What’s New & Exciting?

What We’ve Been Up To

What an awesome week…and weekend! On Saturday, I was on hand at the Tett Centre in Kingston for the first outing of the season of Purlin’ J’s Roving Yarn Co. It was an absolutely glorious day to spend down by the water with knitty friends Deb and Elizabeth. In the interest of full disclosure, I broke my diet for a slice of carrot cake from the Juniper Cafe. It was well worth the calories to sit in the sun with friends, sipping latte, eating cake and looking at knitting books 🙂

L’il Dorothy (the truck) is in fine form! And look at the goodies inside!

I was lucky to acquire the swoon-worthy skein above by Agrestral Yarn. I love everything about it! It is a wool/mohair blend, yet does not have any of the scratchiness I normally find in yarns that contain mohair. It is tightly spun, lending it an almost wiry hand which turns to butter when you touch it. If you’ve never seen Agrestral before (and I was unaware of it before last weekend), it is an ethically sourced Canadian yarn colored delicately with botanical dyes. I’m telling you, the colors are unbelievably subtle and enigmatic. “After The Storm”, which is the colorway I chose, is dyed using indigo and lac, which is a liquid insect extract. (Wouldn’t you know… I’d pick the one with the bug-juice in it. Typical.)

Sunday was Mother’s Day. You probably already know that. Carl and I went and actually physically removed Mumsie from her house. This is significant because Mumsie is all tied up in casts at the moment and glued to a wheelchair. For someone who is used to being an active, shopaholic, library-addicted globe-trotter, this is torture. We all went outside, to an actual restaurant and that was a good thing 🙂

What’s Comin’ Up

Ohmygoodness. So much. First, CLASSES! I’m so excited about both of these and about teaching in new venues. You can register right from the sidebar!

• TOES UP! will inspire those easy, super-portable summer sock projects. There are so many interesting sock yarns to choose from in a variety of fibers and as a summer project, socks are perfect! Nothing warm and wooly sitting in your lap.
• KNIT to FIT will ensure that all your garments look their very best! Whether you’re knitting for yourself or others, there’s a ton of useful information in this class that every knitter needs to know.

And speaking of knitting a gorgeous, flattering, perfectly fitted garment…the new MARTHA CARDIGAN pattern launches on Friday! That’s one full day sooner than I expected, thanks to the talents of an incredible test-knitter, Marianne. Starting Friday morning and continuing through the weekend, you can use the coupon code MYMARTHA to receive $2 off the price of the pattern. Look for details in Friday’s post.

And <ahem> … on Wednesday, May 18, that’s one week from today, tune in for LittleChurch: The Podcast. Yikes. Yay.

And there’s the new SHOP! I want pretty, fresh, new project bags for all my summer things. I want a nice, clean, fresh-from-the-clothesline place to store my little socks and shawls as I knit, so I shall make some! And you can have some too starting Friday, May 20.

Sneak Peeks

I love swatching! I love knitting them and then looking at them staring back, begging to be knitted. I like giving them a little space to dream of what they want to be when they grow up into real, big, knitted things.

I did a big batch of swatching last week for sample knitters too. Those are things you’ll see later, but here’s a couple of Free Pattern Friday sneak peeks.

I think that’s all the news that’s fit to print! Next Wednesday, you’ll have my silly face to look at and show notes to read instead!