Let's hear it for the Volunteers!

When I heard that April 10th-16th has been set aside to recognize the work that volunteers do in our community, I naturally thought about Project Linus and the thousands of blankets that we've distributed to children in the greater Kingston area, blankets that have been kindly made and donated with yarn that is often donated too. When WOOL-TYME Kingston took on the role of coordinating the local chapter of Project Linus, we were collecting about 10 blankets a month. Now, through the generosity of so many contributors, we are up to about 50 blankets each month!

Then that got me thinking about volunteers in general.

In sorting out the yarn donations that we receive regularly at the store, there is some yarn that isn't of use for the purpose of making children's blankets so I have a list of about 7 or 8 other charities who are always ready to accept the baby yarn, the Phentex, the fancies to make projects for their own fundraisers. Furthermore, each location to which we deliver the Project Linus blankets: Children's Aid, Almost Home, Interval House and Dawn House and many others, all have their own group of dedicated volunteers who are committed to their own work.

Being a business, we frequently receive requests for donations to fundraisers. This week alone we were privileged to receive a request from the Canadians for Women in Afghanistan for their upcoming Gala and the Andrew Trudeau Memorial Golf Tournament raising funds for the Mental Health Assoc. and for projects working against impaired driving.

Then my friend who is a nurse working in palliative care sent me a copy of an article about the "Izzy Dolls" ,which originally gained popularity being made for children in war torn areas, but from her perspective, my friend says that they are invaluable for calming people who are stressed and/or suffering from dementia. In an upcoming newsletter, we'll be offering the link to the pattern and a bit of encouragement to our customers who would like to make some to be distributed locally.

Finally, I started thinking about my own humble volunteer cap that I wear (figuratively speaking) and I'll let you in on the secret that I've discovered to feeling great about any volunteer job that you choose to do: BRING FOOD! Every time I show up at the local shelter for which I've been making sandwiches for at least 8 years, I'm greeted by staff and residents alike with appreciation and actual joy (especially when there are some cookies or other treats accompanying the sandwiches).

Twice a week I deliver these sandwiches made of white bread, margerine, processed meat and mustard (at their request). Except for the mustard, we wouldn't probably have any other these other products on our regular shopping list, but although salami sandwiches are not my cup of tea, I DEFINITELY understand the value of comfort food to someone who is going through a rough patch. So I started calculating the output and by my estimation I've buttered 16 000 pieces of bread to make 8 000 sandwiches over the past 8 years. And of course my only wish is that they weren't needed but while they are, I plan to keep it up.

ARANWARE POTTERY

So this is my new Aranware pitcher. Don't you just love it? One of the things that I find particularly fun about being a yarn store owner is that you get to be official Head Cheerleader for absolutely anything that has to do with knitting, sheep, fibre, and just about anything else of interest to our customers. When I was researching Irish knitting for the March newsletter I came across Ann Mullan-Karakatsanis, the creator and designer of Kara Irish Pottery, inspired by Aran Irish traditional sweaters with patterns that reflect elements of Celtic art. I loved the pictures of all the pottery so much that I had to get a piece to show off at the store, as an example of how beautiful knitting can inspire so many other art forms. When I picked up my pitcher last week, in the box I found a copy of a magazine article from TEA, A Magazine, Spring 2003 which featured an interview with Ann. They explained that one of the greatest challenges of the production was that the pieces originated from a factory in Derry, in the predominantly Protestant Northern Ireland AND the only other Irish pottery, in County Cork in the Catholic South. Derry however is predominantly Catholic and the home of the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland so an accord was forged and we are the beneficiaries. Also included with the article was the following side bar. It sounds relatively authentic and dependable but I'm always suspect about any "definitive" stories about traditional origins of any kind. For what it's worth, here it is: "The true story of Aran knitting was discovered by knitwear designer, Rohana Darlington while in Aran during the summer of 1984. She searched for Mary Dirrane, said by the islanders to know more about knitting than anyone else. Mary told her the tale of when her mother, Margaret, and her friend Maggie O'Toole had gone to Boston, Massachusetts, in 1906 with the intention of emigrating. They stayed on "some islands off Boston" and learned from some "foreign immigrant woman" how to do cable, moss stitch and trellis or lattice patterns. In 1908 they returned to Ireland, blending their new knitting skills with what they saw sailors wearing, and experimenting with patterns." Now that I have you all gung ho about getting your own piece of Aranware pottery, the bad news is that at this time, Ann has difficulty shipping to Canada as the products, being from offshore, are not covered under NAFTA and consequently are subject to duty and all the shenanigans that that implies. But if you have friend or kin south of the border who can accept your order (as I do) Ann is happy to do that for just $5 shipping charges. karairishpottery.com 1-800-430-2008

The Mag Browse

My own knitting life is sadly quite boring at the moment.

I've been going through physio to put my shoulders back in some sort of sensible condition after 40 years of knitting several hours per day. All is progressing relatively well, but it means that while I'm knitting, every time I feel any sort of twinge from mid back to the top of my head, I drop the needles immediately and take a break, walk around the living room, stretch limbs and neck, then try and figure out where I left off in my pattern.

Needless to say, this little exercise protocol every 15 minutes or so doesn't lend itself to any sort of fancy work, nor to much knitting at all. So to keep inspired, I have turned to my other great love: reading. And in this case I've been specifically reading some of the knitting magazines that I don't have regular access to at the WOOL-TYME Kingston store.

Last Saturday before going to work, I brought my mags to Starbucks and was greeted by the barista who exclaimed as I paid for my tea: "Oh wow! You have knitting magazines. I love knitting, I do it all the time with my friends." It's not often that women of a certain vintage inspire such a reaction from a girl in early twenties. My selection included the most recent edition of Love Of Knitting (a newish American publication), the Spring/Summer issue of Vogue Knitting, which sold out at the store before I got back from my week away early in March. The last of the magazines, which at $13.75 CAD was quite an investment but I'd heard good things about the publication, including the fact that one of our customers had recently sold them a pattern, so it was worth a closer look: Yarn Forward a monthly magazine from the UK.

What a quality publication! I wouldn't say that I'd be lining up at Chapters for the next issue each month, but as a knitter I certainly felt that I got my money's worth for the information, techniques, innovations, and excellent variety of patterns.

So here is what I discovered about what's hot on the knitting scene both here and across the pond:

-Citrus colours...and blue, especially soft blue with a bit of green.

-Cables everywhere, in pillows, throws, bags, and in garments, to accent the shape: "Vertical cables are very flattering for most body shapes. They help to create han hour-glass figure, drawing the eye down to the waist." Anniken Allis, designer of the Selina Jumper in Yarn Forward.

-And the latest trend in knitting "must haves"... Yarn bowls. I saw them featured and advertised in all 3 magazines. How cute, but is it really a "must have"?

I also learned that in the 1940s, women incorporated the finest of lace or cable patterns into their knitting to perk up the dreariness of the colours that were available, but they would only add these at the yoke, to save precious yardage. In the 1950's with the end of rationing, knitwear designers seemed to have gone hogwild, with dolman sleeves flared and lacy knitted skirts and swing jackets of the widest proportion.

I learned that Alice Starmore has a new book called Fishermen's Sweaters which I have serious doubts about the number of fishermen who would get a chance to wear these magnificent and intricate Aran designs, especially to work on a smelly boat.

Finally Nicky Epstein has come out with a smart thing to do with the miles of "corking" that kids can produce, using it to embellish store bought pillows - we'll have to do up a sample of this fun and easy craft for the store.

Snow Day.

This was a snow day and I was at home all day.

Actually most Wednesdays I get to spend a good portion of the day at home working at the computer, but somehow with all that snow blowing around outside, and my husband home from work, it felt kind of special. Like I couldn't do anything outside the house even if I wanted to, so I might as well have fun and finish up/get along with some of the knitting projects that have been hanging around for a while.

The first project to tackle was the meter of I-cord that I had made over the Christmas Holidays, using some linen that we've had at the store which didn't seem to be saying anything to me. Then I saw an article in the winter Vogue Knitting Magazine that showed how I-cord could be twined into a beautiful celtic knot and worn as a necklace. Isn't it beautiful. Tomorrow I'm off to look for a clasp to sew onto the ends of it.


Next was finishing the last few rows of the TUL scarf. TUL is the newest frill type scarf yarn from Katia, made of combed cotton and nylon. It's beautifully soft to work with and comes in lovely spring colours. I can see it for cuffs, neck trims, bag adornments as well as scarves. Now, that's project #2 down.

WOOL-TYME Kingston's first ever Knit-Along featuring the February Lady Sweater got underway last night at the store with a great turnout despite the weater and sadly, without me. As I was backing out of my driveway to go to the event, I rammed right into a giant snowbank and there sat my car until it was too late to make any sense of heading in to the store. That actually doesn't have much to do with anything except the fact that I'm pouting a bit for having missed the kick off, but it also serves as a segue to the next project that I was working on today: an afghan square for next fall's proposed Knit-Along: a Blocks of the Month Afghan.

Last week I wrote of how I enjoyed working on afghans so much, and although I've got 2 great knitters and friends working up most of the squares that we intend to incorporate into this project, both of them are working on their F. L. S. for this Knit-Along, so it seemed as if it would be a good opportunity for me to do a couple of the squares myself. This is called a Loop Stitch Rib and is really easy yet quite impressive looking.


Later in the day I got a chance to go through some of the new books that just arrived on Monday. What a surprise to find that Nicky Epstein's new book: Knitting Block by Block was a perfect summing up of all that I got to do today.

Nicky is known for her amazing creativity and for seeing knitting in a very 3 dimensional manner. This book of knitted blocks includes just about anything that you can imagine as shown on the cover: I-cord, beads, pieced work and good old stitch variations. Each of these blocks can be used by itself as a pillow cover for instance, or in combination in a shawl of an afghan. I particularly loved the applied I-cord squares. Perhaps I was just trying to figure out a way to use the rest of the linen I-cord that I have left over from my necklace.

Anyway, it's a lovely book. Every page had me thinking of applications for each of her great designs. So many ideas...so little time. But it sure is fun to look at them and let them settle in my brain. Maybe one of those ideas will hatch a concept for Knit-Along 2012.

The Season for Blankets

I've been seeing a physiotherapist for the past little while with some shoulder issues and she suggested that I take a 2 week holiday from knitting. I realized that the main problem was probably not the knitting when my immediate internal response was: "Thank God she didn't say 2 weeks away from the computer." But I digress.





I'm a good girl and always do what I'm told, so I've mostly put away the needles for a while and last weekend did some work assembing this sampler afghan that we're designing for the store. I realized very soon that it's been years since I've worked on a blanket. I had forgotten how much I like it and I really believe that it's one of the most therapeutic types of knitting. When my partner and I first got together back in the late '70's, he was in BC and I was in Montreal for the first 6 months. During those months we racked up some heavy phone bills, but on the + side, I completed 5 full sized afghans during that same time. (Would you call that therapeutically obsessed?)





At the end of Dec. the Ottawa Citizen featured an article about a group of hockey moms who have put their arena time to making blankets for Project Linus, an organization that many of you know that we coordinate locally, which provides hand made blankets for kids who are going through a difficult time. Then within a week, we received a flyer from Bernat Yarns offering support for Project Linus and free pattens for other fundraisers.

Project Linus, in addition to doing wonderful work, is one of the best organizations that I've ever been associated with. From their beginnings in 1995 it grew so much in the first year with chapters world wide that an executive decision was made that they would either have to expand to include paid staff...or...they could simply trust the goodness and integrity of the people involved and completely let go of the reins of power. Having chosen the latter way, each chapter is loosely associated with the larger organized non-organization, meaning that there is support but absolutely no paper work, no reporting, only proper and important work getting blankets to the kids who need them.

WOOL-TYME Kingston has been involved since 1996 and to date, I think we have distributed, through the generosity of our customers, over 3 000 blankets in the Kingston area, extending to Napanee and Gananoque.

That being said, if any of you know of a local group who works with kids when they are going through a difficult time in their lives and would like to have some blankets to help make their time easier, please let us know. We'd be glad to share what we have with you.

So grap your needles or hook and work up a blankie for yourself or someone you love. (And considering that we just found out about 2 family weddings coming up this summer, I'm sure I'll be taking my own advice in the near future...as soon as I'm off the disabled list.)

Perfectionism and the Bull.

You may remember a few posts back I mentioned about discovering work by Kingston's own yarn bombers on display on lower Princess St. Well as in everything else, NYC knows how to do it BIGGER.

This is the Wall Street Bull. The underlying statue is itself a work of guerrilla street art as artist, Arturo Di Modica placed him in the centre of New York's financial district without permission in 1987. Zoom ahead 23 years and you have New York yarn artist, Olek, doing her bit to add some colour to the financial district on a cold December night. Isn't he beautiful? I remember when I first saw this picture I was awestruck at the perfection of the fit, especially around all those fine curves of the feet and the horns. How could anyone possibly accomplish such precision...in secret, no less?

Then I watched the video of the assembly which took place this past Christmas Eve in the middle of the night in 20 F weather. (One must suffer for one's art). What struck me was that although art may look perfect at the end, it's creation involves a series of adaptations, decisions, reworkings, evaluations to achieve that illusion.

Here are some of the things that I love about her process - in relation to the work of those who have learned to improve their knitting skills with me:

-The artist was obviously well prepared in that she had all the pieces that she knew that she would need to cover every square inch of the bull, but from the way she has to tug and pull to make it fit, she proves that she is able to work with what she has, even if it isn't perfect to begin with.

-She isn't shy about sharing her work and her adaptations with the passers-by, even if it means that they see it as a work-in-progress .

-She takes huge delight in her work, especially when it's completed. We should all feel like doing a little "Rocky" victory dance at the end of a big job, knitting or any other task.

I have some issues with perfectionism myself. I think that I just don't have the make up to even pretend that anything that I do can possibly be perfect so I'm absolved of even trying.

Last week I was listening to the radio while working on my latest rug hooking project and heard Dr Brene Brown speaking about her book: "The Gifts of Imperfection" and felt so relieved that I no longer needed to feel guilty because I wasn't prepared to tear out an entire flower because one section wasn't exactly as I planned it, or rip back the entire sleeve of a sweater because I saw a mistaken in the crossed cable near a cuff.

That being said, like Olek, I have learned that in order to maintain the quality of my work, I better develop the skills that I need to deal with the errors and issues that might arise that keep the work from being the best it can be. So over the years I have learned how to use sewing thread to camouflage small inconsistencies in tension; I have added bands of knitting on both sides of a sweater under the arms to give it a bit more room if it's too small; I have removed ribbed bands and worked down to lengthen a garment; I've knit the back a smaller size than the front of a sweater in order to give more ease for those of us who might need it in the front and have "fudged" or eased the armholes to make them work together. And most importantly, I have learned, as Olek knows, that a good tug, especially when doing the final blocking of a piece can make a world of difference.

All of these tricks and the confidence to use them have come to me over 40 years of knitting and being too lazy or practical to start over. When a class member comes upon a major stumbling block in her project, I will offer possibilities...some based on the "do it over" model, others based on my more random attitude towards fixing the problem. I totally respect that some people would abhor the concept of a mistwisted cable in their garment but I also appreciate when product and process find a good happy medium and can coexist without making the knitter a slave to either one.

Very gingerly, let me say a few words...

I suppose I could explain my absence from this bandwidth for the past couple of weeks as being a byproduct of my holiday revelry and the madness of retail at that time of the year but it would only be partly true.

Last week I got an email linking to Mags Kandis' website announcing the end of the licensing agreement for Mission Falls Yarn, meaning that it will not longer be produced, and therefore when the stock is sold out, will no longer be available. Like all other fans of this beautiful product I was sorely disappointed, especially as I had just brought in the line of their sport weight wool just last spring. What an unfortunate loss - a wonderful product which was conceived, designed and actually spun here in Canada. But alas the world, knitting and otherwise, will keep on turning no doubt.

I don't mean to say that I was so prostrate with grief at the thought of losing a yarn line that I couldn't bring myself to write a blog post. I was however quite shocked by fall out and assumptions that this announcement brought with it and had to think about what I wanted to say. These assumptions originated with the following lines from Mags's original post:

Sad news:
As of today, the Mission Falls brand is no longer.
Happy news:
As of today, the licensee has begun liquidation of Mission Falls products. Yippppppeeeeeee for all you yarnie makers!

I have to commend Mags on her post that day. After 15 years of her life being invested in building such a great brand it must have been a difficult one to write and to word properly. Unfortunately the yipppeeee has perhaps given a wrong impression.

As a yarn store owner I had a very different reaction to losing a yarn that is of such great quality. My first thought was: "I sure hope that they have lots in stock so that the transition to other options can be made more smoothly." It never occurred to me that it would be sold off at fire sale prices.

Mission Falls wool and cotton is still a very valuable commodity, made all the more valuable in the eyes of fans and those who have partly finished projects of Mission Falls yarns by the fact that there will be no more of it coming off the spinners. Why would I devalue it for that exact reason?

On a chat in Ravelry where they were discussing this very topic, one member said that she couldn't understand yarn stores that sell discontinued yarns at full price. Let me say that from this side of the counter, a product is worth exactly what a customer is willing to pay for it. And a beautiful yarn will not lose its quality or value just because no more will be available in the future.

Now don't get me wrong. Full disclosure here...I am a major bargain hunter. I have never seen a Clearance sign that I haven't investigated. And as a yarn store owner, many of you will know that we seldom have an empty section in our Bargain area of the store. But these are yarns that make it to my clearance table by virtue of their overproduction, or outdated colour, or their "orphanhood" being the last few balls of a dye lot. In my store, it all comes down to real estate: does a specific yarn deserve its place in the full price section or should it move on at a discounted price to find a better home under some deserving customer's roof.

Another thing that I want to say is that I really have appreciated CNS yarns' work in continuing and expanding the Mission Falls brand over the past few years. Yes, we all know that it isn't EXACTLY the same, but it was darn close to the original product that Mags offered us for so many years - and it remained a fully Canadian product. I for one think they did a really good job.

As for the cotton, in case you don't know of it, we started stocking Cascade Yarn's LUNA a few years back to complement the colour range of Mission Falls cotton. It is as close to the real thing as you can get in terms of texture and has been a very popular addition to our midweight cotton lines.

To sum up with my best wishes:
-Good on ya, Mags. Enjoy the next phase of your life.
-Thanks CNS - for continuing to bring us these great yarns for the past 5 years.
-And customers, a bargain is a great find, but good quality yarns are a bargain even at full price.