Thursday, June 26, 2008

Pretty Cheep...

How cute are these? They're the "Pretty Cheep Project Bags" from Blue Sky Alpacas. The bag is a 12" square muslin fabric that is machine washable and perfect for your socks in progress. We got them in this week, along with all of the new colors of Skinny Cotton and Sport Weight Alpaca- they're so great!

Little bag sale: All of the Offhand Designs' bags that we have in stock are 30% off as well as the Namaste "Needle Totes" and "Yoga Tubes". We need to make some room for these..

This color "Peacock" is a limited edition, so if you likey, send me an email and I'll let you know when it arrives. Happy knitting and crocheting, I'm off to unravel a knot in my linen so I can start crocheting my bag!!

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Summer lovin' Linen...

Yes, I know, almost an entire month with out a blog post. Truth be told, I've been yawning a lot!! I've been teaching so much lately that by the time I get home, and am ready to blog, I'm cross eyed and yawning. What can I say? This baby is kicking my butt.

Fiber camp was terrific, it felt so good to teach the girls how to have fun with fiber art. We hand painted silk/merino with kool aid, felted bracelets and flowers, and last but not least learned how to knit. Half way through, the girls were power knitting. I was so proud!!


I have to post Jackie M's latest work in progress. For anyone who knows Jackie- she hardly ever works from a pattern, and knits and crochets the most flattering, lovely sweaters in the whole wide world (no really- she gets stopped on the street).. So this time, it is all about the granny square. She chose Blue Sky Alpaca's sport weight in yummy colors and is planning on a little cardi, I took this photo on Thursday I think, so it's probably already finished, hopefully I'll have a finished product picture to share with you this week. Check out her colors though, they're so fab...
I think the granny square bug is going around, because Lindsay's got it too, except she is crocheting with Louet's euroflax. Her colors are GORGEOUS!! She came flying in the door this past week, and said "I can't talk about it, I just have this idea". We hopefully when she returns from her trip to Nice, France, this will be a great big wrap (that I can borrow). She's using a C hook to create these little squares, I think we decided that in total- she needs to have 120 or so squares, ouch- that's a lot of ends. Luckily for Lindsay, she's weaving in the ends after each square!!
So guess what? I finished a project this week! I can't believe it, I'm almost back! I too crocheted with beautiful summerlicious Louet linen. I whipped up one of the hats in the Japanese crochet book that features all summer bags and hats. These patterns are fairly easy, once you get the hang of the crochet symbols- which can be found in any learn to crochet book- the symbols are universal. We will be having a class on this, so stay tuned. For my hat, I doubled the yarn on an F hook and it fits great. I think if I was to do it again, I would use the yarn single strand with maybe a few more repeats of the pattern, just to make it lighter. If you are ever interested in trying a crochet project from any of the Japanese books, come on over and I'll help you. We have lots of books to browse through, and they're all beautiful. Here's my hat!

We also have a finishing class coming up this week with Carolyn, for more information, check the website or give a call over to the shop. Happy knitting and Crocheting, I should say...