Eat.Sleep.Blog Erin's thoughts on knitting and running a yarn store

I posted a few weeks ago about yarn choice, and some of my personal guidelines to choosing yarns and colorways for projects. Guidelines are made to be broken though, and when we got in Malabrigo’s new super bulky, single-ply yarn, Rasta, several months ago, I fell in love with some of its gorgeous but extremely variegated colorways. And I wondered – could these work in a sweater? And how much would you need?

It took me a while, but I finally hit upon a pattern I thought might work; one that I’d actually wanted to knit for months – Wrenna, from French Girl Knits.

This was one of my most fun knits, ever. The yarn is incredibly soft, and every stitch was a different color, which made this fun to watch. Oh, and did I mention how fast the super bulky yarn knits up? This entire sweater took six hours of knitting time, and 2.5 skeins of Rasta. I was also concerned about wear since it is a single-ply yarn, but because Rasta is ever-so-lighted felted in the spinning process, it holds up quite well.

My favorite part, though, is that Wrenna makes a fantastic layering piece for our strange “fall” days where it is 45 degrees in the morning and evening, but 80 degrees during the day, so it has already gotten a ton of use!

Just an inaugural post to celebrate the blog’s prodigal return from the depths of our remarkably obtuse web host. (They didn’t used to be, but apparently things have changed over the twelve years I have been using their services to host various blogs.) This is also the time where we all thank our lucky stars that the rest of the website is hosted directly by us, with my extremely competent husband serving as admin and server guru.

While the blog was down, my best friend got married and I had the honor of being her bridesmaid. Congratulations to Lisa and Lee!

There were tons of handknits at the wedding, which were very well received by the non-crafters. And an October wedding in Georgia can go either way, temperature-wise, so I knit myself a wrap to wear after the ceremony if I got chilly. Love how this came out.

This is the Eustacia wrap from the Shibui Luxury book, knit smaller than the pattern calls for so it only used two skeins each of Silk Cloud and Staccato Sock. Unbelievably soft, and I got so many compliments on it!

Oh, blog. I’m so sorry that I neglect you. We’ve been working on a lot of fun things around here that take attention away from this poor blog, including a very exciting expansion of our shop and working on some surprises for Stitches South, where we are very excited to be one of the sponsors of the Ravelry party on Thursday night! Those of you attending who’d like to see Eat.Sleep.Knit in person can feel free to pop in and visit us Thursday and Friday from 10 AM to 2 PM, after which you’ll most likely spot us wandering the market floor trying to contain ourselves.

We’ve also been getting in so many new yarns, new vendors, and new colorways that any free time I’ve had, I’ve been trying to knit with some of them! I was especially pleased with my latest project, Catalina (pattern by Jordana Paige).

Pretty much the first time I laid eyes on the new SweetGeorgia Yarns Merino Silk DK, I knew I needed to cast on with it, right away. I used the Ginger colorway – the subtle color variations knit up into a truly lovely sweater, and the stitch definition and softness are both impressive. I’m actually trying to decide which color to knit a second one, as this is a great sweater for chilly spring mornings or a breezy day at the beach, conveniently as my mom recently moved to Florida and hopefully more breezy beach days are now in my future!

Oh, and the announcement, which I’m putting last but is the farthest thing from least – Eat.Sleep.Knit will be (enthusiastically) retailing yarns from Squoosh Fiberarts in May! We can’t wait and we hope you can’t either!

Our newest club is a one-of-a-kind club where you get to sample some of our most luxurious yarn bases in the colors you choose. Each shipment will include enough yarn for a small project, along with useful color-themed extras and project suggestions.

Color groupings mean that all of the yarn you receive will fall in some way into that color family, but we will aim to give you different shades of the same color or even a variegated colorway where that is just one of the main colors. Sign up for one or several, or choose the “full spectrum” option to be totally surprised!

Here are some answers to some frequently-asked questions about our clubs:
What is the sign-up deadline?
The last day to sign up for this round of the Spectrum Club is March 15, 2010. We do have a limited number of spots available though, so they may close earlier if we run out of space.

When will shipments go out?
This round will contain four shipments, which will be shipped to you in May, July, September, and November as close to the beginning of the month as possible.

What is the cost for international subscribers?
Subscriptions to the US and Canada are $164 for the full round. All other international subscriptions are an extra $10, $174 for the round.

Can I sign up for more than one subscription?
Of course – you can sign up for as many or few as you’d like. Maybe you’d like both the red and the green color group, or maybe you want two red subscriptions to make larger projects.

Do you offer a shipping discount for multiple subscriptions?
We do! For all subscribers, you will receive a refund of $15 per additional subscription if you sign up for more than one.

Do club subscriptions count towards the Yarn Marathon?
Sorry, no.

Are the colorways unique to the club?
No, all colorways in the club will be standard available colorways so you can get more any time you want. Due to the 11 (!) different color groupings in this club, asking our dyers to create exclusive colorways would have been a near impossible feat, and we’re willing to bet there are some fabulous colors you’ve never tried before.

What if I move or need to change my address?
If at any point during the club, your shipping address changes, please e-mail us at eatsleepknit@eatsleepknit.com and we will update your information.

Added 03/02/10:
How much yarn is included in the club?
It’s difficult to give exact amounts without giving away some of the surprise, but each shipment will be enough for a small project (this includes accessories, shoulder shawls, socks, etc – basically not sweaters or giant shawls). All but one shipment will contain two skeins.

Like everyone else on Ravelry, I had grand plans for the Ravelympics. Four projects – one a sweater, one a WIP that needs to be ripped back and re-knit as the neck is entirely too big even for my giant husband, a pair of mittens, and a hat. I even tacked on a whole other project when the Yarn Harlot announced she would be hosting the separate Knitting Olympics.

I know. I know because everyone I have explained my plans to, even my equally fervent knitting friends, has simply laughed at me or, if they are being kind, explained about the laws of physics and that I do have to sleep and run this business from time to time.

I also know because right around a week in, I realized that I wasn’t in the mood to work on my sweaters, and I switched to the mitten, which I then realized I als didn’t want to knit. I tried for a few days, but it would appear that I’ve burned myself out a bit. Possibly doing things like this:

Gawain was knit in 6 days, ending the day before the Ravelympics, because I went out of town that weekend on a knitting trip and desperately wanted to wear this on the plane. Which I totally did. So I’m going to just admit that I’ve given up on the whole knitting olympics thing, and stick instead to my own personal knitting challenges.

I do really love this sweater, though – the yarn is Malabrigo Twist in the Zinc colorway. I used every single yard of 7 skeins to knit the 34″ size. (seriously – I ended up scalping the ends from the joins just to seam it) The yarn is so soft and squishy that I kind of want a whole blanket in it, and I barely even minded all the seed stitch. I’ve worn it five times, including twice on the plane coming and going, and it has fuzzed up a bit but no actual pilling thus far and the stitch definition is still quite nice. So color me pleased, anyway.

You may have noticed that we have posted our Tosh Vintage on the website, kind of. We’ve explained briefly in the product description, but here is a great place to elaborate. You all send us quite a lot of e-mails daily about this yarn, and yesterday we received a shipment notification for most of our order. This shipment is currently in transit to us and will arrive tomorrow, January 28th. Since we don’t have the yarn yet, we obviously can not photograph it, and we can not verify that what we have on our invoice is what is in the box, but as far as we know, those 91 colorways should be arriving to us in multiple sweater quantities tomorrow.

Right now, you can add any colors you want to your wishlist to receive e-mail notification as soon as we get them in. Once we get them physically in the store, you’ll be able to order them even if we haven’t been able to take a photo yet. We will be scurrying to upload the photos to the website, but with so many colors it will probably take a day or two to get them all up. We can not take pre-orders on these because, like I said, we don’t have it yet so we can’t be certain that these are in the box and don’t want you to lose out.

Speaking of all things vintage, I’ve been meaning to share one of my favorite Christmas knits with all of you. As a child, my mother crocheted a lot, but my sister and I only saw one thing that she ever knit – these animals vests. I had a version with kittens, and my sister had bunnies, and we both still treasure these and lament that we no longer fit into them.

Well, it turns out that my mom still had the pattern, which meant only one thing – adult-sized animal vests, of course. It took a grand amount of modification to make one that fit an adult woman and wasn’t totally ludicrous to wear, but I am ever so pleased with how it turned out, and my sister loves it! The yarn is Tosh DK in Composition Book Grey.

Okay, not really. What I have is a new scarf, and I couldn’t be more excited. Finishing up gloves, scarves, hats and sweaters for Christmas gifts in all the northerly snow reminded me over and over that the cobbler’s children have no shoes. Yes, it’s true – I did not own a scarf, or a pair of gloves (I do have a fabulous Hannah hat, though). My hands were so cold in New Jersey that I whipped up a quick pair of mittens with some leftover Tosh Worsted, but I continued to dream of one day owning a snuggly scarf.

This guy, whom I have affectionately dubbed Snuggles, was knit out of two skeins of Eyre in the Garden Party colorway that I snagged months ago due to a child-like infatuation with anything rainbow colored. This was the perfect use for them, as the yarn is so cuddly and soft that any excuse to have it near your face is more than welcome, and the cables are pretty without overpowering the colorway. I used a little more than half of the second skein before realizing the scarf was already a bit long (it’s more than 5 feet in length, which is about the same as my height!).

It is just modified from a couple of other stitch patterns I dug up, but if you want a Snuggles of your very own, I posted the instructions on my Ravelry project page.

Some answers to common questions from the last post:
Q: How do Malabrigo Club members get the downloads for free?
A: Log in using the account you used to order your Malabrigo Club subscription, and add the downloads to your cart. The price will display as $0.00.

Q: Do you have to enter a credit card to “purchase” the free scarf pattern download?
A: Unfortunately, yes, we have no way to checkout on our website without “payment” at this time. The charge is $0, but if this is a problem, we recommend using the free Ravelry download version instead.

All of the patterns that were designed for our 2009 Malabrigo Projects Club are now available for purchase, and as an added bonus, we’ve been able to offer these to you in two formats: instant download or traditional print copies. All of these patterns were designed exclusively for us using a variety of Malabrigo yarns and are available only on our website. Some of our favorites:

Vine Bolero by Emily Johnson

Knit in Malabrigo Silky Merino in Cape Cod Gray. Alternative yarn ideas: Lorna’s Laces Lion & Lamb, or even Madelinetosh Wren.

Brilliance Pullover by Katie Francheschi

Knit in Malabrigo Worsted Merino in Lettuce. Alternative yarn ideas: Yarn Love Anne Shirley, Madelinetosh Tosh Merino

Trifecta Scarf by Star Athena

Knit in Malabrigo Lace Merino in Cognac. Alternative yarn ideas: any lace yarn at all!

We’ve also made our final scarf pattern available as a free download for those of you looking for a quick new scarf!

Psst, club members: if you’d like PDF versions of any of these patterns, you can download them instantly free of charge.

Well, after completing my own personal knitting olympics for a holiday knitting list that was really, truly an ode to my poor sense of planning and grandiose intentions (I finished everything except one teensy tiny thing! That I had a back-up gift for, as I kind of planned to fail on that one.), we made our every-other-year pilgrimage to New Jersey where we spent a lovely wintry Christmas with Dan’s family.

After 8 years living in Georgia, I have been amazed to say that it has really been years since I have seen snow. We’ve gotten the occasional quarter inch, and I think once there was a really bad ice storm a few years back, but the kind of snow where you might throw a snowball, or go sledding, or even shovel the walk? We don’t get that here, and it hasn’t snowed once on our annual journeys north. So once we determined that everyone was safe, I was kind of delighted to hear about the record 23.2 inches of snowfall awaiting us in the Philadelphia area.

It didn’t even take that long – driving up, we stopped at a 7-11 in Woodstock, Virginia, and Diesel got to play in this:

We also got to introduce my dad to another Southern delight (though I first tried it in Pittsburgh in the interest of full disclosure) – New Jersey now has Chick-Fil-A, and I was shocked to find out that not only had he never had Chick-Fil-A but he hadn’t had a chicken biscuit at all, ever!

The verdict: he tried to get another the next morning, forgetting my promise that you will never want Chick-Fil-A more than Sunday morning, when they are closed. (Forgive the unflattering picture, but fair is fair. And look, I’m wearing a handknit! Low Tide Ripples in Tosh Worsted Posy.)

And on the drive back, we got a real treat – the restaurant we stopped at for lunch turned out to be directly underneath the giant peach water tower that welcomes you to Gaffney, South Carolina.

Dog and 6’7″ husband included to give you an idea of just how massive this thing is. Turns out it has a name – Peachoid! And it won the 1981 Steel Tank of the Year Award. So, new idea: US road trip to see various Steel Tanks of the Year?

Next post: knitting content, I promise.

Oh and: in case you missed it, the 2010 Yarnathon has begun. All yardage has reset from 2009 – you retain any store credit or prizes you may have earned last year!

I know, the blog’s been quiet! I am furiously knitting for holiday gifts, which of course can not be posted on the blog until after the recipients have gotten them. That and a day-to-day that is currently consisting of just a ton of restocking and shipping has not made for great blog fodder, sadly.

I do have some pretty fantastic knits to share once Christmas comes, though!