Strange things happen to me during the very dull month of July. It’s a nothing month in the yarn biz. The fun of new summer yarns is over, the thrill of new fall yarns is yet to come. And I got in trouble by starting a long and dull fingering-weight t-shirt with no challenges, thinking I’d while away the long hot summer with an easy project and be ready when new stuff gets here. Well, new stuff is coming in and I’m not ready, this project is taking forever, it’s boring as can be, and I hate, hate, hate it. (At least right now I do.)
This is what it looks like, with about 5 inches to go on long rounds of knit, knit, knit to get to the hem.
Then this hits the store:
Now, tell me, which would you rather be knitting with? See what I mean? But I’m very disciplined (when it comes to knitting) so I’ll finish the t-shirt and learn to love it at some future, some very distant future point. In the meantime, it’s fun to think about what to make with the new yarn, which is called “Savvy” from Dream in Color. It’s 250 grams of luscious superwash super-bulky merino, hand-dyed in the loveliest colors. It’s super in every way! I only ordered a few skeins (it’s price-y) so it’s definitely a one-skein project for me, like this cute set.
Or two or three headbands, so popular now and great gifts.
Or a set of mittens, warm and washable, with our free super-bulky mitten pattern. Fast, satisfying and giftable, that’s what I’m looking for. (We also got new and wonderful colors of DIC’s Smooshy with Cashmere, one of our favorite fingering-weight yarns, but no, no, no! That’s not what I’m looking for right now. No more fingering-weight projects for a little while, no matter how luxurious the yarn!)
Speaking of giftable, remember Marla, the new Manos yarn I raved about a couple weeks ago. I’m still raving. I made the “Medium” size of Sonatine (the small size must be really small!) using Marla as the main color and a combo of leftovers (a shiny fingering + lace-weight mohair) for the lace strip.
It’s super-pretty, most of the knitting is really easy, and if you are afraid of lace, just put in a contrasting garter stitch stripe; it would still be lovely. And I have enough Marla left to do another cowl, just striping the two at random, so ta-da, two really great gifts and a lot of knitting pleasure. We still have most of the colors, so don’t let it pass you by!
I hope you saw this beautiful array of sock yarn in my newsletter last week:
New Opal, some of the best in the sock yarn field, and such color combinations! I could happily take every one home and knit socks for years, if my hands hold out. Something here will be brother-in-law socks and something will be Trish socks, but I haven’t narrowed it down yet. Could take a while!
We’ll be working on the fall class schedule over the next couple of weeks. It looks like a sweater-heavy schedule, with something for all levels. I’m going to try to fit in a crochet class, maybe to work on this very cute baby sweater, in soft, washable Eco-Tweed.
We have great kid colors:
and the smallest size took only one skein. Who doesn’t need a baby sweater in stock?
Yay, fall is coming and it’s already arriving at the shop!
