:River Colors Journal: January 2008 - Knitting Tips Blog
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River Colors Journal

Wednesday, January 30, 2008
 

Winter 2008 Newsletter



WINTER HOURS (February & March)
Sunday 1-4, Monday closed, Tuesday 12-7, Wednesday, Thursday 11-8, Friday 11-6, Saturday 11-4 NOTE NEW THURSDAY NIGHT HOURS
!

How about a warm fuzzy in February? (we need it in Cleveland). We invite you to stop by and grab yourself a free cup of tea. During your visit, take in the colors, feel the yarns and enjoy the company.
We are adding kits to the shopping cart and will have them available in the store as well. The kits will be available in Erika's Handcrafted Gallery This coloful, soft cotton baby(and adult if you want one!) hat is available now. Click here to see the colors available.








If you are a sock lover, enjoy browsing Favorite Socks, 25 Timeless Designs from Interweave Press or The Ultimate Sock Book by Vogue Knitting. We currently are the exclusive retailer of KnitBrit Sock patterns.






The One Skein Wonders and 101 Designer One Skein Wonders books have great projects for everyone. The class offerings are fun, varied, and appealing to all levels. If you want to develop your skills or just enjoy the classroom take a look at our great classes.
We do offer private lessons (please call the store at 216 228-9276) if your schedule prevents you from joining our group classes. If you would like to register for any of the classes, you may register online, by telephone, by mail or in person. By popular demand, Shannon Okey will do a fit/design workshop for us just prior to her teaching cruise with Debbie Stoller of Stitch & Bitch fame! We have some new teachers (and of course our old ones as well).






We continue to add yarns, patterns and fun stuff like accessories. Did you know we carry the Amy Butler Sweet Life Knitting Bags and the Go Knit Pouches which people love? The Stitch Cleveland gals have been helping our customers out by finishing garments, lining bags and giving helpful suggestions to improve projects. We are happy to say that the 1387 Sloane Ave. location has become a full service stitching studio.




We carry Louet yarns in the store and am currently adding them to the website. We want to share this skirt pattern with you. Gillian (the skirt pattern) is time dated so make sure you print your copy right away.
Using this pattern we think the Louet Gems or the Claudia Handpainted yarns would make a stunning skirt for the spring!






In the store we are knitting the Modern Quilt Wrap as a THURSDAY NIGHT KNIT ALONG-6-8. If you can not make it to the store you can join the online knit along. Interweave Press has declared the Modern Quilt Wrap their most popular knit along so far. If you buy the yarn to make it here, we invite you to our knit along plus you will receive a 10% discount on the yarn. The pattern is free online at Knitting Daily or available in the book Folk Style. Rowan
Kidsilk Haze
is the recommended yarn. Because of all the colors used in this wrap, there is enough for two shawls so grab a partner and share the yarn.

You may join our email newsletter list by clicking here .









If you are local and want to know about special events happening in the Lakewood, Ohio store click here.





HAVE A GREAT FEBRUARY!


Sunday, January 27, 2008
 

The First Pair of Baby Booties!

Yes, I am a little behind on the baby bootie promise...but not that bad. The ones I going to actually put up as a photo today have been done for at least a week and a half.....the problem always is the photography....I promise you I am going to stop yakking about the photography and conquer it...just you wait...blah,blah,blah.

Here are the booties! We know the gender of the baby but I am pretending I do not.....I am one of those people that say anybody should wear any color.....what difference does your gender make in regards to color choice....you like it, wear it! Anway the link to the booties is here http://madelinetosh.com/blog/?s=maggi+angora&searchsubmit=Find
I used Maggi Angora and Mango Moon Mohair instead of Kidsilk Haze because I had some stash.
Yeah! for the picture(taken by Anastasia Rose....budding cinemotographer)
Got a go....lot of website work to do.


Wednesday, January 23, 2008
 

The Tribal Baby Carrier & Hockey Tournaments
Ya know, the best thing about hockey tournaments is that they are like me going on knitting retreat with a little variance. I usually take my son to the games and then the rest of the time hole up and start projects that I know I can not usually concentrate on "in real life". A lot of times it is really just getting the project started that takes the concentration and then the rest of it flows. Believe you me....I am glad I was holed up in the hotel when I started the tribal carrier. For some reason my mind read the directions one way and they were very wrong....I had a couple warning signals....but it just did not click....I got off to a couple false starts. For some reason I thought the main intarsia section was worked in the round...my mind just translated the directions that way. I did do my gauge before I started the project and I am using the Mission Falls Cotton. So here I am in the hotel room trying to join the thing in the round on the 32" needle that they suggest.....no go....the piece is not wide enough...so what do I do? I just find myself a 24" need and join it in the round......feels funny but keep on knitting anyway....everything feels akward....I hate the way the join looks....the color sequence does not make sense...go to a game....come back start reading the directions again and realize that the directions never tell me to join in the round.....read the finishing section....it tells me that the body of the carrier is lined....DUH!!! ripit....riptit. Start again with the right needles...dang it is getting dark... the chart is so hard to read in the hotel lighting...have to give up and work on the Manos hat...no lighting needed for that. Next day... work some more on it in the daylight...make a committment to enlarge the chart so my eyes do not have to strain so hard.....I love it....love the concentration ....love the colors....love knowing that I got it started and can keep on working on it at home...love hockey tournaments; my reason for a knitting retreat!



Wednesday, January 16, 2008
 

family gift waiting list
I have to laugh. I have all of the sudden ended up with a family waiting list for a hat made out of Manos de Uruguay yarn. My nephew from Lake Tahoe was here last week....and after hanging with him I decided he needed a hat that was crafted from someone that loved him(me)...mind you, this is no baby....he is twenty something....independent....a sponsored skiier....(my mind works in weird ways is all I can say). So I started on Kim's hats from the Last Minute Knitted Gifts book. It was cranking because I needed some mindless knitting.....I went to visit my brother in Columbus and told him what I was making.....he gives me this funny look....and says I'd like one too"...so I laugh and talk to him about colors. I drive home and am working on the hat some more and talking with my husband about how funny it is that my brother wants the hat.....he gives me that same funny look and I say "what????"...and I realize I now have another hat request. I have to laugh.


Tuesday, January 15, 2008
 

Megan & Kevin's baby
Well it is time to foucs on my Columbus niece(Megan and husband Kevin) They are having a baby this March!
We are all pretty excited...family members are walking around and feeling the baby kicking which makes me go "UH OH" I better get my needles clicking. I promised Meg....a pair of baby booties a week until the baby is born. I started today. The other thing that I have absolutely been smitten with is the Tribal Baby Carrier in the Interweave Folk Knits book. I am totally planning to make that and sure could use a couple knitting buddies to keep me on task. As best I can tell the Mission Falls 1824 cotton should work perfectly to gauge and they have a great color range and we happen to have it at the store. I am totally planning to post pictures of the weekly booties and the progress of the Tribal Carrier. Keep checking back.....and really I would love to have some other people working on the carrier with me.