Contest Winner

Ummmm......somehow the information about the contest didn't post yesterday. Mea culpa.

Marnie is the winner! It turns out the the list was of shops that we don't currently work with that came by the Sample It! event at TNNA to buy one of our Pearl kits. Marnie's entry jogged my memory enough to remember all the details. Thanks so much.

To claim your prize, contact us at yarnATlornaslacesDOTnet. We'll set you right up!

While I'm at it, Happy Canada Day to our neighbors to the north!

The Crew and Contest Winner

It's been a long time since I've posted a picture of the crew here at Lorna's Laces. I think it's always nice to have a face to go with the name you read about or the voice you hear on the phone.

Front Row: Sam and Pearl

Back Row: Me, Kylie, Caitlin, Stefanie, Emily and Amanda.

Process or Product

Last night a friend came over for dinner. While the pasta was cooking, I decided to wrap the OpArt blanket so I could get it in the mail to my brother. I also managed to complain about the endless rows of stockinette it required. She looked at the blanket and said "You mean garter stitch, right?"

It brought up the question of process vs. product. Since the blanket is knit in the round, knitting one row and purling the next creates garter stitch. But the process of knit one row, purl one row is stockinette, right?

So, which would you call it, garter or stockinette?

Contest

I was going through my bag today and found a list I scribbled on a notepad from the Hyatt in Columbus. It reads:

Yarn Haven, Knoxville?

Creative Knitworks, Hillsdale NJ

Playing with Yarn, Knife River MN

Gazebo Plus, New Hope PA

Twisted Skeins, Clarksville GA

Wolf Creek Yarns, Grove City PA

Whirled Fibers, Cedar Hill, TX

Ewe Count, Cheyenne WY

Delightful Ewe, Duncansville PA

I can't for the life of me remember why I made the list. I don't know what the shops have in common that would make me write them all down.

It's in my handwriting, so I know that someone else didn't stick it in my bag just to drive me crazy. I'm making my own self crazy without any help at all. I can't tell you how much I hate it when I do stuff like this.

The first person who can jog my memory so I know what I am supposed to do wins enough yarn to make a pair of socks in the new color of their choice. (Or another comparable prize if you don't do socks.)

New Colors

We introduced five new colors at TNNA. We liked the tonal thing we did with Satsuma last season so well, we decided to expand upon it this time around.






The first one is Fiddlehead. It's got several great green tones with just a hint of a golden brown.












Hermosa is named after a neighborhood here in Chicago. The colorway has shades of purple. Purple seems to be very popular this year.













Next up is Midway. Midway is one of the two big airports in town. The colorway is very calm and cool. Greys and blues predominate.












Sheridan Road is on of the major north/south streets on the northside of town. It starts in the city and goes all the way up through the northshore suburbs. It's a melange of blues.












Last up is Valentine. Technically, it's not a new color....several years ago we took a few colorways out of major rotation and this is one of them. While we were making decisions about which colors would make the cut for fall, there was one on the table that everyone liked. It seemed very comfortable somehow. Then the light bulb went on. It was Valentine! Or so close that we decided to introduce you all to an old friend.












We have things all knit/crocheted up in the new colors. You'd probably like to see them too, wouldn't you? I'll get crackin'.

At Long Last

I finally finished my OpArt blanket on the road to TNNA. I think it turned out pretty well.

I know I talk incessantly about how I like a simple project, but even for me, this was too much garter stitch. Maybe I'll have to take Miriam or Aiden up their offer to tutor me on lace. Then I can challenge Franklin to see who can finish Sharon Miller's Princess Shawl first.

This is knit from our Shepherd Worsted in 6ns Douglas Fir and Courage. The picture on the top is before blocking, the one on the bottom is after blocking.

I made the smaller of the two sizes, but since I substituted a worsted for the dk called for in the pattern, it ended up being closer to the larger size. That's OK by me since the baby will live in Jackson, WY and the winters up there can be long and cold.

I'll get it on its way to the new parents next week. I hope they like it. Even more, I hope the babe likes it. My dream would be for it ending up being the the child's Linus blanket. It's probably to big for that, but I can always dream.

The crate from market just showed up. I'll have pictures of new colors and such next week.

Boogie with the Buffalo

You've all heard of Dancing with Wolves? Well, we're Boogieing with the Buffalo around here.

We got together with Ron and Cecil over at Buffalo Gold and are dyeing some yarn for them. We did five colors of their Lux Laceweight yarn. We're talking 330 yards of pure wonder. It's 45% bison, 20% cashmere, 20% silk and 15% tencel. Yowsa!

From left to right, they are calling the colors Yellowstone, Black Hill, Red River, Flat Lake and Wichita Mountain. The names derive from areas that buffalo roamed back in the days when there were big herds of them cruising around.

Since Lux starts out darker than what we usually work with, developing the colors was different from our usual process. Normally, we have a pretty good idea of how the color is going to look from the get-go. With these colors we got a few surprises. Some of the colors that normally show up very bright and vivid in our yarns were more muted. This stuff is rich and sophisticted.

Sure hope you like it!