It’s been all about the knitting……..

This week has been knitting related everyday! It’s been exhausting but ever so much fun, and it’s only Thursday! And last night was no exception! It was the annual Patons Trunk Show at Yarn Forward , and you better believe I was there! Aside from the always excellent presentation by owner Carol and her daughter-in-law Louise, there was the opportunity to win an entire orchard sized basket of Patons yarns to play with. Sadly I was not the winner (the G-man was vastly relieved!), but the evening was grand none the less.

So what’s new with Patons? Well, I scoped out the web site early this morning, and the newest booklets that we saw the designer samples for, are not up on the website yet (although strangely there are pictures in the Mary Maxim Catalogue), but I can tell you that some of the color ranges have been expanded (yummy!), and that there is now a Basics Four booklet (do you have Basics 1-3 – you should! They are excellent!) that is all about socks & slippers, and a new booklet on top down sweaters, and a new cotton blend stretch sock yarn that I think looks ever so interesting! One of the reasons I go to the trunk show is that I can touch and feel all the designer’s samples (and Louise is just the right size to model them, and dextrous enough to amuse us, specifically with the socks & slippers, modeling them in yoga-like positions, one foot over her head!).

The new socks & slippers booklet is fun, fun, fun, with items made from many of the different Patons yarn, in all kinds of styles and textures. It is designed to take you from basic to challenging and there is something for everyone from classic ribbed or cabled socks to skirted fair isles socks to liven up your hiking boots! The slippers included suede bottomed with woolly lamb cuffs, your Gramma’s standard pull-on’s, Peter-Pan’s and more fair isle booties! Again, something for everyone and in every size.

And what is so new about top-down sweaters? Well, nothing really, but some of us need a little help in the imagination department when it comes to combining current colorways in new and interesting combos, and if the samples are any indication, this booklet will be just the thing to add to my pattern library. A classic top-down raglan ski sweater done in black with a dark turquoise, dark mint-y green and soft white fair isle yoke, a yoke-cabled cardi in a silver-grey tweed with a tiny acidic yellow fleck (believe me, gorgeous despite my pathetic descriptive attempts), a solid color soft yellow gold raglan pull-over tunic done in a possibly a box stitch?, (I can’t remember the stitch pattern name, but it’s easy) and others. All designed to show you how a classic top down knit can be oh so current!, given the right colors, stitches and styling choices. And easy too!

As well, Carol showed us some of the latest items in the store – did you know they are caring Cascade now – and the colors are amazing, with more to come! And Aerquipa continues to fly off the shelves, with new solids on the way. I was hard pressed not buy another skein, but I have one luscious skein from my toes-up class still waiting to be knit up, so I resisted!

Actually, is hard to believe but I only came away with the new Interweave Knits (which has been sold out everywhere I’ve gone!). Why this absence of yarn acquisition you may ask?

Wellllllll….. the G-man has been re-shelving my craft room cupboard so that I can more effectively store my fabric stash, and so out came all the yarn stashed in there, and oh yeah, you guessed it. There was quite a bit not yet knitted up. It covers the entire guest bed (it’s a single so don’t get too excited!). See what I mean (I think I may have a wee problem with stash enhancement!):

So it seemed an appropriate time to go on another stash reduction diet. Spring approaches and I do like to take advantage of those spring cleaning urges. Patons Trunk show or not, I need room for more yarns, and in that the new booklets that I liked are not yet out, and that Yarn Forward is very good about having regular sales, I could stand to wait a bit, get my butt in gear and finish up some of my current WIP’s and think up some new uses for my stash! I’ll gift some to DD1 who is always looking for oddities to make up her baby blanket squares (her friends are in full re-production mode!) or bits suitable for the awesome one of kind scarves she makes. I’ll purge some under the what-was-I-thinking category. I’ll re-vamp my project line-up to quickly knit up the smaller projects that have been languishing patiently. Then I’ll squirrel the rest away again likely to be forgotten until the next time I re-arrange!!

So there you have it – I’m halfway through a perfectly knitter-ly week! Tonight, Knit Night at the Pinecrest Chapters! Yippee!

Knit on………..