Yarn Crawl Time!

The Rose City Yarn Crawl is upon us! 

 

Sally's St. Johns Slouch is at the shop right now, and it's really beautiful.  She designed it using Manos del Uruguay Maxima, a favorite yarn at Close Knit.  The pattern is free with any purchase in the shop, but the Maxima will be 10% off during the crawl.  We have a nice deep stock in the gorgeous Manos colorways we all love so much.  All of the free patterns are inspired by the water and bridges of Portland, and Sally's cables look like the iconic St. Johns Bridge.

Photo from Portlandbridges.com

Things get underway on Thursday, February 28 at 10AM.  We have so so so much going on, it's hard to keep track.  There are multiple raffles for all kinds of amazing baskets, door prizes for the first 10 purchases each day, and trunk shows from some our favorite yarn companies.

We have the adorable Royal Petites Collection and the beautiful new wraps knit in Blue Sky Alpacas Metalico.

I am very excited to check out Julie Hoover's designs for Manos del Uruguay, especially the Beaubourg pullover.  My heart skipped a little beat when Jenni pulled this one out of the box.

We also have some lovely stuff from the Scrumptious line from Fyberspates and some unusual hand-dyed Tencel from local dyer Teresa Ruch.

There will be a limited number of Rose City Yarn Crawl tote bags available for sale at the shop, but they won't last long.  We will be open from 10-6 Thursday through Sunday, March 3.  Print out your Passport, collect a whole bunch of stamps, and win a bunch of great stuff!  

I'll see you here next week when the dust settles.

Shibui Mix Party

I know you are all jazzed up about the Rose City Yarn Crawl next weekend (seriously...where has February gone?), but I wanted to put another little thing in your brains.

We are now carrying a few lovely Shibui yarns, as many of you have discovered.  

After perusing the patterns, you might have also discovered that the designers at Shibui are mixing geniuses.  Many of their pieces call for two of their amazing yarns to be held together to achieve some really unique results.  With this in mind, they have coordinated the colorways of their yarns, too.

All this mixing and matching can be a little concerning, as you often don't really know what kind of fabric you will eventually end up creating.  For instance, this awesome orange hat, the No. 6.

I looked at the pattern, saw that it used mohair, and decided against it.  BUT, the finished sample is perfect, and now I must make one.  Probably in orange, too.  

The mohair is so tame in the sample, and it really just adds a subtle halo and softness without any itch or fluff.  Lesson learned.

We want you all to discover some interesting and unusual knitted fabrics with Shibui, too.  Since it is hard to justify buying an entire skein of each yarn just to play with, we want to have a little Mix Party!  We will be hosting the gathering at our shop on Wednesday, March 6 at 6:30 during our usual Open Knit Night.

There will be an array of Shibui yarns to sample, pre-knit swatches to play with, look books, and patterns to check out.  If you are interested in joining us, please call the shop to let us know at 503.488.4568 so we know about how many to expect.  Please bring some needles, ranging in sizes from US4-9ish so you can try out all kinds of combinations.  Sally promises cookies, too.

I wanted to entice you with some of their stunning Mix pattern line, including a few that have not yet been released.  Here we have No. 1, 4, 8, and 9.  (These photos have all been borrowed from the Shibui website.)

These pretties are No. 10, 11 and 12.

The new spring designs feature a lot of Linen and Cima, which we will be adding to our current stash of Silk Cloud, Staccato, Merino Alpaca, and Baby Alpaca DK.  Here we have No. 13-18, all part of the spring line.  There will be more information on these at the Mix party.

Give us a call if you want to try out these luxurious yarns and get inspired to make something amazing.  Have fun!

New on the Sock Wall

We have some new friends on the sock wall.  Let's go meet them.

Regia has sent us the tiniest balls of sock yarn I've ever seen, My First Regia.

And Melissa produced some of the cutest booties to show it off.  Each little ball is only $4.25, and the booties only require one skein.  The pattern book contains some other cute designs, too.

We have some new self-patterning yarn from Opal.

The newest line, Smokey Eye and Colored Lip, shows off some pretty subdued tones with bright pops of color.  

This is the closest I will ever get to the smokey eye look, so perhaps I should take one home.  The yarn knits up in some free-formish sort of stripes, which can be really fun if you get bored with solid colored sock-yarn.

The Malabrigo Sock has returned as well.

This yarn is gorgeous.  The deep shades, the silky hand, the subtle tonality...it is really lovely.  

If you are a sock knitter, then you likely know and love this stuff already.  Quite a few knitters have used the Sock for sweaters and scarves and shawls.  I was trolling Ravelry this week (okay all the time), and I came across this great cowl pattern using fingering weight yarn, the Chevron Cowl from Knitterella.

Photo borrowed from Knitterella's Ravelry page.

This would be lovely in multiple shades of Malabrigo sock, or maybe Malabrigo paired with Taiyo Sock, or Malabrigo paired with the sparkly Starry.  So many options...

We have also restocked the Opal Van Gogh yarns that you all loved so much, and the Cascade Heritage is newly plumped.  Even if you aren't an avid sock knitter, the sock wall might just inspire you.  Come and see!

Kim and Rowan

Hey friends, sorry to be so absent here in February.  The plague hit my house, and I guess it's taken me a little longer to bounce back than expected.  So, let's get to the knitting, shall we?

We have the newest from Kim Hargreaves, Quirky and Enchanted.  I know several of you just squealed a bit when you saw that photo and are calling the shop right now to have something set aside for you.  Here's the number: 503.288.4568.  If you know Ms. Hargreaves' work, then you know that these are full of classic designs with a bit of a twist.

Here are a few of my favorites (with photos from Kim Hargreaves' website because the "bright grey" lighting in Portland is making photography nearly impossible for me).  These pretties are Longing, Covet, and Ara from Enchanted.

 

There are many, many more, but these were a few of my favorites.

The Quirky collection has some nice ones, too.  I love the May cap, made with Cocoon and Kidsilk Haze.  

The two different versions are really nice, but I think I like the one with the contrasting mohair the best.

I also really love Sadie, Amy, Emmy, and Lottie.  They weren't kidding about quirky with this styling, were they?  Sailor hats to denim short shorts...

The Rowan Big Book, number 53, is on the table, too.  It's a spring/summer issue, so you never know quite what you're going to get.

Samos is pretty.

Marilyn has potential.

Honeycomb has a nice vintage flair.

Vanilla looks super cozy.

And I kind of like the Beehive Wrap, too.

There are, of course, a smattering of crazy intarsia sweaters and over-the-top colorwork, but what else do we expect from Rowan?

Come by the shop and have a flip through the new magazines.  I promise I'll be back here sooner than later.

Hedgy

Once you knit a honey badger, perhaps a hedgehog is not far behind?  (Why do they need to hog the hedge, anyway?  Hee hee.)

Photo from The Purl Bee

Someone please stop me before I get out of control and knit and entire menagerie of woodland creatures.  For the record, I am not yet out of control.

Yarn Crawl on the Horizon!

The 2013 Rose City Yarn Crawl is just a few weeks away!

What is the Yarn Crawl, you ask?  It's a lot of yarn and a lot of fun.  All of the Portland-area yarn shops participate, and there are chances to win lots of prizes and make new friends.  Did you know there are eighteen shops playing along this year?  So much yarn, so little time.

The fun kicks off on Thursday, February 28 and lasts through Sunday, March 3 when we yarn slingers all collapse on the floor from sheer yarn-related exhaustion.  Let me tell you what we have going on this year.  Each shop will be raffling off two Prize Baskets full of goodies from our generous sponsors.  I had a little envy problem last year.  Our basket was full of awesome.

In addition, anyone who visits all eighteen shops is entered to win the Grand Prize basket, which is even bigger and more fabulous.

As you make your way to the shops, you collect Passport Stamps to show how dedicated you really are.  This passport enters you into the raffle for the Grand Prize basket.  (Passports will be available for download from the RCYC website soon.  I'll keep you posted.)

This year we have RCYC tote bags available for pre-order, too.  You can order them from the website and let us know where you'd like to pick yours up on the first day of the crawl.  

We will also have free patterns!  Each shop has designed a Portland-inspired freebie featuring a favorite yarn.  Buy the yarn, and the pattern is yours.  After all is said and done, there will be a 2013 RCYC eBook containing all of the patterns from this year.

If you want even more RCYC fun, join the Knit/Crochet-a-long that is happening on Ravelry for the 2012 patterns.  There are more prizes to be had, so it never hurts to enter.

Okay, that was a lot information.  Basically, it's yarn, free patterns, prizes, fun.