As many of you would know, WOOL-TYME Kingston is the regional coordinator for PROJECT LINUS, an organization whose mandate is to provide handmade blankets to children at difficult times of their young lives. In order to help us, many of our customers donate yarn and old knitting books that we can then offer for a cash donation to support our efforts.Lately, we've had a super collection of knitting and crochet books that have come in and are displayed for your perusal at the store. Come and check them out, and for a few bucks you may get to take home a real treasure. Plus it's so nice for people to know that the books and stash that they have cherished and donated to us are going to good homes and are also helping with the good works of Project Linus.
What else is happening at the store:
Being Saturday, I'm in a Kool-Aid mood as I've committed to trying a different Kool-Aid dyeing combination each Saturday that I work this summer. This was the colour that we got 2 weeks ago: the recipe=4 pkgs of raspberry lemonade Kool-Aid and 1 4oz skein of Topsy Farms premium lace weight wool. Now I must say that I've never seen raspeberries this beautiful aqua colour before but it is a great one so who am I to complain. I've started working it up into a simple "Feather and Fan" scarf pattern from Ann Norling designs (as this pattern only requires that 1 out of 4 rows has anything other than knit or purl. I truly am the laziest knitter alive.) I'm using needles that are fast becoming my favourites for all knitting: Addi Turbo lace needles. Their points make knitting a sheer delight when working with anything finer than a worsted weight.Earlier today, I got brave and wound a ball of beige tweed LOPI into a loose skein and "cooked" it up with 5 packs of lime Kool-Aid. It's gorgeous and it was super fast. (I think that the extra bulk of the Lopi absorbs the dye faster than the finer spin I've been using before.)
What I love about dyeing is that you can't even pretend to feel any control at all. It's a great exercise in just letting go and allowing your creativity to reassure you that you will think of something to do with all of these great colours in all of these wools. Just imagine, for less than $10 you get a chance to take a real risk of creating a glorious combination of colours and textures. So what if on occasion it turns into a muddy brown mess; think of all the beautiful possibilities that there could be.
