HOT! HOT!! HOT!!!

I am ready for this weather to break! It is hard to pick up yarn and needles in this heat - even in our well air conditioned store. But - I must knit...so I dropped the baby cashmerino sweater I am making for Max (yet again) and am making a European Market Bag right now. It is going to be really cute I think. I am using two strands of the Berroco NaturLin, http://www.theyarnco.com/brand_display/427, on a #10.5 needle and doing a simple lace stitch. I'll put it on when I am done. I got the idea after reading Time magazine about how "green" businesses are flourishing and the how the woman's business that brought these bags to the US is thriving! I figured why not make one that our customers can make and then use. I tried to take the easy way out and just find a pattern for one - but most of the ones I found were crocheted - and that is not my forte - so I decided to design a simple knit one! So now you can either buy one of Jen's Go Green Go Knits bags or make your own market bag! Another good project for these heatwave days is socks! I never thought I'd say it - but they are quick, small and fun to do. We just got in this great Noro Silk Garden sock yarn, http://www.theyarnco.com/doSearch.php?search=0&key=silk+garden, and Mercedes made a cute pair of socks out of just one ball. She used a super easy pattern from the book Getting Started Knitting Socks by Ann Budd. We are expecting several more sock yarns in August. That's it for the knitting news.

hi from the other yarn girl

Jordana has done most- ok 99.9% of the blogging. But since she missed a week, I thought I might take a stab at it. Jordana and I are barely working together this summer. Summer is a bit slower so we don’t really need both of us at the store and this way we get to spend a bit more time with our children and get errands done a.k.a spend more money. So I read the blog to see what she, and more importantly, her kids are up to. Even though we aren't seeing much of each other our younger 2 children, Nicholas (mine, he's 19 months) and Zoe (you know all about her) are. They play almost everyday, sometimes twice a day, at the park. Nicholas calls Zoe Za Za – I think he said that before he said Mommy. Last week I got a first glimpse of what I will be doing all of August. We received our fall shipment of Zara and Noro Sock Yarn called Silk Garden Socks. We actually ordered several sock yarns and sock patterns. This will be new to the Yarn Co. We are excited about it. I have to admit, I never made a pair of socks – but I am going to make a pair as soon as our solid colors of Koigu PPM arrives (I will double the yarn). The majority of our yarns will start coming in August 1st (the poor UPS guy has to carry huge boxes up our steep and narrow stairs). Once this happens, I am relegated to the office with the camera and computer as I add the new yarns and new colors to our site. I haven’t done as much knitting as I like this summer. I did make Olivia a dress and a baby blanket for my friend Lisa's new baby. The only time I really get to knit is in the car. But now I am determined to become a driver, so I'll have to find another time. I do have my license, but I grew up in NYC and never really had the opportunity to drive that much. Now I just have to gain some confidence and clock some hours behind the wheel. Now to my knitting sad story. The dress I made for Olivia was the first knit dress I ever made for her. She chose the yarn and the color – and after it was all done and looked so cute on her decided she did not like it. Somehow I convinced her to wear it to her pre-school graduation. She had it on and she complained that it felt "too heavy." I accepted defeat and told her to take it off. She had a point. She was used to wearing light cotton dresses, not a knit dress that had some weight to it. I decided this weight might be more bearable in a skirt. So I cut the dress and made it into a skirt and top. Olivia will probably wear neither, but my son Nicholas loved the skirt. I had to chase him around my apartment to take it off. (See the picture) Hmmm, blogging isn’t so bad. I am sure Jordana will be back next week. If not, you may hear from me again.

WHAT'S BEEN GOING ON?

I can't believe it is already July 9th! I don't know where the last month has gone, it has been a whirlwind! Max's school ended - which meant many required activities. We had his art show, his end of year class party, the kindergarten end of year picnic, his movie premiere (he made a great movie about Bob Marley) and several half days stuck in there just to throw life off! Then, of course, we had our big blowout June sale - had to make room for all the fall/winter yarn that is on its way imminently. Then Max's camp began, he is loving it but getting on the bus every morning is a bit rough. The first day I cried after I put him on - he looked so nervous and like he was about to burst into tears. All day I had a stomach ache and thought "what kind of a terrible mother am I- putting my 5 year old on a bus alone where he knows noone?" But of course he got off the bus and was happy as a clam with lots to tell about his first day. And everyday is like this he is not thrilled about getting on the bus but then has lots of great events to report once he is home. They have breakfast for lunch once a week (apparently a big highlight), he is going to take his deep water test soon, he rode in go-carts by himself with noone running along beside him and did not crash, and today was water carnival day - it was going to be his best day ever! Don't you love the enthusiasm a five year old has! Then it was July 4th weekend and we went away to visit friends. When I get home tonight I have to post a picture of Zoe that is hilarious! We had a great time - but going visiting is always tiring. And I've been taking Zoe to many doctor's appointments (poor baby is getting tubes put in her ears on Friday). So, suffice to say there has not been that much downtime. ' I have hardly even been knitting...actually that isn't true. I made my friend Lisa who just had a baby girl the Victoria dress (http://www.theyarnco.com/knit_display/206#)that is on the cover of our baby book. I did it in red with pink fizzy trim. Came out great. I made one for Zoe last year - and I put it on her the other day to go to a birthday party and she was the talk of the party. She actualy walked to the party (10 blocks) and so many people stopped her to say how cute she looked. I also made myself a linen shrug in grey (http://www.theyarnco.com/knit_display/369) - also a great fast project - I needed something to wear over my black dresses. And I am in the middle of making Max a sweater out of baby cashmerino - but it is a little slow going and boring but I'm plugging away. I also read two books - James Frey's new book - Bright Shiny Morning - at first I hated it - very disjointed - but in the end I really enjoyed it. He is very easy to read and a good story teller. I also read Wolf at the Table by Augusten Burroughs - if you liked Running with Scissors you'll like it - very similar - I can't even imagine such a childhood! Next I think I will try America, America by Ethan Canin. I also got invited to be in a book club. I am a bit ambivalent about it - I am not really a book club kind of girl. I like to read what I want when I want and am not so into discussing the books - but we'll see. We are getting all of our Zara yarn in tomorrow or Friday and some Noro sock yarn. Other new yarns will start coming at the beginning of August. Ok- anyone wany to take bets on whether I will post again next week?? Hopefully.

THE YARN SHOW

Before I begin telling you all about our trip to Columbus, Ohio for the yarn show - i just wanted to remind everyone that our ANNUAL SUMMER SALE is going on right now through Thursday, July 3! Most yarns are 10%-30% OFF and we need to make room for all the new fall/winter yarns that will be arriving in August! So come in or check out our website and place an order! (http://www.theyarnco.com/) So, Columbus was mainly good. We had to get all our shopping done on Saturday- so we moved through the place at record speed. First we hit the Koigu booth. We ordered beautiful new colors in the multi Kpppm and - BIG NEWS - we finally ordered Koigu Solids! We have avoided doing this for several years, despite wanting to do it, because the color range is so overwhelming and it is nearly impossible to choose. But we sat down and put our noses to the grindstone and we ordered 25 beautiful solids! We should get them in late August/early September. We'll keep you posted. Other great stuff: We ordered 2 new yarns from Prism. A hand dyed merino that is 5 stitches to the inch. I think it was called symphony. It was really beautiful. And we got a Prism sock yarn in lots of fun hand-dyed colors. We arte also getting indulgence and angora from them again. We are getting this great dk weight yarn from Crystal Palace called Panda Silk. It is a bamboo and silk blend. It is machine washable and comes in beautiful, rich multi colors. We ordered some great new colors in Unique Kolours Absolutely Fabulous throw kits, lots of beautiful Blue Sky yarns - many of which are coming in new colors, new Lexie Barnes and Della Q bags and needlecases and lots of new books. We also found some great carded button sets that will look great on kids sweaters! Oh - and we tried to make the switch from carrying manos to carrying malabrigio yarn. BUT apparently they had a fire in their wasrehouse and it will be 6 months until delivery is back to normal AND they want payment up front for the first order - which if we replace Manos would have to be huge so - maybe next year. But we tried! Got to get going now - but in my next post I will have to tell you a bit about the all nite party that went on in the room next door to us and got us our hotel "comped" for the weekend. And about my new sleep training mission with Zoe (she won't sleep in her crib and vomits if we put her in it at night - last night we began this program to get her falling asleep in her crib and not vomiting when we put her in - but she vomited before we ever got her into the crib!) Happy Knitting!

CHECK OUT ZOE'S NEW OUTFITS

I finally got Zoe to pose in two of her new summer outfits that I made her. She loves the Banyan skirt. I made it a little longer than her Tiger skirt - but otherwise it is the same. Banyan comes in great colors and it is very nice to knit with. http://www.theyarnco.com/brand_display/378. Her Tika dress came out great also - I was going to do this three row fairisle pattern - but it was too much work - so I just did a cute A-line dress with two row stripes. Again, there are lots of fun color options - http://www.theyarnco.com/brand_display/432. I wanted to get some more pictures on - her mayra sweater, her sky cardigan and her soya top - but she was done - so next time. Got to get to work - we are seeing another rep to order more yarn for the fall. I think she has muench, classic elite and punta del este. And next Friday we leave for Columbus to go to the yarn show. I can't believe it is June next week!

RAVELRY ANYONE?

I am sure that I am light years behind those of you reading this blog but... I have recently discovered www.Ravelry.com. For those of you who do not know what it is: "Ravelry is a place for knitters, crocheters, designers, spinners, and dyers to keep track of their yarn, tools, and pattern information, and look to others for ideas and inspiration." It is very cool. You can keep track of all the yarns you have, all the projects you have made or are in the process of making and best of all you can see what tons of other people are making. The site divides projects into different categories so if you are looking for a cable pattern, you can click on cables and see a bunch of cable projects that people have made. Many tell you the source of the pattern and what yarn they used. Another great thing is if you really like a particular yarn and want to make something out of it, you can search that yarn and see what others have done - it definitely provides lots of knitting inspiration. At the moment, we are trying to get a bunch of our projects up onto the site. It seems like it will be a great place to showcase our designs. We apparently need to join flicka in order to get the photos on - so Julie has to deal with this - but hopefully we will get this done soon. When we were trying to figure out how to add our photos, we searched our names and it was awesome - all these photos of projects that people have done out of our books came up. It was really great to see so many of our projects actually being made by people we don't know. There are tons of them on the site. To get onto Ravelry you have to sign up and then wait about two weeks or so to get your "invitation" - it is not really an invitation - it is just that the site has grown so quickly - they are adding people onto it bit by bit so that it won't crash. I am not really so big on trolling the web for knitting inspiration and such - but I think this is a pretty unique site that most knitters will enjoy.

BUYING SEASON HAS BEGUN!!

Julie and I have begun our fall buying. There are quite a few nice new yarns out there -- it is always so hard to decide what to get and what to get rid of! We saw our Knitting Fever rep two weeks ago -- Knitting Fever carries Debbie Bliss, Noro, Sublime and some others. Debbie Bliss is coming out with a really nice new yarn called Como - it is 90% wool and 10% cashmere and knits at 3 stitches to the inch. It is very light and soft. And it comes in her usual beautiful palate of colors. Another nice new yarn we found is an Organic Merino Wool by Sublime. It has a slightly felted look and is a dk weight. We are also going to get a new Noro yarn called Yuzen - it is silk, wool and kid mohair. It comes in 5 great colorways. And a new Silk Garden sock yarn! We couldn't decide whether to get the regular Silk Garden again - so we passed - but we could be convinced otherwise if many of you had a strong opinion about it. Then last week we saw Diane and Stacy from Tahki Stacy Charles. We ordered a ton of Zara, Zara Plus and Torino Bulky! They also had some really nice new tweedy yarns - Sedona - which is 90% merino wool and 10% silk and knits up at 4 stitches to the inch. And Tweedy Angora - which is super soft and has a very subtle tweedy effect. We ordered a fun boucle yarn that will be great for scarves and edging - Riccolo. A Teva Durham yarn - Tundra that is 2 stitches to the inch but super light feeling. And Merino Cable - a wonderful merino wool that has a unique twist and knits up at 4.5 stitches to the inch. Plus many other staples and new yarns. This Thursday we are seeing the Westminster rep - Rowan, Gedifra, Nashua - so hopefully they will have a great new line also. And we go to the TNNA yarn show at the beginning of June - so much yarn - everybody will have to start knitting like crazy so we can pay the bills for all this great new stuff!!!! Finish up your stashes this spring because you won't want to miss all the excitement that will begin here at The Yarn Co. in August! Is there anything that people are looking for in particular that we can think about during our visit to the show? More organic yarns, more hand dyed? Any ideas are welcome - and we will consider them!