Sheep to Shawl

Last January Marg visited the shop and we got chatting, it happens a lot here, we both are weavers and spinners and knitters. 

Then we made a plan, invited Beth our friend and inside person with the Orono Fair committee., and Orono Sheep to Shawl was born, 

Beth asked the board if we could use the empty space in the Poultry Barn on the Sunday of the Orono Fair and she contacted Mitch and Naomi to see if we could get a fleece when the sheared their flock in April. Everyone said yes, people don’t say no to Beth!

Emails back and forth, we put together the loom that was in pieces in Marg’s basement, that was a huge learning curve. Fortunately I have the bigger version of the same one at home. 

Volunteers came willing, we expected them to take 2 hours shifts, they stayed all day!  All the right people were there!

The loom was moved into place a few days ahead of the event. It proved a bit difficult as we only had time to warp the loom.  Sue rescued the threading error and ‘The Boy’ fixed some the of engineering issues.  

The response from the Fair visitors was positive, they asked great questions and everyone had a great day!

Thanks to Marg and Beth for helping to arrange all this and also to Gwen, Regan, Terry, Karen, Frances and Sue for making it a perfect day! 

If you have never seen the work of tireless volunteers at a local fair, you really would never appreciate how much happens behind the scenes.

The shawl is still on the loom as we ran out of steam about 4 pm. It will be finished soon.  There are ideas of what to do with it, but we need to assess its quality first.  It was a demonstration, we just wanted to show how the process was done, I think we accomplished that!

There is a Facebook group for our event: Orono Sheep to Shawl. 

Real Quick

It’s just about the end of August?

How did that happen.

So much happened during the summer and it will take al long time to tell you about everything.

There was Summerfest! The weather was perfect!

We had a Yarn Snob Sale, we don’t sell Yarn Snobs, but we create them?  

We went on road trips, I could knit!

Spending time with the Farmer includes visits to either barns or places with tractors, preferably the green kind!

Handmaiden produced another collection, this time featuring a bucket list of destinations. 

There were a couple of Knit alongs, this one is Jacinta knit with Koigu KPPM!

The Grandpuppy came to visit a few times, sometimes The Boy came too!

There was that one day we went to the beach!

Bluesberry Yarn Yard Sale gave some the opportunity to get rid of some stash and others were able to acquire some nice odds and bits.  Knitted Knockers of Canada will received just over $150 to go towards their expenses!

There was so much more and we will catch up!

Thanks for dropping by, see you soon! 

Koigu

There is a pretty Fruitwood cabinet in the shop filled with Koigu KPPM.  I love this cupboard! I love using Koigu, I can’t really explain why? Is it the colours? Is it the beautiful base? Is it because it’s made by talented women, who raised sheep and are located in the middle of no where? If you love what you do and are prepared to work hard you can be successful where ever you are located.

I always love an excuse to use Koigu.

A new batch of the mini skeinettes arrived in April.  

The colours ispired this. 

Colourscape Cowl

April 21st was LYS day, Local Yarn Shop Day. We celebrated by having special clearance sale, draws for prizes and Koigu created a special colour just for the event.  The colour sold out very quickly, I didn’t get a chance to grab one for myself.

There is always a Koigu project in my WIP’s. 

Well that was in April, we will catch up with July and August next time!

Where does the time go!

Today we are closed for Holidays? I am doing things today to catch up. Yesterday I added all the shop samples I made from the past year into Ravelry, there were 19!

Let’s talk about a few:  

One of the most popular Yarns in the shop is Sweetgeorgia.  The Tough Love Sock is great for socks but even nicer for garments. The colours have life to them.  The semi solids blend well and the batches are pretty consistent. 

Last December I finished ‘Fine Tune’ by Joji Locatelli 

Fine Tune

The background colour is Birch. The stripes were made with the Party of Five Kit called Snapdragon.

There were a couple of issues, I zigged when I should have zagged in one section, which meant it needed to be frogged back. Then I ran out of the Birch background, even though I used the one included in the kit.  To get the required stitches I knit an extra row in the bright pink stripe just before the last triangle, there was enough. It would only require knitting the cowl a few stitches less and there would be enough.  Sometime I will have time to do the math.  

The other Party of Five kit Sample is Reverb Shawl.  It’s a free pattern created by Felicia Lo.  It’s also made with the Rusted Party of Five.  (We have a lot for some reason)

This project travelled with me quite a bit. The pattern makes suggests for the number of rows for each garter stitch section, my numbers varied a little as everyone knits slightly differently and each skein may not be exactly the same length.  Be prepared to adjust.  Be careful that you don’t make the first section too big, it will distort the pattern, leaving  you with a very  narrow last colour.  This sample is good to show you how the depth of each section gets narrower as the stitches increase.  Sometimes adding another ball of yarn to a large triangle isn’t worth the trouble or money. 

It’s a start, the day is muggy and I am glad to be somewhere cool.  

Yarn Challenge 2018

Blog difficulties continue:  We are voting on our Yarn challenge entries. Voting continues until Tomorrow?  Oops!




It’s back!  It took some time to decide the Yarn and colour scheme for this year’s challenge!

Packages will be ready on Saturday, there will be only 15 produced as that seems to be the best number for voting and display.

Contact the shop if you would like to participate.

January?

Where did it go? Now its nearing the end of February:

This is a post I wrote a while back:

The cold weather has kept everyone thinking about keeping warm. It also makes us long for Spring and warmer temperatures.

Spring and summer yarn have been a small part of this shop. We find that our warm weather season is very short. We go from extreme cold to very warm sometimes in a matter of hours.  

This new yarn from Berroco was a nice find. The palette is true Berroco, they know colour.  Great for summer garments, but also as a staple garment for those who would like to use a cotton blend.  It’s a DK weight so there are many options for patterns, 

They promised a sample garment, we hope it come soon!

There is snow in the forecast today, so get our those warm mittens, scarves and hats!

The A-B-C sale continues, today my goal is to mark down Bags! 

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