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Here are another group of our newest discontinued yarns that need to leave the building.  We’re sad to see them go, but hope you can find a place in your stash or inspirational queue to house these beautiful yarns.

Sublime Angora Merino

Misti Alpaca Worsted

Misti Alpaca Lace

Malabrigo Angora

Softspun

Debbie Bliss Donegal Tweed

Elsbeth Lavold Silky Flamme

That’s all for this week. Hope you find some treasures.

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Check out our summer fiber camp classes for kids and adults in July and August.  Sign up for half a day or a whole day and learn all kinds of new fiber crafts.  It’s certainly worth your time and the classes are at great prices to just cover instructor costs…  Don’t wait too long, they’ll be full before you know it.

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Make sure to add this great Knit Kit to your summer bag.  It’s got everything you need to measure, cut and count all in one.  Check out the newest color in black.

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We’ve featured this bag in the last two newsletters for the sheer purpose of making sure you were aware of this “Awesome” carry all bag.  We have taken the liberty of showing you how a few of our staff have used the bag, in hopes that  you’ll be inspired to see it for more then just another bag… This one rocks! (at this point most of the staff have one)  I wonder how many golf balls you could fit in there?  I gave one to my husband for Father’s Day full of jerky… Get creative, the possibilities are endless.

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Last fall, we picked up the Harry Potter sock yarn from Opal (in case you didn’t already know this). The release of the yarn was supposed to coincide with the release of the movie “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”. Harry Potter Fans were already on the look-out and snapped up a bunch of the yarn. Opal creates sock yarn in colorway collections – limited editions. When they sell out, they don’t make anymore (again, in case you didn’t already know this). What we have left is all we will ever have. Anyway, the movie release was postponed and the rest of the yarn has been slowly trickling out the door. All of it that is except for the Lupin colorway. There are almost 2 dozen balls of this color still in the store. Granted, the bulk of the sock is going to be yellow and orange stripes. I know from Yarn Store Experience that yellow and orange are not big sellers. But in the case of Lupin, I think it is important to ask you to look past mere issues with color. As I knit through one entire repeat of the colorway, I found myself coming up with my own symbolism to help explain the yarn: (frankly, I had to just so I could make it through the 3.75″ of yellow and orange!!!) There is an almost two inch stretch of blue and gray which can easily be correlated to a wolf (with blue eyes?). Even I have a hard time explaining the pink bit, but as I am a pink lover, I didn’t mind it.

Now, harder to put into words is the “werewolfie” or “werewolfish” yellow and orange bits. I have taken a poll of my colleagues and walk-in customers and everyone describes this portion as very “werewolfish”. What comes to mind for me is the full moon, bright flashes of light, and the gnashing of teeth during the transformation. All in all, not a color I would normally gravitate toward. But in the interest of supporting the character of Lupin, I will knit slightly ghastly bits of yellow and orange. Let’s face it: On Lupin’s first Harry Potter appearance he saved Harry from the dementors; he was best mates with Harry’s Dad; he gave the Marauder’s Map back to Harry for future use; Lupin was so great that Tonks fell in love with him despite the full moon business; and last but certainly not least, Albus Dumbledore trusted Lupin enough to hire him as a teacher. Rise to the occasion Harry Potter fans – look past color and and get a ball of the Lupin colorway (if you haven’t already) before it is all gone (if only) and wear them proudly to the movie release next month. Or wear the Harry Potter socks you’ve already finished and take Lupin “On The Needles” to your local cinema for happy movie knitting. We also happen to have a dozen or so of the Ron color and the Draco color. At the risk of offending someone, I think the only balls of Draco we have sold are to people who have no knowledge of Harry Potter and simply liked the colorway – very denimy bluejeans. And in all conscience I cannot even ask anyone to buy Draco. (I didn’t.) Does the label EVIL VILLAIN come to mind?  Don’t know why we still have Ron left – maybe everyone thought the colorway that was a combination color for Ron and Harry sufficed. The Ron is a lovely fallish rust color so while you are ordering a ball of Lupin you may as well get Ron too!!

As for the other On the Needles projects: I do not have a progress update on the shrug or the Block Island Blend vest because there is no progress. Last weekend I was in my tiny laundry room looking for something (what was I looking for?) and I had a momentary stab of dismay at the quantity of UFO’s (unfinished objects)  in there. This brief feeling coupled with the fact that I am constantly teased at work for knitting so much with pink urged me to grab the closest bag of UFO’s and finish something. The bag I speak of contained three different projects – all blue, thank you very much. First I pulled out the babushka which I made out of Noro’s Chirimen and finished that up. Then I pulled out a sweater I had started for my daughter Meredith out of the Debbie Bliss Rialto Aran. I finished the back, the hood and the first sleeve. I only have one sleeve to go which will only take a minute. She absolutely loves the smooshiness of this yarn ( so do I, which is why I chose it; that and it is machine washable).

The babushka pattern is in a book called Knitting To Share. It is a lovely book with a “to die for” Aran sweater in it. The book and the Noro Chirimen came into the store around the same time and in my own need for immediate gratification, I decided they were a perfect couple. Also, I felt I might be in need of a cotton/silk head scarf this summer for help with bad humidity hair days. (Did I mention that I really just wanted a good excuse to knit with the new Noro?) What’s not to love about a lightweight cotton/silk self-striping yarn???? Meredith’s sweater is the Knitting Pure and Simple  Children’s Tunic. I started knitting it for her because she needed a new sweater and she wasn’t very thrilled with it back in March. She never is very thrilled with my knitting (she is at saturation point) and abhors trying things on and being measured. But now she happens to be in love with the silly thing and on Wednesday night when I finished the first sleeve, she sat on the floor watching TV with it on – Addi Turbos hanging from the unfinished sleeve. Go figure.

My goal over the weekend is to finish Meredith’s sweater (so she won’t have to wear it with needles in it) and the Misti Cotton shrug, with a little Lupin squeezed in. Then I will get back to the wrap vest.

Thanks again for tuning in. Don’t be shy to send me comments/suggestions/questions. I would love to hear from you. Happy Knitting!

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In the time it took to learn my way around having a blog (linking, uploading, publishing…) I put lots of new things On the Needles. I will not be apologetic about it – I’m just keeping up my share of the A.D.D. Knitters of America local chapter. Besides, it really isn’t my fault that the new colors of Sockotta came in just in time to satisfy my own personal Memorial Day Weekend Sock Knitting Extravaganza. I love Sockotta sock yarn because it is a cotton/wool blend and I am often too hot in all wool socks. I still knit  and wear 100% wool socks but reach for my Sockotta socks most of the time. The first sock I ever knit was out of Sockotta and I was instantly smitten. Soooo… I snapped up this summer sherbet color (color #63) and went to town. It looked so beautiful on my desk that walk-in customers couldn’t resist and we quickly sold out. I was then compelled (I can’t remember who was twisting my arm)) to get another new color – the southwest desert (color #59)- and knit one of those up.

At Christmas last year I switched sock knitting methods. I left behind my double point needles and embraced  one sock at a time on 2 Addi Turbo circulars and haven’t looked back since. The knitting is so much faster and pleasingly pleasant that my Second Sock Syndrome is almost completely cured.  In fact, I will now boldly proclaim my Second Sock Syndrome a brand, a label, an issue of my past and rename myself Second Sock Sally!! I do feel the pangs of my beautiful collection of double point sock needles as they languish alone in jars and needle holders (the television commercial where the mop is trying to woo the woman to give up her new Swifter comes to mind). But languish they will as completed socks continue to fly off of my 2 circular Addi Turbos.

As it happens, I also acquired a new summer dress around the same time. It is rather fancy, for me anyway, and the bodice straps are a little more revealing than I am used to. Luckily, I work in a yarn shop and immediately began the search for a fabulous shrug pattern that would cover up the bits I wanted to hide. I found this to be surprisingly hard but finally hit upon a pattern in the book Lace Style – the Little Silk Shrug by Pam Allen. I love the simplicity of it; the scantiness not so much. The shrug is a simple lace rectangle with a couple of inches sewn together under the arms. I decided to enlarge the width of the rectangle and make it a little longer (again to cover up the bits I want to hide) and here is my progress so far. I am using the Misti Cotton which is a pima cotton and silk blend. I love this cotton. The silk (17%) adds a little something special – a little sheen and it almost has a halo. It will feel so good on my shoulders this summer that I am considering buying a few tank tops to wear with it. I love cotton garments in general and do enjoy knitting with cotton despite its lack of elasticity and bounce. I am thinking of this color as vibrant watermelon (color #16) making it perfect for a quick summer project.

We recently expanded our selection of Addi Lace Needles from sizes 1-4 to sizes 1-9 and I picked up size 8 lace tips for this shrug. Addi Lace tips are a dream, or should I say half of a dream? The coating on the needles is a bit stickier than the traditional Addi coating and that slows it down a bit – in theory a good idea for lace knitting. In practice (at least for me) it is a little too slow and I would dearly love a combo – fast needles with a wondrously tapered tip. Until the day when the Needle Manufacturers deign to give us everything we are looking for in ONE needle, I will keep switching back and forth between needle types to suit my purposes. Like we all do all the time because we have to – more on this later.

Here also is an update of the Wrap Vest in Block Island Blend. Since this vest is done side-to-side, picture taking is a challenge so I pinned it to our in-store mannequin, Stella. Poor Stella. She has her own deficiencies (out of respect for her, I will not enumerate them here) so the piece still isn’t being shown to best advantage but at least the progress is noticeable. I valiantly knit about 10 inches over the weekend and have completed the left side armhole and am now facing the next 10 inch expanse across the back to the right armhole. A veritable Knitter’s Waste Land of back and forth ribbing on a size 5 needle…………

I will, however reluctantly, charge headlong  toward the goal – a beautiful flowing pink summer vest – with the newfound support of my readers. (Plus, I have the shrug on size 8’s to switch to when I need a break.) While I am on the subject of Block Island Blend, I would like to throw a shout out to a colleague of mine here at Halcyon, Beth Hood. This spring she knit her fingers to the bone designing a Christening Gown with the lovely Block Island Blend. You may have seen it in an advertisement in Interweave Knits. Here is what she has to say about this fiber: “Buds of beautiful texture form a beautiful fabric knit from Block Island Blend. The ply suggests a delicate tweed or highlights to the color. I love knitting with Block Island Blend and seeing the texture pattern emerge. In the case of the Christening Gown, the texture of the fiber gives one the sense of a true heirloom.” You will be hearing more from Beth and seeing much more of her work as this blog takes shape.

Thanks for tuning in – Happy Knitting!