Lorna's Laces Green Line, socks and baby vest

Arriving this week is the new Lorna's Laces Green Line. It is an organic yarn. Here are a couple pictures of a swatch I did. The yarn has a nice hand. Just enough body to show cables, seed and other textures quite well, but still has a nice soft feel to it. Since this is hand dyed, you will see slight variances of dye shades. I really like this look. These swatches were done on a US#9 needle, and did work out perfectly to the 4 sts per inch that the ball band indicates.

This is an angle shot so you can see how the stitches have body. I'm hoping the angle shot shows the shadows. The store has really good lights, so it might not show the shadows as well as I wanted. Other news I received is that Cascade just told me that there are MORE new colors in 220, 220 Superwash, Pastaza, Baby Alpaca Chunky and even more colors in the new Heritage Sock Yarn. I don't have these up yet. In fact, I don't even have pictures of them from Cascade yet. The Heritage Sock Yarn is selling quite well. One hank will do a pair of socks. $12 for one hank is a good price for this quality of yarn. I'd rate it as an upper mid-range quality. So if your budget doesn't allow for Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, the Heritage Sock Yarn would be a good alternative. I passed off a hank to my Mom who learned to knit socks with the Cadillac of yarns, Shepherd Sock. She's sampled other yarns for me in the store. So far she reports that it doesn't split and knits off the needle quite nicely. When her sample is complete, I'll post her final report.

Shop Socks! Starting at left: Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport. Knit on the LK150 knitting machine. Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in color Hawaii. Knit on a standard gauge knitting machine. This is Fiber Trends House Sock Pattern. It uses 2 strands of worsted. Our sample is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted. I lined up the colors so most of the time the 2 strands were in the same color. The cuff is in some novelty yarn we used to carry way back. Finally, this is Cascade's Sassy Stripe. Hand knit by my Mom, Gisela. She uses Knitting Pure and Simple's Beginner's Basic Sock #216. See one of my sock pages for this pattern.

Return to my heart's pleasure, I pulled out the baby's vest pattern I've slowly been working on. The yarn is Lorna's Laces Swirl Chunky. The largest size is complete. I'm still assemblying and photographing the process in the smaller sizes. This is a fun pattern to knit up. Goes fast. But when you only have 2-3 hours a week, if you are lucky, to work on this, the pattern writing/proofing/sampling process is incredibly slow. But I'm not giving up!

New Sock Yarn and New Patterns

I've really buckled down and am forcing myself to get my work caught up. I got all the Carol Bristol felting designs up on the web.
As well as the new Avalon Fiber Arts sock designs and was feeling like I was making a dent in the pile, when. . .
UPS delivers the new Cascade Heritage Sock and the new Noni Spring 2008 patterns. Because the Heritage Sock page was partially done, I was able to work on the website from the comfort of the couch last night and all the shopping scripts are current now. I'm still waiting on the hand-dyed shades, but it will automatically update once the shipment comes in.
Putting the Noni patterns on line is 3x the work. I stock and sell almost all the hardware and handles used in the purses and bags. Before I can post the pattern & parts page, I have to create a list of all the parts used, check on any unclearness with the designer, check to see if those parts are available through the 3 vendors I use for parts, and finally list the part #s and the web item#. Once this is all detailed out on my Excel spread sheet, I need to edit the graphics for a web version and a print version, which is used in the Noni catalog. Then, I am ready to go to the web and create a new page for each pattern. Then go to the Noni page, post a small picture and link to the pattern page. I'm glad to say that the Noni patterns are in stock, and you can email me at store@yarn-store.com if you want to order them before I get the new web pages up.

A Long Week

New products for the website, inserts out of date, projects stacking up and the brain is just refusing to fire up. What's a yarn store owner to do???

The last few weeks have been dog busy! I cannot seem to decide what has more importance. My list of chores is prioritized. Yes. They are all marked with a #1, the most important level!

I was able to mark a few off my list this Saturday morning. With so many yarn pages on my website, I am never, ever caught up. Still on my list is the Lorna's Laces Green Lines Worsted and DK, and the Cascade Heritage sock yarn. But since both are so new that they are not even available to ship yet, those web pages are not as urgent.

But I have stocked Carol Bristol's patterns. ALL of them. So here they sit. This job of posting a page with her patterns will be ginormous!

The shipping inserts also get out of date. I finally got the new colors onto the Lorna's Laces catalog. But soon that will also be out of date again, as there are about 10 new patterns due to arrive next week, and soon (I hope) the Green Lines Worsted & DK.

The Ashland Sky brochure is missing its most recent addition, and the Noni Bag brochure is missing last year's new patterns (and we won't talk about the new patterns due out next month.) The problem with the Noni line is that I don't have the graphics.

My helper Sara, who works 20hours a week, has cut back to not much more than 10hours a week. That additional work load on me, I swear, feels more like 4 hours a day. At a certain point the mind just stops, and all I'm capable of is staring out the window by my desk. Might as well shut things down and take a break.

AKD Inc officers are also quite busy. Because Sarah was not available the day of our conference call monthly board meeting, I was unable to attend and the president cancelled the meeting. Now the board is frantically trying to find a new time next week when we are all free. I feel really bad about that, but sometimes things are just not controllable.

Am so looking forward to summer. The sun has been in and out this week, and February, I swear, really must be the longest month of the year!

Oh, the photo above is a few of my projects still undone. The toddler's vest, my Avalon Twiner sock, a crocheted test piece, and a new yarn sent to me by Cascade to sample up.

In family life, my first born has purchased his first home. A male at 23 yrs old doesn't usually think about buying a home. So we are quite proud. Cody is my husband's 5th child. We have a large family of 6 children (4 his, 2 ours, but I love them all like they were my own--I mean I've been around for 24 years now!!) We are all very close. In the summer, here at our home on the lake and only minutes from the sand dune, it is just one big party.

I'm off to put my feet up or wander around the property, maybe go down the driveway and see my other family who live on the property. Ta-ta!

More new yarn!

It took a while, but I finally finished scanning and prepping these 8 new colors in the Cascade 220 Paints line for print and web.

I can't decide which one I like the best. Maybe Harbor Beach simply because it is a combination I don't see much. I love how it looks with blue jeans. Now I can't decide if Iwant to knit something fast, like a hat, or maybe a pullover over to wear with my jeans at work.

Finally completed the member's newsletter for the Association of Knitwear Designers, Inc. I was assistant editor for one month when the editor decided to move on. So guess what! I'm now editor. It was a hair raising experience. So far, 2 mistakes have appeared, but everyone was kind and patient with me. A slight alteration and the newsletter will be ready to email out to the yarn companies. I think it is safe now to send to them.

If you are interested, the Association of Knitwear Designers, Inc., is an association that applicants apply to be a member either at the associate or professional level. Your work is previewed before you will be accepted. But if you are serious, this is a great association to be part of. Members teach and get taught by each other. It is a great way to network with the design end of the yarn industry. And there is always a lot going on, and there are many committees really busy with AKD Inc things.

The toddler vests pieces are done. I had to knit one front 3 times just because my notes were so poorly prepared for that size. But did a lot of tech edits over the weekend. Next I should take some in-progress photos just in case I want them for the pattern, and start the seaming.

Yesterday here on the coast of Oregon, it was beautiful. Sunny and it felt like spring. Today, I am looking at a foggy dark overcast day. I was sooooo ready for spring! Now I'm just ready for a nap!

Pastel Paints in Cascade 220 & Pastaza

This is a pretty cool picture. You need to click on the picture so you get the larger version. On the left side is Cascade Pastaza. On the right is the same color in Cascade 220. I don't know why, but I really like Pastaza. I love the sheen it has, and I enjoy working with the yarn. It does itch if you wear it next to your skin, and you get a little warm, but you cannot beat it for cardigans, hats, vests and so on. and the way it takes the dye colors is just mouth watering. Top row is #9842 Coral Beach. 2nd row is 9848 Aqua Sol. 3rd row is 9846 Flower Forest. 4th row is 9843 Paradise. More colors are coming!

More colors, but I didn't have colors in both lines. The first bag on the left is Pastaza #9921 Caribbean Sea. Don't you just love the colors! Followed by 4 bags of Cascade 220. #9847 Montego Bay, #9833 Captain's Bay, #9850 Spring Bay, and #9849 Harbour Beach. Soon I'll have the missing colors in both lines. I do stock all the colors in Pastaza and Cascade 220 whether they are good sellers or not. Up in the upper right had corner you see the backs to 2 of the baby vests I'm working on. Yes, my patterns take eons to complete. This cold really set me back. Yesterday afternoon while my Friday group was here, I was able to wire the backs. After everyone left, I blocked them. That's my blocking board you see under the bags of yarn. This morning, I removed the wires and set them aside so I could take the pictures I promised you this morning. These colors are not quite up on the Pastaza and Cascade 220 yarn pages. But they will be by Sunday evening. Now I must skedaddle because I have a lot of orders to ship out for a Saturday morning! tata for now!

Lorna's Laces Lion & Lamb and Shepherd Sport

Last but not the least, photos of the 2 final lines.

Lorna's Laces Lion and Lamb

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

OOohhh, nice stuff!!

Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport Starting from top left: Huron, moving across is Winona.2nd row is Butterscotch, then Edgewater.Bottom row is Apple Hill (coming soon), then Pilsen

Tomorrow watch for photos of the new colors of Cascade's Hand Dyed yarns in Cascade 220 and Pastaza!

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!