HRYC

A few weeks ago Wei Siew of the Kiwiyarns blog sent me an exciting email - a sock pattern designed with Knitsch Sock! It also contained a special request for a fresh batch of West Janney. 

The Droplet Socks pattern is exquisite. I adore the texture and the directional pattern design. I'm a sucker for anything that stands out against a reverse stocking stitch background. And the best part of all? It's free! Hooray! 

Image thanks to Wei Siew

Thanks so much for choosing Knitsch for your pattern Wei Siew! I can't wait to knit my own pair. If you fancy knitting your own lichen-inspired socks, West Janney is now back in stock (along with lots of other colours, hooray!).

The fourth Knit August Nights is done and dusted, and yet again it was a massive success. As usual I was much too busy chatting and catching up and knitting and relaxing in the sun to take any photos. But I want to say my biggest thanks to Maree for organising such a fantastic event. Fancy coming along? It's going to run again next year, so set aside the last weekend in August 2014 for a trip to Napier. 

I'm so lucky to be able to call Colleen of Dear Colleen a friend - and even luckier to have had her design the Knit August Nights tote bag this year. Colleen is exceptionally talented and i'll tell you why - after showing you the bag!

This is the super quick snap I took of it in the middle of setting up our table at KAN - it was my first glimpse of the bag as the supplier ships them straight to Maree. SO EXCITED! If you fancy one of your very own, we'll be giving these babies away with every purchase over $100, and we're also selling them online. 

If our bag isn't proof enough of Colleen's awesomeness, you may have also seen me mention her other knitterly design:

At the recent Lights Up Knitting session there were at least 3 of these bags present...knitting puns are my favourite things ever and I don't think i'm alone there.

As a small business owner I believe Colleen deserves all the support in the world - she does fantastic work and should be rewarded for her talent. At the moment she's running a PledgeMe campaign to fund a print run of a collaborative project called the Season's Eatings calendar - a beautifully illustrated project which also contains a year of recipes designed by the also very clever Bronwyn. On top of that, Colleen also has her HILARIOUS Tupac on a Unicorn tee in the Little Help design competition. Vote, donate, buy, support. 

Also on the clever friends list: Laura Vincent of Hungry and Frozen. Her book came out on Friday!! So much excitement and so very proud - I nabbed the very last copy at Paper Plus in Napier on Saturday. 

You may remember Laura's post about being a new knitter not so long ago. This cookbook makes me so very hungry, and Laura's way with words puts a giant smile on my face. Go buy it, make some tasty food and relax with your knitting.

In other news for us this week, we've updated all our stock post-KAN and i'm pleased to say we have loads of Knitsch Sock filling the shelves! I've also had news that our Malabrigo order has shipped - hip hip hooray! 

Happy knitting xx

Two months ago most Wellingtonians probably talked about earthquakes as no big deal. We had them semi-regularly, but nothing too big or scary. Living on several major fault-lines is something we all understood to mean that one day we might have 'The Big One'. After Christchurch we knew to be prepared, but it was still a thing that we could only imagine. 

Now earthquakes are something we think of with fear. A big, sharp shock one Sunday afternoon about a month ago was followed by too many after shocks to count. Nerves were frayed, emergency gear gathered, 'just in case' bags packed for just in case we needed to get out in a hurry. 

Yesterday I was in the shop trying to get some work done while superstar Megan was taking care of customers. That made two of us, plus five knitters browsing, wobbling through a very big, long, rolling quake that had us all very worried. Where to go? What to do? How much damage this time?

Holding your breath through a big earthquake is one way to instantly bond with people. Megan and I found sucking in glasses of wine through aftershocks helped calm the nerves. The earth is certainly reminding us of our precarious place here. Luckily there wasn't as much damage as the last large earthquake, and the shop was again unscathed. 

Our thoughts go to the people of Seddon who are feeling this much worse than we are. And my respect for Christchurch has increased a thousand fold. Constantly being on edge is awful. Take care of each other. And thank goodness we have our knitting. 

A couple of months ago Jimad from Zealana sent me an exciting email. It bascially went along the lines of 'We're bringing the Vogue Knittng Editor-in-Chief to NZ, can we bring her to visit the shop?'

um, YES!

So on Monday I had the great and wonderful honour of meeting Trisha Malcolm, Editor-in-Chief of Vogue Knitting. With her was Sanae Gunji, who won Zealana's design competition held at Vogue Knitting Live in November last year. 

Being in New Zealand it's tricky being so far from the major knitting events and yarn producers in the States. Jumping on a plane to visit a trade show isn't something we can do without a big financial commitment. The chance to meet Trisha in person, have her in the shop and talk yarn business was such an amazing opportunity. 

I don't have any pictures yet, but the story of how much American knitters love Zealana yarn, and Trisha's visit, has been all over the news this week. Here's the story on Scoop.co.nz and a great interview from TVNZ. 

So why has it taken me so long to post about Trisha's visit?

This week has been all about preparing for Knit August Nights in Napier next weekend, 22 - 24 August. I've been dyeing yarn like crazy and am super excited for this, our biggest event all year. If you're in or near Napier, the market is open to the public on Sunday 24 August from 9.30am - 12pm. 

A corner of our stall last year, photo by Maree Buscke

Also this week we had Lights Up Knitting Session the third. The Way Way Back was our movie, and a fantastic one at that. Not too heavy, but some interesting themes in a coming of age film. Also: Sam Rockwell. Swoon. And Alison Janney, one of my all time favourite actors. 

Just two of the three Dear Colleen 'Purl Problems' tote bags that turned up on Monday night.

I have about million zillion other things to talk about, such as our Unwind Shawl knit along, and brand new Knitsch Sock colours, and the One Small Piece knit in at the Dowse this coming Sunday. Promise to be more chatty and post a bit more again soon. Once the mayhem subsides :)

All too often on the blog i'm exclaiming about the yarns we stock from all around the world. One local yarn may be a humble price in comparison to the others, but we are having a love affair with it. Who better to talk about this adoration than you, our lovely customers? 

Vintage DK is entirely processed right here in NZ, and we're lucky to be one of very few stores to have it on the shelves. This yarn is so popular in-store that we don't sell it online, however we are most happy to take email orders.

Thanks so much to Vanessa for this beautifully thought-out post. 

aaahhh Vintage…

Vintage. I have knitted nearly everything with it. So plump, so soft, so versatile – I could wax lyrical for quite some time.

So I will.

Back in the very early 1980’s, I was inducted into that special club that most of my friends were - the one where Nana teaches you to knit a misshapen scarf with yarn that burned your fingers with the acrylic content as you had your tension so tight; your hands would sweat and your tongue was poised in the oh so attractive concentration mode and you buried every ounce of time into that thing until your mum rescued you and took you to the movies to see ET. I must have been 7.

I didn’t pick the sticks up again until I was pregnant with my third (what a waste of baby knitting opportunity). Here’s where my totally normal and harmless addiction started. Anyway, I joined Ravelry; ditched the straight needles in favour of circulars and was soon burning through so much wool it was getting a bit.. well, ridiculous. This wool was matched to my budget – nearly always wool, but always $5.00 and under while I was taking a break from working full time. I started searching for an alternative to the dreaded Spotlight trips with 2 tiny and packed-with-hideous-potential boy children.

I found Skeinz online. I spent a lot of time browsing the yarn, and ordered a pile of it to try. In that pile, I got 6 balls of Vintage in ‘Cadet’. Said yarn arrived. Love ensued. I cast it on straight after the package arrived, and never had I enjoyed the process so much. That thing was finished in just a few days.

I ordered more. And visited the Skeinz store in person. Picked up balls of it when at the HRYC on a Wellington visit. Felt guilty when looking in my stash at all the unloved other wool in there. Knitted some unloved stuff up so I could buy more Vintage. Tried an overseas yarn that everyone raved about and wasn’t in raptures like everyone else- for the press it had got, I was expecting yarn twice as soft as Vintage, since it was more than twice the price. Not even.

So, what’s it made of? It’s soft as some merino in my opinion. No other yarn comes as close for me (I love the way it looks but I’m a tactile person – and I don’t love machine washable yarn in its squeaky, stretchy and to me, polystereny handle, or the really rough, sheepier, scratchier stuff). The colours are bang on – softer and more sepia than most. I’ve gifted it. Made many, many clothes for my 3 boys from it. Hats and scarves and even finished a ‘Rocky Coast’ in it for me – that is being worn to death.

(looking gorgeous, Vanessa!)

So what’s next? Shall I get all exotic and try more overseas yarns now I’m back at work full time with a legitimate budget for yarn? Shall I jump out of my comfort zone and go for some of those brighter, clearer superwash dye jobs that look so pretty in other peoples projects? Or shall I pester Skeinz until they do a fingering and a sport range of Vintage in some greenish blues and marled greys? I’d be absolutely sorted then. So, whoever the tactile angel is who is in charge of making that fleece so gorgeously strokable and knittable; the visual artist who makes those vivid but muted colours that are so perfect to my eye – thank you. Keep on doing it!