To celebrate a lovely long weekend here in NZ, we've decided to take 10% off all our Zealana yarns! Hooray! An extra day in the weekend is a special treat, as is every precious ball of Zealana we carry. 

Here are a few pattern ideas for the most special of their yarns, Air, which comes in both lace and chunky weights:

The Clara Cowl by Gretchen Ronnevik - uses only 101m of yarn so is a perfect one ball project for Air Chunky 

or Betsy by Jane Richmond, which again only requires one ball of heaven to knit up. 

and for Zealana Air lace weight, we love:

The Simple Pleasures hat by the Purl Bee

The 10% discount runs from right now until Wednesday 29 October. You can either pop in store or use the code 'madetoamaze' at the checkout stage of your online purchase. Happy yarn shopping!

Sometimes, one simply needs to knit socks. You get to hunt out the most beautiful sock yarn in your stash, and browse for the perfect pattern. This is what I did last night. Bored of my lace weight cardi project, I wanted to knit some sunshine. And something toe-up, because this year was meant to be about challenging my habits and doing new things. Usually for socks i'll opt for cuff-down as it means less thinking, but here's a few ideas for toe-up socks that are straight-forward but still worthy of that special sock yarn:

 Reasons to be cheerful by Rachel Atkinson

Little Minx by Karen Scott - free! (And the pattern i've cast on) 

Little cable knee highs by Purl Soho (also free!) 

Two knitting truths: sock yarn doesn't count as stash, and there is no such thing as too many pairs of hand knit socks. Which I often forget and get all caught up in knitting yet another garment. It's the little things that are just as important. So i'm going to treat my feet a bit more from now on. 

Half-way through the first week of school holidays here in NZ, and this morning I had the great pleasure of teaching four new (school age) knitters. It was such a lot of fun and has me thinking about crafty things kids can do in the holidays without too much supervision, and that doesn't cost very much. 

Thanks to the newly longer days and what seems to be a good run of sunshine, how about some wet felting? We sell corriedale fibre in 50g lots for only $3.50, and a little goes a long way. 

 Here's a few ideas to get you going:

 I think i'm going to have to make a few of these projects myself...

Over the weekend I very happily stumbled across yarnsub.com - an awesome new website which helps you figure out appropriate yarn substitutions for your pattern.

It's currently in Beta so you should go have a poke around and let the developers know what you think. It's a brilliantly simple idea and very thoughtfully executed. I can't wait to see how it evolves!

You've knit something amazing. It's taken an age, and now it's time for the critical last step: washing and blocking.

Over the next little while i'm going to share some posts with tips and tricks for how to best care for your hand knits. 

How to prevent bleeding

Sounds dramatic, doesn't it? Well, it can be. If your finished object has stripes, you do need to take care at the blocking stages. Also, if you're anything like me, you will have been too impatient to get started to want to fuss around with re-setting the yarn (which will be covered in another post). 

Take Ravello: Navy, silver and yellow stripes. Blues and reds are notorious colours to work with - even when set properly, they can still bleed colour. Chances are at some point you've knit with a blue or red or even green yarn and found some of the colour has rubbed off on your hands (extra tip: don't put hand cream on before knitting with any of these colours). 

How do you manage this after you've finished? Knitsch Sock might be machine washable, and if there wasn't a dark colour right next to a light colour I would have thrown this in the wash as with any other clothing item. But the prospect of the colour running made me nervous, so this is how I dealt with it instead:

1. Fill your laundry tub (or large wide basin) with lukewarm water. Add wool wash (whichever one floats your boat) and swish it around to make it bubbly. 

2. Add your knitted item. The key here is not to move it around too much, so the colour doesn't migrate. I folded the sleeves across the top half of the body so they weren't sitting next to the blue section. 

3. Gently push the fabric under the water. Again: don't wiggle it around or agitate it. 

4. Leave it like this for 15 minutes or so. The water will slowly soak through the fibre. Feel free to prod the fabric under the surface if it rises above the water.  

5. If you're working with a laundry tub or sink, pull the plug out and allow the water to drain away. Run the tap over it to rinse out all the water (again, not moving your knitted item around too much.) If you are using a basin, run water through it like you would cool down a boiled egg - let the warm water flow out and the cold water replace it until the wool wash is thoroughly rinsed out.

6. Put your item in the washing machine (if it's machine washable) and run it through the spin cycle to get the excess water out. If not machine washable, lay it flat on an old towel, roll the towel up and squeeze the excess water out. 

7. Lay it flat to dry. 

I followed this process the first few times I washed Ravello, to be sure any excess dye was well and truly dealt with. Now I just throw it in the washing machine. If you have a project using white or natural yarn next to dark colours, keep using the above method until you're absolutely certain there is no excess colour remaining.

Happy washing!