This is where to read a Churchmouse newsletter

One day in December as I was rushing around at home with my phone in my hand, and simultaneously checking e-mails and texts to make sure there was nothing urgent to deal with, I noticed two very important things.  I had a new email from Churchmouse Yarns and Teas, and I was standing in front of this:

Obviously the right thing to do was to fling myself down on the sofa in our bedroom and immediately read that e-mail, and then go to the Churchmouse site for more eye candy.  Which is what I did, giving myself a five minute break that felt as refreshing as a long nap on a chilly, snowy day.

Churchmouse Yarns and Teas is for me the ultimate fantasy yarn shop.  If I could go to Bainbridge Island and shop there... well, I can't even imagine how amazing a vacation that would be.  It's like an otherworld in which everything is perfectly curated and beautiful and accompanied by a steaming cup of tea, and there are no biting insects or cold viruses, ever.

It can't be easy to run a yarn shop, can it.  I mean, as compulsive as we may all be about our knitting, there is only so much yarn we can use!  And yet a shop has to stock so very much yarn, in reliable dye lots.  The only answer is to build a community loyal enough to keep buying what yarn is needed, at full price and in that particular place... then keep them engaged in using said yarn so they keep working through their stash.  An online shop that's an extension of the feeling you'd get in person is a bonus but must be just as challenging, requiring expert photography and web design.

As it happens I haven't bought a lot of yarn from Churchmouse, because I really do have too much (and in fact, got rid of quite a lot last month because I finally accepted I did not have space to store it all!)  But I have bought several of almost all the tools Churchmouse offers, and a good number of the knitting patterns as well.  When I do get a parcel from them it's so perfectly packed in gentle tissue I let out a little sigh of gratitude for that glimpse into the ideal world they've created, where we are all cared for and nurtured as by the most loving of moms.  

Yarn stores: they are so much more than their yarn!

I found Churchmouse through its patterns but I found PurlSoho when Emily of Viola yarns tipped me off about what a rabbit hole of project ideas it is.  It's got a cooler, temperature-wise, aesthetic than Churchmouse but it covers sewing as well as knitting and crochet so... equally satisfying on a day when you are looking for a sense of No Clutter Creativity.  And if you subscribe, their newsletter includes free patterns.

That particular day I described above was the first time I got to use our bedroom sofa for something other than putting on socks.  Those two big pillows are too bright a white for decorating success, but they are a dream for neck support, and from that spot you can look out at our tree and any clouds that are drifting by.  It's pretty great, but having all that as a backdrop while losing yourself in the Churchmouse site is even better.

Do you have a favourite escapist craft site to share?

Road trip

Yesterday was a Niagara day which are exciting for a lot of reasons, one of which is about three hours of knitting time. Mum's New Year's socks started the day looking like this:

That longer one is almost ready for its heel, here.

There was so much on the agenda, some of it post-Christmas sale shopping. At Stitch. Ha! Yes, I got to go back to Stitch.

Technically, this is a yarn and fabric store, but it's also a bright warm century home with wood floors and high ceilings and antique display cubbies filled with yum and set far apart from each other so you can keep your head clear while considering all your options. The work table in the back room is a big antique wooden one decorated with shallow old muffin tins set out and filled with buttons; the knit-and-chat space features comfy old armchairs set around a carpet near a window.

I loved Stitch first when it was in my original home town, but now it lives in Jordan Village, a lovely historic street set alongside the edge of the escarpment a little west of Niagara Falls. I know I've said this before but if you come to see Niagara Falls, you really want to take a scenic drive and visit Jordan. In thirty minutes max, you've got access to fabulous restaurants and interesting shops and beautiful bed-and-breakfasts and

fiber heaven.

Yes. Because it seems that now there is not only Stitch, with its inspiring selection of yarns and fabrics for knitting and crochet and sewing, but across the street, The Fibre Garden, which stocks everything you might ever think of wanting for spinning. By which I mean, not only the equipment and accessories but more fiber, in both variety and quantity, than I've seen anywhere.

I was conservative in my shopping, mindful of the enormity of my current stash. However at Stitch I did get the giant needles I've been needing, plus some buttons I fell in love with:

and I finally got my hands on the fall issue of Piecework I've been trying to buy since it came out.

Jocelyn was wearing another fantastic sweater, a different style from the Rowan one she had on the last time I was in and which prompted me to make the Carrot Cardi. I resisted asking her for the pattern and regret that now.

At The Fibre Garden, I got some back issues of Spin-Off that Kathi had mentioned especially enticingly in her blog, and some oil for my spinning wheel.

The shop sells extra bobbins for my wheel there too and I forgot to buy any, dagnabbit. I got distracted by these cute fiber parfaits:

I bought these with 2011 swaps in mind, and if you participate in a swap and get one of these from me you will know I think very highly of you because I love them. I mean, Grape Jelly? I don't know how I can part with that, or how I resisted Peppermint and Licorice Allsorts or Bean Salad.

It was very cold out yesterday and cold always makes the Falls extra twinkly.

The new hotels up on the ridge have permanently changed the weather patterns at the Falls: you can no longer walk alongside them and stay dry in the mist they produce. That of course freezes on contact with anything. You can just make out, looking at that tree on the left, the way the mist has iced over the Falls side of the boughs, while the sheltered side is still green.

The big curving plume in the clouds above it are the spray from the Falls themselves.

In spite of all the getting in and out of the car, I did make good progress on the socks. As the light faded toward the end of the day, the second one sat about here:

I got it to the bottom of its leg a little later, and by knitting in a restaurant at the end of the trip the first one joined it. That was really as far as I could get, having dropped my instructions somewhere along the way, oops. So today's job is to reprint the pattern and get going on the heel.

I really want to get these done and blocked for mum by Saturday, or worst case, Monday. But I don't know whether I can pull that off because there is still about 10 hours' work in them. H'mmmm.

Bought more yarn - wanna see?

Ahhhh, the Creativ Festival, what an experience.

Thanks to strategic delays I managed to time my public transit run immediately after rush hour, reaching my destination station at just the right moment to join a stream of ladies (it really was all ladies as far as the eye could see, though I did spot a few mystified-looking husbandy types later on) making their way on foot to the big event. I even made a friend en route, which came in handy later, but that's a story for another day.

The conference centre where it was booked also hosts the annual auto show, so let's just get it out there: the place is huge. And the lineup to get in, because I got there early? ran all the way around the perimeter of the giant central L-shaped space and then a new line formed inside that one.

I was in the new line. I was the only one knitting in line. The ladies behind me noticed and were amazed I could knit while standing. One asked what I was going to do when the line started moving and I explained that I can knit while walking, so I would just go on knitting. It kind of underscored my sense of freakishness that I can do this. I know it's not actually weird, because Elizabeth Zimmerman explains in her Knitter's Almanac how to knit in a dark car at night and when Elizabeth Zimmerman speaks an awful lot of people listen, but I did feel a bit lonely to be the sole active knitter in such a gathering.

To be fair, there was an awful lot of non-knitty stuff going on. Quilting: lots. Lots of fabric. All the big sewing machine companies were represented and I had to try not to cry at the Bernina area, I want one of those so badly. Some jewelry things, some scrapbooking, some small appliances. And some bookshoppy booths with publications relating to every conceivable craft. But the first thing you saw walking in?

A giant booth full of qiviut, in both knitted and delicate little cake form. Both varieties got a lot of attention, not least because of the gorgeous colours it's dyed in now, but I didn't see too many people buying: it's become just staggeringly expensive since I bought the tiny bit I am hoarding in my stash.

But that's not what brought me all the way downtown:

I went to meet Louise, in person!

I have loved the yarn Louise dyes for her Biscotte shop for - oh, I think it's nearly two years I've been knitting with it. And I've never met her, or seen her things in any medium other than my computer screen before I've paid for it, and I was not going to pass up the chance to do both.

I love this wrap on display in the corner. But I wasn't able to ask what colourway this is or how you make it, because the booth became pretty much a beehive after I got this picture. No surprise, since Louise has a wildly appealing array of affordable luxuries - yarns with cashmere in the mix, or insanely soft merinos, all dyed in the richest and most beautiful colours. In fact it's pretty much Louise's fault I am becoming so spoiled in my fiber preferences.

Seeing the yarns in person was amazing. The colours are - wow. And the base yarns? yum central. It would be so worth making a vacation trip to Montreal with a detour to the shop as the main point.

For a while I was blinking at the bounty (and petting yarns, of course) next to another knitter who was doing the same and I was able to tell her which varieties would do what she was thinking of doing because it turns out I've used them all, but she was not able to tell me which one of the two skeins I had shortlisted would go best with the Carrot Cardi. Neither could Louise, really. So both yarns came home with me:

The purple stripey - which is another skein of Felix, the scrumptious yarn I used for Man Socks - is already wound into two cakes and has leapt to the top of the socks-for-me list, but the mottled green (merino, cashmere, nylon) was quick to make it known it needs to be Something Else... about which, more in a few days when it's a bit further along, heh heh heh.

Sensory overload

Yesterday I was given an unexpected opportunity to visit Janie H. Knits, a really great knitting store near Perth, which is a really great town.

Being granted 15 minutes to roam free in a really great knitting store it like being told you can eat exactly three potato chips from a bowl. You're almost better off not going in at all - except that it's always better to be in a knitting store than outside it.


Janie H. has everything, and I needed a lot, so I got a little overwhelmed and hardly bought anything, and what I did get, I didn't get a picture of all of. In addition to what's pictured here I bought a second set of River John dpns in a size I probably didn't need but am glad to have more of because I looooove those needles so much.

I wanted more Rowan Felted Tweed for the next hat project, so that's now ready to go as soon as I get back home to my pattern notes. And - wooooo! - I treated myself to a Namaste circular needle case. I've wanted one for a while but they're always sold out when I look for them, so I wasn't going to pass this pink one up.

I also bought a single wood button, not having time to find more that are sort of matchy to its uniqueness.

And in the final seconds, I bought this for future mansocks, thereby resolving the yardage for large-size socks issue:


I realized this was a mistake the moment I got back into the car and compared it to the yarn I am using for the current Man Socks. The new yarn: very fine, way finer than the current yarn. The current yarn: still a little loose even on 2mm needles. Darn my ridiculously relaxed knitting tension! and since I'd spent 45 minutes doing all this instead of 15, I was in no position to ask to be allowed to go back inside.

Fortunately, Karen has the opposite problem with ridiculously loose tension, plus a resident man for whom she frequently knits socks. So I gave the yarn to her good home and she taught me how to solve all my spinning problems, an excellent trade about which I'll tell you more tomorrow, because I have to go right now and hunt up a good pancake house.

Carrots

A couple of weekends ago I was passing through Jordan Village (a charming Ontario community set snugly in wine country and chock full of heritage B and Bs and fabulous restaurants, in case you're looking for a holiday destination).

Being in need of sleeve-sized needles for the Big Project, of course I had to stop at Stitch. Stitch is my favourite LYS - you can feel real life dropping away from your shoulders as you walk in and creative ideas reaching out to greet you.

This time I didn't even get all way inside before I noticed Jocelyn's cardigan - exactly the raglan-sleeved, not-clingy, soft-wooly cardigan I've been hunting for, for about a year.


Did she have the pattern? She did.

Did I want to try hers on? I did. (perfect fit, dream design.)

And the yarn? In stock.

Done and done and destined to be commenced...


as soon as the Big Project is finished and blocked.

I do love carrots, don't you?


p.s. I also love this pattern... same yarn, same yardage, but I think best in the colour pictured here...

Stitch!

Yesterday's funeral trip was full of unexpected delights, including the sound of my longtime and very dear friend accepting the condolences of her late mother's friends and relatives by bursting suddenly into fluent German, which she did not do in our rooms in residence between our university studies and impromptu dance sessions.

I just love that she learned this language so well, in spite of going to an English-speaking school in an English-speaking town, and has continued to use it throughout her life.

Also, I arrived at the funeral home about 45 minutes early, which prompted a tour of the area and a sudden recollection that my favourite LYS, Stitch, has moved to a new location in Jordan, Ontario - which is exactly where I was. Not only that, but it wasn't on Highway 8, where I expected it to be, but right in Jordan Village, where I went first to see the little museum yard where Pioneer Day is held.

(I can't tell you how much I adore Pioneer Day in Jordan, with its distinctive aroma of open fire, soap cooking in a cauldron, and apple fritters sold in paper bags.)

(or how distressed I am at almost certainly having to miss it this year.)

Not only is the new shop right in Jordan Village - it's right across the street from the museum! So, great view from the inside looking out, and on the inside looking in, outstanding. The shop is also all about quilting and other needle arts, and the supplies are both extensive and inspiring. This new building (in an old house as before) is the perfect setting.

But here's the best part: Jordan Village is the most charming little place, full of historic bed and breakfasts and a view you wouldn't believe over the Escarpment, and pretty little shops and restaurants with world-class chefs and amazing local wines.

So if you are thinking about a yarny or quilty getaway, this is the place to be. Especially this weekend, since Pioneer Day is on Saturday, from 10-4. Best apple fritters ever!

Lantern Moon swoon

I'm in the middle of another rush job (aka last-minute birthday present) that required a frantic trip last night to an LYS I sourced through KnitMap. Rave reviews, and not impossibly distant, and they had one left of the very thing I needed.

In fact, the only reason Creative Yarns was open late enough for me to rush in was that it was Stitch n' Bitch night, and OH how I wished I could stay, because it looked so cosy around the sofas and everybody was so friendly. While the ladies worked away with needles and a spinning wheel (drool), I poked around and marveled generally at yarns I'd never seen before and now can't remember the names of.

And then I spotted a basket of half-price Lantern Moon needles.



How could I say no? And having gone that far, how could I resist the summer issue of Piecework? I love the simplicity of this magazine and the unusual worlds to which it introduces me. And those wristlets (more drool).

But the other big story is those River John needles I bought last week. I used them for the current last-minute present (I'll post the free pattern next week) and WOWZA. They are the lightest, smoothest, most perfectly-tipped needles I have ever used. I want more. Even though I just covered about every remaining needle requirement with this new lot.

Not so fast, missy

Well, the hat's done and dry, but I was off gallivanting yesterday and missed the light I'd need for a decent photograph, not to mention the time I'd need to write up the pattern... and today I'm going out again - for lunch with a friend, no less! - so the chemo cap might not make it here before the weekend.

While we wait, let me tell you about my gallivantings, which included another trip to my beloved Stitch. That store just keeps getting better! and not only because Jocelyn will wind your purchase for you on the cutest wooden ball winder ever.

I went in hoping for the Spring issue of Interweave Knits - note to self, get subscription - and succumbed to three skeins of Malabrigo Silky Merino, three magazines, and not a speck of the solid-coloured yarn I thought I might look around for. I don't know what it is about variegated yarn that hauls me in unless it's the fact that I have so much trouble making decisions and with multi-coloured yarn, I don't have to. Still, sometimes you need to pair it with a solid and that is something I don't have so much of all of a sudden.

Consolation prizes included visits with a few skeins of (solid-coloured!) Americo yarn I can't forget and can't justify buying without a clear plan for what to do with it, plus the other (not really solid) Americo yarn I love. I found the antidote to them by looking at and touching a few skeins of Handmaiden's Sea Silk (variegated, naturally.) That stuff is amazing, and among other places is available (as of July 2018) here.

I still want some Americo though. While I was there I shared some particularly irresistible yarn with a passing shopper, and she pointed out that the trouble with telling Satan to Get Thee Behind Me is that once there, he can push. I'm quite certain she's right, and that it's just a matter of time before I'm knitting something fabulous in grey alpaca.

Maximum smoosh

I am blessed with many local yarn stores, but one of my favourites keeps a blog in which new yarn is not infrequently categorized by its smooshiness factor.

And though I do not - NOT - knit socks (if I knit socks too I would never, ever get anything else done around the house) when I saw this recent post I knew I had to come into the store and check it out for myself. Especially since I wanted to pick up some yarn for a particular hat I have in mind. Have you clicked on the link? Do you see the skein that illustrates the blog entry? It's called 'shadow' and it shadowed me home. I don't knit socks and any hat knit with this (highly smooshy) yarn would have to be for spring or fall or ten years from now because that's how long it would take me to finish it on toothpick needles, but... It's Soooooo Smooshy!

I also bought two skeins of Cascade Heathers 220 in a colour that matches the mittens on the cover of Vogue Knitting, Fall 2008, aka the mittens I cannot get out of my mind. I love the mittens, but I love the colour at least as much, and I will be swatching my idea for the hat to make with it today. But first I'll finish up the tidbit I made for the next free pattern. Stay tuned!

Sensory Delights

A couple of weeks ago I needed needles and had no time to get to my LYS, my only free hours being occupied by a short day trip. Knitmap to the rescue! And I still can't stop thinking about the wonderful store Stitch in my old home town of Grimbsby, Ontario and two particularly gorgeous and unusual things I found there: brightly coloured leather purse handles and a pair of mittens.

Okay, I have to be honest, it's mostly the mittens. Specifically, the yarn from which they were knitted, a baby alpaca, and then of course the entire wall of the stuff, in sumptuous colours, you have to walk past to get to the back of the store. And when I say "have to", you know I don't mean you're obliged - it's more of a magnetic pull. *sigh*. If you haven't come across the Americo line of yarn yet, it's definitely worth a look (or rather, a touch.)

Oddly enough the Americo store is much, much closer to me than Stitch, but I would much rather go the distance and get my supply there. Can you imagine a nicer place to shop?