Finding Time

A customer in a sock class during our Green Sale on St. Patrick's Day

I woke up today and realized that I, literally, had nothing to do. So of course I did my errands, and I'm doing my chores. I don't work today, finals are all over, and I basically decided that it was the day to be a Good Boy and do everything that I put off all week because I have work or school or something. Days like today are when I am possibly the happiest, just running my life and making sure that everything happens the way it ought to.

But! The shop, oh yes, the shop. We have been busy this past week. On Saturday we had a green sale, which gave me an idea for bi-monthly, year-round events..you'll see, 'cause the wrinkles are waiting to get ironed out and that will have to wait until we get our April-May-June class list into action.

By the way, Earth Day is in April and we are considering a series of Sunday or Saturday classes to follow the themes of Reclaiming and Recycling for our knitting and spinning, so watch for those on the website and if you have any questions please come ask us!

We also had a trunk show with the girls of Zephyr Style and they were SO friendly. I asked them a few questions, but neglected to really write anything down so I will tell you what I remember.

The girls do the layout of all the patterns themselves, and as they are both graphic designers in Real Life this is pretty easy and makes for a fantastic finished product. Their patterns are clear and concise, with schematics to show the measurements and proportions.

They actually started out making stitch markers before branching out into designing. When I asked about their inspiration, they said that it varied for each sweater and that certain garments started out in the sketch stage and were altered radically before the end while others were more organic, progressing naturally.

I really liked a sweater that I saw there called The Tree Jacket, which is NOT yet available. I think I'm going to make a men's version, or at least a sweater with a squared-off, garter-stitch yoke.

Talking with them was very very easy, as both are very personable and I hope to see them in the shop again! If you're interested in buying their patterns, you can find them by going through this page and order them from Abundant Yarn, or you can look at the list of retailers on www.zephyrstyle.com

Many of you have been asking where all the neeldes have gone, and here I must apologize. We have been having some difficulty with several shipments lately which will be resolved shortly and hopefully we will be able to have needles on a more regular basis from now on.

Speaking of shipments, we just received part of our Noro order and it is proudly displayed near the front of the store, where we can gaze longingly at it from the register.

I also took a decent picture of Hannah. Who found time to knit on one of the prettiest days in the past two weeks.

Rainbows

Things at the shop have really been crazy lately - Stev is now managing both the yarn store and the cafe, which means more work than ever. Fortunately the cafe crew is pretty good at maintaining the place on their own so Stevanie isn't totally overloaded. See how calm she looks in the photo?





We've gotten some new yarns in in the past few weeks. The Cascade 220 Superwash, some new colours of Cascade Jewel which is a deadringer for Rio De La Plata, Nikki a thick/thin yarn from Cascade. We like Cascade, they have nice stuff for low prices. They fit nicely into my budget.


This is Nikki in one colourway. You can see all of the ones we carry on our website, and then there's always Cascade's website for all the colours.






We're talking about carrying a fingering weight alpaca, but nothing solid yet.

Also! We're planning a few retreats for the next coming months. There may be one during the summer, and we're thinking one the weekend after Mother's Day. Annie Modesitt is going to be teaching at one of them, so be sure to keep an eye out for them!

As an aside; Annie is one of the knit designers that I have a great deal of respect for even though her designs are not usually to my taste. Her dedication to technique is incredible, and I think that her repertoire of skills is amazingly varied. If her class list is anything to go by, then she's definitely one of those people who is always trying to look at knitting from another angle. I like that.

I'm really excited about the fiber festival that's coming up on the 15th. It's the Ides Of March Fiber Festival, and it will be from 9 to 9, regular store hours. It should be really awesome, a lot of our own customers will be showing their best stuff.

Portland has been abso-fricking-lutely gorgeous lately. I have taken lots of pictures of the sunrises over the past few days when it has been shockingly clear. They're the kinds of mornings that make me WANT to get out of bed and have a good day.