skate -Skelegurumi - Snow Cross Sock Hockey - Stash Compulsory Dance -

Sweaterboard Cross - WIPs Dancing.

More in the next few days about my own choice.

SPRING CLASS LINEUP 2010

2010-01-19T08:13:00.012-05:00

FAIR ISLE KNITTING

The basics of chart reading and yarn stranding and the 2 handed method to make beautiful classic designs are covered in this class.

WHEN: Sat. Feb. 27 1-4pm

COST: $35 (material list available)

SOCK-IN-A-DAY
Our most popular class. Come and learn the basics of sock knitting that can be adapted to create beautiful socks for any foot, in any yarn.

WHEN: Sat. June 12th, 10am-2pm.
COST: $45 (includes materials)

Introducing our latest class concept:
SWEATER BOOT CAMP- Parts I and II
Want to gain enough knitting confidence to create beautiful sweaters that fit?
Make this simple baby sweater in 3 classes and just 2 weeks and acquire skills that can be applied to all of your knitting!

Part I
WHEN: Fri. March 26th 7-9pm (yarn and fibre selection, gauge, choosing the right size and pattern reading). AND Sat. March 27th 1-4pm (cast on your sweater and learn how to knit the 5 basic pieces that you need).
COST: $35 plus materials (about $25)
TEACHER: Alana Baig

Part II
WHEN: Sat. April 10 1-4pm. (Return 2 weeks later to learn how to pick up stitches neatly, create button holes, the invisible mattress stitch, blocking and more.)
COST: $35

DO YOU ALREADY KNOW HOW TO KNIT BUT WANT TO TAKE

BOOT CAMP PART II TO HELP YOUR FINISHING SKILLS?

Pick up our BOOT CAMP sweater kit, knit your pieces and join us for PART II.

An Afternoon of NEEDLEFELTING

Come and play with wool fleece and other fibres to see what you can create and have crazy fun too.

WHEN: Sat. April 17th 1-4pm

COST: $35 (includes all materials)

ILLUSION KNITTING
Can you see the keyboard in this scarf? Illusion knitting is so fun. Learn to follow patterns and make your own designs.
WHEN: Sat. April 24th 1-4pm
COST: $45 (materials list available)
TEACHER: Rachel Bearse.

SPOILER ALERT for those who like little lambs.

2010-01-15T09:06:00.004-05:00

I've just spent the morning printing up my daughter's lab manual for neuroscience at Guelph U where she will be spending part of this semester studying the brain of a sheep. I'm not sure why they have chosen the sheep brain but it did strike her as a bit close to home, as she has been surrounded for most of her life by the outer offerings of the sheep.
Ah, the circle of life!

Don't you just love this picture? Deb White passed it on to me as part of a larger review of "Computer security" products that you can knit to keep your identity safe. As you can see the needles are still on this w.i.p. around the monitor, but the final product, which created a sort of inverted turtleneck completely enclosing the user and the monitor, was a bit strange even for knitting computer geeks.

Later on this week I'll be posting the list of classes that will be offered at the store this spring but I just wanted to let you know about the SWEATER BOOT CAMP coming up in March/April. I think it's such a great idea for those who are really enjoying their knitting, but want to get a good grounding and develop confidence in the basics of sweater making or for those who are just a bit nervous about leaving the safe world of scarves and hats.

We'll be using this little bulky knit jacket as a learning tool to introduce all the different aspects of sweater knitting: yarn choice, sizing, gauge, on the 1st night, then the next day participants will return for the cast on and pattern reading part of the program. 2 weeks later they are ready with their 5 basic pieces knitted to learn about picking up stitches, button holes and the mattress stitch.

The Sock-In-A-Day class has been so popular and succesful in teaching people by giving them a good quick overview of how to get from start to finish in a project that seems a bit daunting if spread out over a longer period of time. Using those same principles, we're hoping to introduce confidence in sweater knitting to a whole new crop of participants.

Winter is here!

2009-12-08T20:39:00.004-05:00

We've been empty nesters at our house for over a year now, which is why it seemed odd to me when my husband decided that he wanted to make a new Christmas figure to go with Santa on our lawn. I thought that he might have had something more sophisticated, more adult in mind. But no, when he showed me the options that I had to choose from, they included reindeer, elves or Mrs Claus as seen here with her sock and her knitting needles in her hand. He was a bit concerned that people would think that I looked quite old in this representation, then I reminded him that I was not Mrs Claus, she was! I think she's sweet.

I'm writing this on the evening of the most glorious winter days I can remember in years,

on the eve of the storm from hell -- although they're calling it a Colorado-low, not a Hell-low.

But heaven knows, there will be enough time to recognize the challenges of winter life before the season is out; let's just take a moment to appreciate the sun and the snow on my Colorado spruce. We bought this spruce tree when it was but a twig about 10 years ago from some students at QECVI who were fund raising. The other 3 twigs that we got have long since perished, but this guy is going like crazy and stands about 8 feet high- that's about 7 feet and 4 inches higher than when he was planted, which just goes to prove that not everything from Colorado is low. (groan)

The store is crazy these days, in the nicest possible sense. It's so fun to watch the delight that people take at coming in to escape the mall crowds, or planning their wish list, or just running in to pick up some needles, a final ball of yarn or a gift certificate. It's a good place to be each and every day.

I just wanted to remind you that a week from tonight, Tues. Dec. 15th is our Christmas open house from 7-9pm. Please feel welcome to come and bring your knitting, and some treats if you wish, and we'll have the cider and coffee on. We're all hoping that the weather will cooperate and that we'll be having a lovely evening of fun and friends.

Friday the 13th, and beyond.

2009-11-23T15:12:00.008-05:00

On Friday, Nov. 13th about 25 people came to the store in the evening to enjoy some treats and apple cider, and some knitting time. It was a meeting of escapees from the home front. We had a great time and got to know quite a few new people.
I wish I could say that we had such a great time that it has taken me over a week to fully recover and that's why I haven't managed to get anything written here, but that would be a more than slight exaggeration. But we did have a lot of fun.
In fact we had so much fun that we are offering an opportunity to do it again, on Tuesday, Dec. 15th, everyone is welcome to join us at the store from 7-9pm for our annual Christmas get-together. Please feel free to bring some goodies and your knitting. We will supply the drinks.

I have written before about the afghan that my Grandmother-in-law gave us which is now at least 75 years old. It's knit in pure wool, probably fingering weight as the gauge is about 26 sts over 4 inches in garter stitch. I've always been intrigued about the quality of the fabric that still looks pretty darn good even after all these decades of continual use, and about the tedium involved in knitting that much garter stitch. How much devotion would it take to complete such a project.

I kept saying that some day I was going to figure out how many stitches there actually are in the darn thing. Well Fri. Nov. 13th, 2009 was the day to do the calculations. Then everyone was invited to make a guess and the closest "guess", mathematically guided or not, would get to bring home a skein of any yarn in the store.
Kathy Broughton and her engineering brain took the prize with a bid of 210 000 stitches. There are (approximately) 232, 128 stitches according to my calculations. Now that's a whole lot of loving for a sister to make such an afghan for her sibling. I never heard if Granny Carpenter really understood or appreciated the work involved. I hope so, and I'm so glad to be the keeper of it now.

Another example of under appreciated knitting came to me the other day when I had the opportunity to put on my favourite mittens for the first time this season. I realized that they were probably celebrating their 20th birthday some time this month. The story behind these beautiful mittens and why I consider them to be under appreciated is that I bought them at a crafters cooperative in Morrisburg ON, near Upper Canada Village, as I say, about 20 years ago, for $6.
They're probably made of pure wool as they really are warm, even when wet. The pattern is flawless and because of the 2 colours, is particularly warm with the double thickness...for $6!!!
I felt like I was rescuing them from some boorish shopper who would just buy up a cheap pair of mitts and lose them, or wear them to wipe the snow off the windshield of their car. They've been my main mitts for the past 20 years, and although other hand warming accessories have filled in for shoveling duty, etc. these will always be my favourite mitts for the bond they've forged between me and the ardent knitter who was churning them out for just a fraction of that $6 price.

P.S. I never thought about it until now, but I don't imagine that it's an accident that every light winter coat that I've bought in the past 20 years has been navy, so it would go with my mitts.