Thursday, January 31, 2008

Helen's Lace and Shepherd Worsted

This is Lorna's Laces Helen's Lace.

Starting from top left: Huron, moving across is Winona.
2nd row is Butterscotch, then Edgewater.
Bottom row is Apple Hill, then Pilsen.

Now I'm off to post the picture and shopping cart scripts to the Helen's Lace page at

http://www.yarn-store.com/lornas-laces-helens-lace-yarn.html
which takes about 15-20 just to update the one page.


and Shepherd Worsted

Starting from top left: Huron, moving across is Winona.
2nd row is Butterscotch, then Edgewater.
Bottom row is Apple Hill, then Pilsen.

Now off to the Shepherd Worsted page to add the pictures and shopping cart scripts. It is already 7:30 am!! What happened to the last 2 hours!!!

http://www.yarn-store.com/lornas-laces-shepherd-worsted-yarn.html

Tomorrow, finally the Shepherd Sport will get done!


My Store is a mess!! and this picture does not even include the very large box of weekly shipment from Lorna's Laces. It was right in front of it all. But up at 5:30 am (yes, help is still out sick) and I was checking in some of yesterdays freight and putting it away before I thought about take a picture.

Tomorrow is my Friday afternoon open house. This is the classroom table. This will be very interesting!

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock New Colors



Despite still being half sick, and now my helper is out totally sick, I compromised. I got up a little earlier and I pushed shipping back a little later. This was so that I could take one more picture and at least post the Sock, Bulky and Heaven yarn onto the web site.

But I also have the Shepherd Sport & Worsted, Helen's Lace and Lion & Lamb in stock. Soon, I'll get them posted to the web!!

Starting from top left: Huron, moving across is Winona.

2nd row is Butterscotch, then Edgewater.

Bottom row is Apple Hill, then Pilsen.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

New Colors in Lorna's Laces!

Here are two pictures I took this snowy Sunday morning. This is Shepherd Bulky.

Starting from top left: Huron, moving across is Winona.

2nd row is Butterscotch, then Edgewater.

Bottom row is Apple Hill, then Pilsen.

Some names make sense, some I'm not sure of.


Heaven Yarn in exactly the same arrangement. I wanted to show you how the colors can look so totally different in the different Lorna's Laces Yarns.

Starting from top left: Huron, moving across is Winona.
2nd row is Butterscotch, then Edgewater.
Bottom row is Apple Hill, then Pilsen.

Sometimes colors that do not appeal to me in the smooth yarns are stunning in the Heaven, and visa versa.

Here are some verbal descriptions of the shades:

Huron, maybe named so after the Lake Huron? Soft dusty blue, sagey-cedar green and all the shades you can imagine as they blend from one to another. OK, this is the color I've been told I should wear. Brings the undecided blue-green out in my eyes.

Winona ! Bright sunshine yellow and cotton candy pink. I see shades of sherbet orange as it changes between the yellow and pink. Very bright and outgoing colors. But in Heaven, because of the mohair, it comes across slightly gentler. Perfect for children. If I had a good tan, this would really look good, as I can see this color on olive and dark complexions. Yup!!

Butterscotch! What can I say? Looks like butterscotch candy, without the calories!

Edgewater, yea I can see that. Dark blue of the depths of the lake. Sky blue of the sky. Chocolate brown being the trees and ground and cedar green of the evergreens and moss. You can see the sky blue in the Heaven photo, but I see that the way the hanks are stacked up in the Shepherd Bulky it isn't visible except for one tiny spot. Sorry about that! Looks great with blue jeans, but also is a good color for the man who likes a touch of color in his sweaters without drawing too much attention.

Apple Hill. Not sure how that name came about. Talk about bright! Almost neon strawberry red, cotton candy pink, medium blue and strong lavender. You can see a plummy pink where the lavender changes to bright pink. Perfect for young girls and the extremely extrovert female!

And finally, Pilsen. Well, no such word in dictionary.com, so I typed it into google. Pilsen is a neighborhood in an area of Chicago. That makes sense as Lorna's Laces is in Chicago. So maybe all of these colors are named after areas of Chicago. Pilsen is dark plum, chocolate and dark cranberry red. Where the dark plum changes to chocolate it does through a very dusty mauvey shade. I dare say this might for the more adventurous man.


I have all of these colors in stock in Shepherd Sock, Shepherd Sport, Shepherd Worsted, Shepherd Bulky, Helen's Laces, Heaven and Lion & Lamb. But they aren't on the web yet. I'm working hard on that. Feel free email me at angelikas@yarn-store.com if you just can't wait.

I've got new shades in Cascade 220 Pastel Paints and Cascade Pastaza Pastel Paints, but I'll leave that for later in the week. Enjoy!

Snow!



Here only a few miles from the ocean, we rarely get snow!

Friday, January 25, 2008

Vest, the new Green Line and Lots of freight!


I've been sooo sick!! A week ago today my throat started burning and its been downhill ever since. It's been decades since I've come down with a fulll blown cold! By the time the store closed I was down on the couch, trying to rest between the coughing and tissues.

The Vest project came to a complete halt. I was able to get the 2 fronts for the large size done. This is Camouflage in the Swirls Chunky. The back is partway done. But it sure is fun having something that knits up so fast. Each of the 3 sizes uses only 2 hanks. This pattern will be in my next Enewsletter, which is already late (again!).

I'm not real big on crochet. But it has been growing on me. Some of the things I've seen over the last year or 2 are just beautiful!!! I must tell you about this blog I've been following. This is some fun and classy stuff! http://crochetme.com/blog/boteh-scarf-crochet-its-best

Also, I sell all of Knitting Pure & Simples patterns. I'm on standard shipment, site unseen as soon as new patterns are out. I was looking at their site and found she put a tutorial up for neckdown knitting. She did an excellent job. Absolutely perfection, I thought. Check it out at http://knittingpureandsimple.com/knitalong.html


This is what faces Sarah and I this morning. Yesterday UPS took many trips to bring all this into the store. What you see is 4 boxes of yarn from Lorna's Laces. NEW COLORS!!!

And a big box from Cascade Yarns. Gotta keep our 220 in full supply!!!

Stay tuned for more on the Lorna's Laces new colors. Or drop me an email if you just cannot wait.





Announcing a new line from Lorna's Laces. Lorna's Laces is calling it the Green Line. This yarn comes from organically raised sheep in Argentina, the dyes are natural. Clara Parkes wrote a really good article in Knitters Review. She always does!! You can read it at the Knitter's Review. http://www.knittersreview.com/newsletter/newsletter.asp

That's it for now. Have lots of work to do! Til next time! Angelika

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Cascade Sierra & Lorna's Laces Swirl Chunky


Christmas was quiet this year. 2 of our 6 children joined us, while the other 4 spent the holiday with other family members. Hubby's gift to me was a diamond necklace. One can never go wrong with diamonds!! Despite the quiet event, the day to day events were just hopping.

My brother in law is fixing his home up. He moved onto our property about a month ago. He's really good at remodeling and electrical. So a woman's opinion was always required. But what woman doesn't like putting her opinion in on a remodeling job!!

The little jackets above are for his two daughter's Christmas gifs. The pattern was in Knit Simple, but I didn't want to use that yarn and I needed one size larger. So I took the three-quarter sleeve, garter stitch trim idea into Knitware, changed the neckline and yarn. The yarn is Cascade Sierra. The green one was knit on my LK150 knitting machine. The red one was done by hand. The red one is the Chili Pepper color; 4 slightly different shades of red. If you like red, you'll love this one.





Patterns for littler people are so much more fun than for adults! I'm working on a super easy vest pattern for toddlers using Lorna's Laces Swirl Chunky. I had the fronts and back done in one evening. Then decided I wanted larger sizes. So back to the drawing board for 3 more sizes and to my word document to start rewriting again.





The Cascade 220 Superwash is an established line of yarn with knitters and crocheters. It is 100% wool, and it is washable. I've been bringing more and more colors in. I finally had to move it out of one room and into another. Which meant some major relocation of other yarns, in order to make enough room for all the colors this line carries.

Finished moving and labeling the final bits today. As new colors arrive, they already have a spot to call their own!

AKD is really an impressive association. The Association of Knitwear Designer's newest board are fairly young, very technology oriented and really well experienced in working with groups whose members come from all areas and backgrounds. There are many committees which comprise of numerous members who are responsible for different areas of the association. Some areas work with marketing, some work with new members, some maintain the web site, and yours truly is the newsletter editor. It is alot of hard work, but I get a lot of enjoyment from the challenge of working with a group and progressing forward in such a successful manner. We've got a lot of plans and some many of those plans are plunging ahead forcefully! If you are a designer and would like to be accredited, or if you would like to be part of an organization to keep designers alive and prospering, you do want to be part of this organization.