NEW Mini Minders, Color Your Pixels Kits, Woobles!

March 19, 2024

My freshman year at Michigan State, I moved into an 8' x 12' dorm room with a complete stranger, and we, quite randomly, brought matching sheet and comforter sets with us. Years later, we keep in touch, and she and her spouse visited in person a few years ago. I doubt they were surprised when I asked for a copy of this photo taken on a recent trip to Iceland. The statue is located outside the Sæta svínið (Sweet Pig) gastropub in Reykjavik, and weirdly, there are not that many photos of it online. I think that pigs in lopapeysas warrant ALL the attention!

…mark your calendars

Social Stitching

Every Saturday, 2-4pm

A reminder--if you're feeling poorly, please join us again as soon as you're feeling better!

Coming Soon

Yarn Folk 11th Anniversary

Saturday, April 13th. Cool stuff is in the works!

Spring Girls Night Out

Thursday, April 25th, 5-9pm. Details coming soon!

LYS Day

Saturday, April 27th. Mark your calendar for this annual celebration of local, independent yarn shops!

Knit Or Crochet Every Day in May

Back again for our third year! Trackers will be available mid-April. All finishers get a coupon for a purchase in June or July, and will be entered in a end-of-challenge prize drawing.

Date TBD (May)

Book signing and brioche class with Anita Osterhaug, author of Nordic Hands, and editor emerita of Handwoven magazine.

Weather Delay

In support of Groundhog Phil's prediction for an early spring, we're shortening this to a TL;DR version: if the weather seems extra-annoying, check social media and Google for possible weather-related updates.

…new in the shop

New Lemonwood Mini Minders. I want every single one of these. Luckily, this is a tool that you can reasonably justify having multiples of.

The Woobles are back! We have Fred the Rainbow Dinosaur, Felix the Fox, and the Rainbow Narwhal. These kits are a complete beginning crochet experience. They are recommended for "kids" 12 and up, but kids as young as eight can have good success with some help and/or previous crafting experience. They also make great gifts!

The folks at Urth Yarns were kind enough to promise a knit sample of the Color Your Pixels scarf to support my order, and it just arrived. Knit with slipped stitches, you're able to achieve the look of colorwork while only working with one color per row. Uneek Worsted is a self-striping yarn, and the colors of Harvest are rich, near-solid tonals. The two yarns are dyed on the same base, an ultrafine superwash merino that is S-on-S plied--it is bouncy, round, and because it holds a fair amount of twist, it resists pilling.

(All merino and other short-stapled fibers will pill a bit--they are soft next to the skin because they are short-stapled, and they can rub loose from the surface with a bit of abrasion for the same reason. It's why we carry good pill-removing tools like the Gleener and the Lilly Brush, so just love your merino, wear your merino, and clean it up from time to time. ✌🏻)

I digress! Here are some Color Your Pixels Kits. This will be one of those relaxing knits that pairs with SO MANY items in your wardrobe. (It would be a winner of a gift knit, too.)

…to inspire

Since I mentioned the ply structure (S-on-S) of the Urth Yarns above, I thought I would link a few great articles that dive deeper into the intricacies of ply, and the effects of ply structure on the finished yarn.

Jillian Moreno on The Why of Ply

Jill Wolcott Let's Talk Ply--Single, 2-, 3-, and Beyond

Patty Lyons Ask Patty: Why, Oh Ply?

Anything Clara Parkes is doing, anywhere she is doing it

...currently stitching

Not only did stitching continue on the Mila Cardigan (using Wooldreamers Saona and Berroco Aerial) and the Flair Free Cardi in Tosh Merino Light, I started a small design project linked to something that is in the works for Yarn Folk's Eleventh Anniversary. While the celebration won't be at quite the scale of last year's festivities, there is a lot of cool stuff coming up. Stay tuned!