Live Stitch @ Little Knits

I know, it has been a long while.  I was simply not able to do it all between Ravelry, Twitter and Facebook.  What to do first and how much and when.  There has been offers of help and to those who offered many thanks!  Let me try my hand at this one more time and hopefully this time I will be more consistent.  And, if I know that you are reading I promise I will write often.

I will start with a bit of quick news: did you know that we have started Ravelry Coupon Mondays?  Just join Little Knits’ group at Ravelry and watch for coupon announcements.  Every Monday it will be something new.  When you join us on Ravelry please share your projects with us and let me know what you would like to see at Little Knits next.

For tomorrow we have a new yarn that will be posted on the site that was requested by our Ravelry members, Berrroco’s Blackstone Tweed.  And even better the colors listed will be on sale at 45-50% off.  This is a surprisingly soft tweed by Berroco with a wool, superkid mohair and angora fiber blend.   Here are the two colors we have in stock that will be on sale:

And a personal find on etsy, Grey Drizzle Fibers.  This is a fairly new dyer with a great feel for subtle color combinations and color-on-color variation.  I do know the dyer but we have no financial affiliation, meaning there is no profit motive for this post and I will not benefit from it.  Simply put I love the colors created by this small indie dyer.  I got two hanks of her 4-ply DK weight merino just to play in colors that are not really characteristic of my favorites including a beautiful green called Leaf and in a warm honey amber called Doubloon.   The merino is soft and smooth with a tight-but-not-too-tight ply but what makes this yarn so special is the dyers’ colors with their subtle color-on-color variations and rich hue saturation.

I also asked Ms. Grey Drizzle to do a special project for me and she was kind enough to agree.  We have been testing a super fine single ply merino from Italy at Little Knits.  So I asked her to dye the lace weight of this lovely merino in a deep deep blue-red for me and she did!  I call this red Drop-dead Red and it is goooorgeous!  I have about 2700 yards of this super soft merino in Drop-dead Red and I cannot decide on a project…I do need help so your suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

That is it for this post.  I am off to bed so that I can get up early tomorrow and start photographing some new yarn.

Just a quick blog entry to let you know that our retail location will be closed on Saturday the 21st in preparation of a large end-of-year inventory sale.

We will reopen on Sunday, the 22nd at 11 AM for the first day of our sale.  New and old inventory from lines such as Debbie Bliss, Mondial, Katia, Cherry Three, Louisa Harding and Rowan will be reduced from 50-75% including books and magazines.

We hope to see you at Little Knits in West Seattle this Sunday and during the rest of the year when you can make it over.

I cannot leave you without a little eye candy.  We have new and beautiful color lines in for Handmaiden’s Sea Silk.  Here is Boreal and The Ozarks in all their beauty:

                 

 

We are working on our most populated sock sale ever with new lines and additions such as Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock and many new colors of Schaefer Anne.  I have over 250 frames of photos; wait till you see the lovely color lines.

In the interim I have listed Mondial Ciao (one of the softest sock lines ever),  Fortissima Mexico Colori (beautiful colors and a great pattern),  and many OnLine Supersocke yarn lines including a line with aloe  under the All Socks All the Time category. 

Working on it as fast as I can.  Uh oh, I just remembered a few more but I am going to keep those to myself.  There has to be an element of surprise right…just a little bit?

  A heads-up to let you know that we are closing out our Miss Priss line out and will not be bringing it back.

Miss Priss is a 100% wool (worsted weight), that is hand painted by the good folks at Schaefer Yarn.  We love everything they do and will continue to carry their yarns including a few new ones that will be arriving shortly.

Just in case you did not know, the fall Knitty is up and there is a pattern that calls for Miss Priss. This Knitty pattern is called Mr Greenjeans and makes for a lovely cardi.  I thought the 25% off Miss Priss closeout sale should therefore be brought to your attention.  What say you? 

Cheers to all!

Sue Fulay

 

As promised, I am posting my new colors and 20% off sale is starts now! Simply use the ‘annem’ discount code at check out and you will get 20% off the retail price listed. It is almost 2 AM so I may have to give up on getting all my new colors up…I have 28 more to go!

Bye for now – photo shop waiting.

Fulay

My favorite sock yarn – ever – is Schaefer’s Anne. I will spare you the reasons to my adoration as it is a long list. I will tell you however, this lovely yarn can be used for lace and not-so-lace projects as well and makes for a very color resilient and absolutely lovely knitted fiber.

I am in the middle of taking photographs of 250 or so skeins of Anne in new colors and thought a good sale would be the best way to celebrate this beautiful cornucopia of Anne colors. Couple of facts – Anne usually comes in 2-4 skein sets but due to requests we have ordered at least 6 skeins of each color line for our lace knitters who need more than 2 skeins from the same dye lot. And the second fact, Anne is going to go on sale at $19.99 (down from $25), which usually means that most colors get picked-up within an hour of listing – if you would like some and would like to have a good selection please be here on Sunday afternoon/evening.

On a more personal note, I just picked up a UFO lace project that has been sitting around for over a year! This project has 32 row repeats that result in different stitch count each row. Added to all these fun is the fact that I am knitting with deep charcoal yarn, my poor eyes. Last night I almost frogged the whole 5 feet of this project…long story short, I finally figured out which row I am on and some progress has been made. This time I am not quitting or putting it down until it is done. One last thing, my stitch tension has changed! I am a bit puzzled about this. The portion I knitted last year looks different than the portion I am knitting now. I sure hope blocking will even it all out. More later on this – I would love it if it got done by Christmas.

Hope you are all well and knitting with a smile.

Sue Fulay

PS. Diana, how am I doing?

It is a sleepy Sunday and I am doing inventory and have decided to clear some of our Classic Elite items out. Heads-up to those of you who may care – first item is MarL La, a bulky multi-color 100% wool yarn with with lots of pattern support. The next two items are pure luxury, Obsession (100% Cashmere), and Posh Print (70% Silk and 30% Cashmere), I am gooing to list these items at 40% off. I cannot tell you how wonderful these two yarns feel! Please hurry, as once they are gone they will be gone for good.

Hope you are all warm and knitting with a smile.

Sue Fulay

For those of you who don’t know what Lizard Ridge is please go to Knitty.

We (self, Ana and Rebecca), decided to give this lovely throw pattern that calls for regular Kureyon a try with Big Kureyon (approx. 1/4 of a stitch per inch gauge difference). Ana did majority of the knitting and here is a photo of a square that she knitted with color #7 and color #12 alternating – we think it turned out nice, don’t you? She cast on exactly as recommended and after blocking ended up with a 13” by 13” square (note, Ana blocks with a firm hand and stretches pretty good – I smile). The knitted squares ended up becoming surprisingly soft after blocking and we got approximately 2 1/4 square out of each hank of Big Kureyon.

Well, it is now being sewn together and Rebecca is going to do the crocheted edging. It is our conclusion that Big Kureyon knits up just as well as regular Kureyon and makes for a less pricey Lizard Ridge given its current price (reduced from $16 a skein to $8.80 a skein at our website here Little Knits.

Once it is all done we are going to auction our Big K Lizard Ridge on eBay for a charity (Homeward Pet of WA, a no-kill shelter loved by Ana charity, where she continues to populate her ever growing pet selection).

Hope this post makes you smile and keeps you warm.

Fulay – aka Sue