Thursday, January 28, 2010

WHAT'S NEW...

Things have been busy here at The Yarn Co. We've been ordering lots of new and exciting spring yarns - which will begin arriving in February. We actually already got one of the new yarns - Tahki, Mia - which is a great nubby cotton that gets 3 stitches to the inch and is super soft. We are knitting a cute raglan pullover with it. We also just knit a great new baby blanket out of the Sirdar, Baby Bamboo. It is a 5x5 rib using the yarn held double and striping it in the colors of the rainbow. It came out really great. We substituted pink for blue in the rainbow (we do know it's roygbiv, not roygpiv!) because we didn't have a good blue - but it works. Julie also knit a GREAT jacket out of the Wooly Merino yarn - the yarn is soft and fabulous to knit with and the jacket looks great on - I think I need to make one for Zoe for next fall. I finished Max's sweater out of the cashmere I pulled out of an old sweater. I did a 5x5 rib and it looks good on him. One of these days I really need to make him model his sweaters! I picked up Jeff's cabled Aran Cashmere sweater again and finished knitting the back. All those cables are slow going at this point in my life - but maybe I'll really finish it for his 45th birthday in July...or his 46th...I also want to make Zoe a skirt for the spring out of the Lace Merino. I think I will make it A-line with a lace pattern at the bottom and stockinette the rest of the way. So much to knit, so little time! Also - if you have any pictures of items you made from here that you'd like to share - email them to us at yarnco@verizon.net! it's always fun to see things people have made. Check out the great stuffed animal by Sam: And the adorable torino polka dot blankets by Karen: Also, as an aside...Leslie, who works at The Yarn Co. is making a sweater out of an old Bottega Cashmere and needs another ball or two - anyone knit with this and willing to part with their leftovers?

Saturday, January 9, 2010

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Happy New Year! I cannot believe it is 2010! I am happy to have the holiday's behind me though - December is such a hectic month, between Channukah, Max's birthday, holiday parties, school functions and the store at it's busiest. Now that it is January I am hoping things will calm down a little. Although, I read this article in the NY Times recently that talked about how we are a nation of people who put off pleasure because we always think that we will be less busy in the future and will have more time to go spend that gift certificate or use those miles...but it never happens that way. We are always just as busy, life never really slows down. After reading the article I decided to try to do many things that i have been putting off and to do as many things that I enjoy as possible. So, I got industrious and CLEANED my disgusting bedroom. We had papers, clothes and everything under the sun all over the place. You could not see our desk, either of the chairs in our room,the mantel over the fireplace...it's been that way for 5 years or so. I became a machine. I filed, I folded, I threw out garbage bags full of stuff...And I now live in a beautiful room! When Jeff comes home from work and tries to put his tie on a chair I swoop in and say "you are not going to put that THERE are you???" I then moved onto Max's room and to the living room and organized all the toys (I even organized the lego into similar sized pieces). It was very fulfilling! Next, I ripped out a cashmere sweater that I had made years ago. It was heavily cabled and very wide and short - basically unwearable. So I am now making a sweater for max out of it and I think I will be able to make one for myself too. I also knit Zoe a new hat to go with her new jacket, lengthened the cute shrug I'd made her over the summer and organized all of my yarn and needles. I also made my friend who just had a baby a blanket and went downtown to Purl fabric to get a backing for it. (I still have to sew it together). I finished reading John Irving's new book - Last Night in Twisted River - which I LOVED. If you like John Irving (he is my all time favorite author) - it is classic John Irving at his best - although it took a little to get into it. And I have watched a bunch of movies - and added to my queue all of the movies that are out now that I know I won't get to and will forget about later--making use of my netflix account that usually sits dormant. I also baked Max a cake for his birthday and cupcakes for school. And then we had a dinner party for New Year'eve for which I cooked up a storm, hosting three other couples and their kids, two of whom slept over. After all that, I was exhausted for 3 or 4 days. Then I had to go back to work and had lots of back office stuff to do, had to send all the Prism yarns back, and we did an inventory of ALL of our yarn. The benefit of that is the store looks terrific now. It is organized and neat. There are also lots of new Sale yarns in the back room --some excellent deals. Come in and check it out. Well, my burst of blogging energy is running out--I have to go and make some baseball cookies for Max's birthday party tomorrow. Maybe after tomorrow things will slow down and I will have more time - or maybe I'll have nothing left to do...ha ha ha.