working with hand dyed yarns

we are bringing a lot of hand-dyed yarns into the shop. the colors are yummy and they are all the rage right now. we have small boutique companies like madelinetosh, vice yarns, lorna's laces and dream in color but there are larger companies such as manos del uruguay and malabrigo that are considered hand-dyed.

when we place an order with these companies, the yarn is dyed for us at that time and so the yarn is from one dye lot. but the nature of the hand dyeing process make each skein of a color unique and that is one of the reasons hand dyed yarn is so pretty. knitters need to be aware of this when knitting a project that required more than 1 or 2 skeins. 

so if you love hand dyed yarn and you want to knit will it, just switch from one end of the ball to the other every few inches. or you can switch balls entirely every few inches. this allows any changes in color to spread out over the garment and not concentrate in one place. plus it makes the end result even prettier. try it the next time you pick up a hand dyed yarn to work with. i think you will see the difference.

needlepoint stockings

one of my main personal goals for market this year was to pick out needlepoint stockings for my family. we have store-bought stockings with our names on them but i want to personally needlepoint stockings for van, will and i.

after much research, i decided that i wanted to go with the dallas-needlepoint company, strictly christmas. her stockings are more expensive than most of the other brands but i love her aesthetic. they screaming the shimmer, sparkle and light of the christmas season. 

plus her collection has great boy-themed inspiration. she has a christmas tree decorated with trains and cars. she has a little boy sitting in a chair reading to his stuffed dinosaur. she has a little boy standing in front of a store window with sport equipment lining the shelves. 

so while are market in the end of june, i visited the strictly christmas booth several times - carefully looking at the offerings. i thought i knew which stocking i wanted for will but i had no idea what to chose for van and myself. and in fact i selected for will the stocking with a little boy standing in front of a  store window looking at the shelves filled with fire trucks, trains, cars - all things wheels. perfect for my little boy who loved all things wheels. 

van was also easy to pick. santa on the floor in front of a christmas tree with a train engineer's hat playing with a toy train. perfect for my big boy who loves trains.

but what about me? i'm definitely not an angel type of person. and the christmas tree stockings weren't speaking to me. i looked and looked. i asked the designer for help. i went away and came back. and there it was - a christmas tree with a little girl dancing in pointe shoes in the foreground. perfect. 

do you need to block or will a little soak work?

soak is back at the YARN mart in three favors - scentless, lacey and yuzu. and who better to teach you how to soak than the experts.

soak is ideal for raw fibers, spinning, dyeing – and for the entire fiber lifecycle. it’s also perfect for cashmere, wool, cotton and other delicate fabrics. here are some fool-proof laundry tips that will turn you into a hand-washing pro. (who knew it could be so easy?)

don’t worry about colour. gentle cleansers like soak can pull excess dye out of knitted items. so if you see dye in the water, it’s okay. it won’t harm your item. it comes out of your clothes in the machine too, you just don't see it there.

get the water out.  squeeze out as much as you can, but be gentle.  don't wring or twist it and don't lift it up and let the weight of the water stretch it out.  roll it up in a clean towel to absorb water, or if your machine has a gentle spin cycle, just spin it away.

lay it flat. place the item on a towel, reshaping as you go (for the knitting-uninitiated, this process is called blocking). lay it flat in a spot with good air circulation on all sides. flip it over so it has a chance to dry on both sides.

knitters, soak your swatches. measure your stitch count when the swatch has dried; the stitches will relax and the block will likely grow in size.

needlepoint has gone high tech!

one of the best resources for needlepoint is the needlepoint book. well now the needlepoint app is the high tech version of the needlepoint book. you can download it from the app store on your iphone or ipad (sorry i don't know about android) and you have hundreds of needlepoint stitches at your fingertips. plus the app tells you how to use and where to use them. if you love to needlepoint, check it out.