Estelle presents Borgo de Pazzi



Estelle Yarns has found a marvelous Italian yarn company which mills some gorgeous yarns at beautifully reasonable prices. We will be stocking several for the fall and have already received the following.

70% Wool, 30% Polyamide, this beautiful, self-striping yarn not only stripes, but also has lengths of varying textures throughout.  Bulky: 10-12 sts per 4" on an 8-9mm needle 50gms, 65 meters

 

To see all the colours:

http://www.estelleyarns.com/borgo-de-pazzi/Items.php?yCode=BO-BG23&tc=20150828110340

 

Soft and feminine shades are what makes up this yarn range, which is composed of 65% Wool, 20% Ramie and 15% Hemp. Nice and chunky to knit up warm accessories quick!  50gms, 110 meters

 

http://www.estelleyarns.com/borgo-de-pazzi/Items.php?yCode=BO-BG20&tc=20150828110034

 

 

 

This yarn comes in a gorgeous range of colours! A combination of 50% Merino Wool, 40% Acrylic and 10% Alpaca, this yarn is soft, warm, and easy to care for. What more could you ask for in a yarn? 50gms, 80 meters    16sts per 4" on a 6mm 

 

http://www.estelleyarns.com/borgo-de-pazzi/Items.php?yCode=BG18&tc=20150828110706

 

 

 

 

100% pure wool, extra super bulky

 



http://www.estelleyarns.com/borgo-de-pazzi/Items.php?yCode=BO-BG02&tc=2015082811091

 

 

 

One skein, 25mm needles. Cast on 7 sts…knit until just enough to bind off…weave in ends..Add button. Talk about a last minute gift. You could knit this up on a lunch hour.

 

Needles this large can be hard to find and often quite expensive. Estelle yarns will soon have available a reasonably priced 25mm straight which we will be stocking. Will let you know as soon as they are in.

 

Beth

 



Knitting to de-stress

As I have said in recent posts, for every knitter, there are as many reasons to knit. I knit every day. Not always to relieve tress, but there was  a time in my life that I was facing some pretty difficult challenges. And knitting helped me a lot. This little poster was included in a recent newsletter I received, so I thought I would pass it on. Good advice.



Beth

Mistakes, don't let them get you down.

A couple of days ago, trying to distract myself from my "Cecil mood", I cracked open a ball of Cascade Pacific Colour Wave for a neat little pair of slippers from a pattern I found on Ravelry.





Cascade Pacific Colour Wave is really fun to knit. The colours  shift gradually and are very entertaining. The yarn did not disappoint but unfortunately the pattern did - MISTAKES. Patterns with mistakes are very frustrating. I have since fussed and played with the pattern to knit a pair of slippers which I like. I just have to check its math and will then post pictures and a pattern. For now, I just wanted to offer some advice on avoiding mistakes. They are not fool proof, but will sometimes alert you to pattern problems and save you a lot of frustration.
First of all, if you are knitting along on a project, that just does not seem to be working out, do not assume it is you who is wrong. Patterns containing mistakes are unfortunately fairly common.
* I often suggest to customers that patterns offered by a yarn company are usually a safe bet, error free. Helpful advice but in this case I was wrong.
* A second suggestion I often make would have helped, but I unfortunately did not take my own advice. If your pattern is on Ravelry, check the comments section before you start knitting. Many kind Ravellers often post comments about mistakes or problems they have found. When I went back and checked, there were several comments confirming my suspicions.
* If your pattern is from a magazine, most magazines have an errata section on their websites. A quick check before you start may save you a lot of tinking. The same is true for books. Publishers, especially those that specialize in knitting, will have often an errata section.
* If your pattern is from Ravelry and you search back through the designers information, you may often find a e-mail address for the designer. I was knitting a shawl by Kieran Foley. I knit and re-knit a particular row several times and could not get it to work  out.  There were no comments suggesting errors, so I e-mailed Kieran directly. Within an hour he returned my e-mail with a suggestion that solved my problem. I was very impressed with how quickly Kieran responded. I already loved his designs, now I am impressed with him as well. Check him out
http://www.ravelry.com/designers/kieran-foley
*if you think you find a mistake on a Ravelry pattern, post you concerns in the comments section. Sometimes other Ravelers will respond to  your comment,  confirming or offering info that helps clear up the problem.

And finally, bring it in and let us have a look. We can't make an promises, but we will try. Sometimes it just takes another pair of eyes. Call to make sure some one is available and bring in your pattern and work. We will see what we can do.

Beth





Alfie Date, designer to the Phillip Island Penguins

You know what it is like when you get on the Internet. One link leads to another, and another, and you find the most incredible stories. I am going to Ireland in October and was doing a bit of research. I found an Indie Irish hand dye yarn company called Smudge. Of course I had to see where I might find it, which led to a yarn shop blog, which posted the story below.

Are these not the cutest little guys you have ever seen - Phillip Island Penguins sporting hand knit jumpers (we call them sweaters).





Phillip Island is an Australian island about 140 km (87 mi) south-southeast of Melbourne and is the home to about 32,000 little penguins. They are the smallest penguins in the world, and the only species with blue (rather than black) and white feathers as an adult. These little penguin "jumpers" are functional as well as unbelievably cute. The penguins were unfortunate victims of an oil spill. Left to clean themselves, they were ingesting toxic chemicals.  Cleaning them with soaps removed their body oils which kept their feathers water repellent and there were suffering from that. These adorable sweaters, kept them warm and were all the creations of a 109  year old Australian man, Alfie Date, who had been knitting for 80 plus years.

For the full story, click the following link.

http://blog.theanimalrescuesite.com/penguin-sweaters/?utm_source=social&utm_medium=arsfan&utm_campaign=penguin-sweaters&utm_term=20150324

Cecil

 

 

 

 

I love cats ..... of all sizes. I have been trying to compose this blog for about 36 hours. I just keep getting caught up in how angry and sick this story makes me feel. If you are unaware of this story, just Google Cecil the lion. You may probably wondering what this has to do with yarn and knitting. I will explain. I have some OCD tendencies. The O stands for Obsessive. When I am bothered by something, I get rather obsessed by it and can not stop thinking about it. That is referred to as an "intrusive thought".  When I get that way, I cope by various distraction methods. Last night I had to triple up on distraction methods; Big Bang and Modern Family, ice cold Red Racer Beer and a nice new ball of self-striping  yarn for a great pair of slippers I found on Ravelry. There are as many reasons to knit as there are knitters. I have a wide variety of reasons to knit, at least one suitable for just about any occasion. But one I value greatly is the ability of knitting to distract me from everyday worries when they pile up. When I feel stressed by any number of everyday worries/anxieties, I find the distract-ability of a beautiful new ball of self-striping yarn an invaluable tool to escape for a few minutes. I am so sad and angered that the life of such a majestic creature has been wiped out by some terribly misguided individual who believes big game hunting is a sport..

 





 

My companion Miss Meredith Gray Cat

 

Beth

Forced to help with the blocking, Puffy is not all that happy.

No, this is not one of my cats. I found this post on Ravelry while viewing some Jared Flood patterns. The caption came to me automatically and I could not resist sharing.
Beth

Summer Vacation 2015

Just got back last night after 2 weeks at my family cottage at Grand Lake, NB. I have been going there every summer since I was 9 months old. I have only missed 2 summers. Palmer's Cove, Grand Lake is one of my favourite places in the world. My maternal grandfather, Willard Kitchen, purchased an entire cove eons ago. He built  ten cottages along the beach as rentals. As years went by, he gave a couple of them away to family (mine included) and sold others to families that had been renting for several years. In my life time, no cottage has changed families and about half belong to relatives. Every summer, my family, who live all over the Maritimes converge on the cottage where we relax, eat great food, drink beer, play cards, read books, knit and hang out on the beach. This summer I was very lazy, a real deck potato. Can you blame me when this was the view?

 

 

I cheated a bit, this last photo was taken by my nice Katie last Thanksgiving.

 

The younger McElmans were much more energetic. My nephews Jackson and Quinn, and their Labradoodle, Obi, enjoying the water.

 

 

 

We did make one day trip to the village of Gagetown. Gagetown is one of the oldest English villages in Canada. It was originally the capital of New Brunswick, but the capital was eventually moved up river to Fredericton, which was viewed as a safer location during the early years of our country, when invasions were something to feared and worried about. It is now a sleepy little village with several tourist shops, B & B's, craft stores and museums. While visiting Gagetown years ago, my husband Chris, who was an avid fan of old homes, fell in love with a 200+ year old house which was vacant and slowly falling apart from neglect. We ended up purchasing the home and began restoring it, planning for it to be a summer/retirement home. Unfortunately, life had other plans, and Chris died from cancer 14 years ago. Since then the home has changed hands twice and the 2 owners completed Chris's dream of restoring "The Ross House" to its former glory.

 



 

I was very happy to find the current owner to tell them how happy I was to see what a beautiful job they had done.

 

While home, I did a lot of knitting and of course research visiting local yarn shops. More about that later.

 

Beth