Whew...

Mom and I returned from TNNA exhausted, inspired, and packed to the gills with goodies! Check out my kill...

Included in this year's stash are many new yarns, some of which you'll see in the shop in the next few months, and some of which you won't. There is wool, alpaca, and cotton from the US, wool from Uruguay, bamboo from Canada, buttons from Gail Hughes, a keychain from Annie Adams, lots of mini-skeins from Farmhouse Yarns, and lots more! Here's a close-up of the buttons from Gail Hughes...
Last year, these flew out my door quicker than cashmere on sale! They'll be priced and ready to go tomorrow night.

After such a long, exhausting weekend, this is all I wanted to do - curl up in my new goodies and take a nap, using some beautiful wool from Imperial Ranch as a pillow!

Look What I Found In The Garden!

Knitters! Look at this very rare caterpillar I found creeping along the fence outside! I think he's of the Very Hungry Caterpillar species.

I can tell because of his distinctive coloring. It's easy to see from the top view, which I snapped while he was luxuriating in the sun on my picnic table.

His facial features are distinctive as well. You can see, from this close-up of his face, that he's got a bright red head, big purple antennaes, and big green eyes, ringed in yellow. See his mouth? It's pretty big, so he can eat a lot. He is, after all, a Very Hungry Caterpillar.

He seems to be a very rare type of Very Hungry Caterpillar. Can you see his feet? It appears that he has hand knit socks on them! This is very rare indeed, a Knitter's Very Hungry Caterpillar. I decided to call him Chuck. Noro, meet Chuck.

It appears that Noro is not too sure about Chuck. I don't blame him, since Chuck is Very Hungry.

"What do we do about him, Mom? I think he wants to eat me!!"

As you can see, Chuck decided not to eat Noro, and they became friends pretty quickly. Noro even gave Chuck a piggy back ride to the tree!

Chuck thought the tree in my garden looked like a good place for a nap, so he inched his way up the tree and took a rest for awhile. Luckily, I was able to snap a picture. Napping is very rare for Knitter's Very Hungry Caterpillars. You know, because they're so Very Hungry!

Chuck really like my garden. He wanted me to take his picture on the "Welcome To My Garden" sign. I did, but I made sure that he knew that he couldn't get too attached to the garden. There was somewhere else that he was needed more than outside in the garden.

But before he could go there, to his new home, he wanted to explore an indoors Yarn Garden. So I took him inside. First thing he saw was a pot full of yarnflowers, and he begged me to let him hang out in the pot for a while.

Next stop inside was the Baby Room, where he felt oddly at home. He really liked the picture of the baby on the cover of Vintage Knits, so I took his picture next to it. He didn't really want to leave the Baby Room, but I picked him up and we continued on our exploration of the inside of a Yarn Garden.

The next thing that caught Chuck's attention was a hot pink basket. He thought that looked like a cozy hideout, so he hung out inside the basket for a while.

Not too far from the basket, Chuck spotted some huge Gerbera daisies. He felt so at home stretched out on those flowers, but then he saw the most beautiful, tastiest looking sweater he had ever seen.


I told him it was called the Flower Child sweater, which explained why he loved it so much. I perched him up on Dolly's shoulder, but he started to look Really Very Hungry. I snatched him down before he could take a bite of Flower Child.

All in all, Chuck said he was very impressed with the indoor Yarn Garden, and was glad that he could hang out there for a while. I took his picture under the indoor Yarn Garden sign, while he talked a bit with Potawatomi Pete the Frog in the window.

I was very glad to have Chuck in my life for a short time, but I knew there was a little person that was soon to enter this world that would love him even more. So Chuck got to go home, to anxiously await the arrival of Baby Stewart. We can't wait to meet you Stewie!

Chuck at his new home, waiting for Baby Stewart's arrival!

YG vs. YLYS - Let the Games Begin!

Join the yarn garden '"Gardeners" and the "Black Sheep" from Your Local Yarn Shop in Battle Creek for a little friendly competition to see which shop can knit more squares for charity. Get out your knitting needles and sock yarn, because the winning shop gets a special treat from the losing shop! Each shop will be collecting squares until the first Saturday in September, and we’re hoping to get enough for four afghans. We’ll be auctioning off two of the four blankets, with the proceeds going to Safe Place in Battle Creek and Siren Shelter in Charlotte. The other two will be going to you, the knitters of the squares. Each square you knit allows you to enter into a drawing, with the possibility of unlimited entries. At the end of the competition, we’ll be drawing two lucky names to win the remaining two afghans!

Pick up your instructions at your home shop, and get starting knitting. We’ll be holding classes and knit night swaps all summer long, so stay tuned for more details, as well as square tracker updates. Knit Yarn Garden Gardeners, knit!


YG vs. YLYS Squares
Each square takes approximately 75 yards of fingering weight yarn. Please use only washable wool blends; no acrylics please.

Instructions for square:
CO on 12 sts, divide among 4 dpns. Join for working in the round, being careful not to twist sts; place removable marker for beg. of round.

Rnd 1 – Knit
Rnd 2 - * K1, yo. place marker (pm), k1, yo, k1; repeat from * around – 20 sts
Rnd 3 – Knit
Rnd 4 - * Knit to marker, yo, slip marker (sm), k1, yo, knit to end of needle; repeat from * around.

Repeat Rnds 3 and 4 until your square measures 7.5 inches, and end by knitting 1 rnd. BO all sts loosely. Note: as square grows, move beginning of rnd marker as necessary.
Join us for “Knit a Square” Nights on the last Thursday of every month, from May through August.

My Non-Knitting Obsession

So, I've discovered a new passion of mine... baking! I think I love it because you get finished results pretty quickly. A good friend of mine, Kristy Walters, brought me a starter of Amish Friendship Bread. If you're not familiar with Amish Friendship bread, it's really fun. You get a starter from a friend, which I believe is a mixture of flour, sugar, milk, and yeast. You then let it ferment for 10 days, feeding it once during that time. Then on the tenth day, you feed it again, separate out 4 starters, and use the leftover dough to bake bread. You keep a starter and give the 3 remaining to a friend.

I've had so much fun trying different combinations in mine. So far, my favorite has been a chocolate/coffee flavor with chocolate chips that I baked into muffins. It's been a great breakfast. As you can see from these pictures, I went a bit overboard this last time, baking two batches. Two batches was enough to make two loaves of bread and 36 muffins. Mmmmm... they are so good!If you're interested in baking Amish Friendship bread too, come on in! I always have starters to give away.

The Traveling Socks...

So, I started this little game with 15 of my customers, and I'm pretty excited about it. The Traveling Socks is a fun way to get a funky, hand knit pair of socks, knit by all different people. This pair of traveling socks is divided up into 7 parts. Each "owner" of a pair starts her socks with the number of stitches to fit their foot/leg, and completes the cuffs. Then she'll send her cuffs on to the next person on the list, who will knit the next section of the sock, using yarn from their stash and whatever stitch pattern they'd like. Then that person will send it on to the next person on the list, and so on. The last person on the list will send the almost completed pair of socks back to the owner, who will knit the toes to make sure they fit. Everyone starts their pair at the same time, so everyone will end up with a hand knit, one-of-a-kind pair of socks. What fun, right?
Well, I started my cuffs using two different colors of Berroco Sox Metallic. I've always wanted to try knitting one sock inside the other, so I'm doing it! It's only a couple inches, and it's okay if the socks don't match perfectly. I plan to knit the opposite color on the toes, so they'll kind of match. Stay tuned to see the final product in a few weeks!

Finished One Just To Start Another...

and so it goes, right? I actually started two projects, but more on the second one tomorrow! This little pile of yumminess is going to be Hanne, designed by Lia Moya.

This is a stunning free pattern from Knitty's Spring 2009 edition, and you can find it here. I decided to use Noro's Silk Garden #84 and Cascade 220 #4192. I was thinking that black or charcoal was going to be the best contrast color for me to use, but my friend Sam convinced me to try the light pink. I think I'm really going to like it! It's certainly outside my color comfort zone, but there is green in it, so I'm good with that. This should be a good social knitting project, as it is basically mind-numbing garter stitch with four decreases every other row. What are you all working on?

Not So Basic Tank...

Here's a shot of my version of the Basic Summer Tank from Knitting Pure & Simple. I taught this at my shop, and encouraged my students to use the pattern as a springboard, making changes to the pattern as they saw fit. Each one of us ended up with a truly unique tank, custom fit to our own bodies, not the standard body sizes from a pattern.

It was very liberating for my students to not have to conform exactly to the pattern. I loved seeing the lightbulb moment when they "got it". They figured out how to make their knitting do what they wanted it to do, rather than just knitting exactly what the designer did. Good job ladies!

Technical Info:
Yarn - Smooth by King Cole (100% acrylic)
Needles - US 8 & 6
Pattern - loosely based on Basic Summer Tank from Knitting Pure & Simple