Rouge Cardigan

June and July were two of the busiest and most stressful months I have ever had with Skein.  Late orders, huge workload and a completely disorganised schedule...not good!  Each night, after very long days at work, I sat on the couch, picked up my comfort knitting, switched off, followed the pattern, and this is the result..

Pattern: Downtown Block  by Veera Välimäki 

Yarn: Skein Super DK - Rouge

Its now August and I'm finally up-to-date with orders, I've begun to organise my work schedule so I will never have a repeat of the past few months (good learning experience!), plus the best thing to come out of it all is my wonderful new rouge cardigan. 

Skein Autumn/Winter Update

This Friday the 17th of August at 12pm and 8pm (Sydney time) we are putting on a huge winter yarn update!  There will be plenty of autumn and winter weight yarns available, including a brief return of BFL DK and Merino Worsted as well as our regular stock: Himalaya DK, Merino Silk Worsted, Super DK, Merino Silk Sport, Top Draw Socks and Merino Cashmere Fingering.  The yarns and colourways that will feature in both updates can be seen below, as well as a selection of our favourite autumn/winter patterns for each yarn base.  Hope you enjoy!

BFL DK : 12pm  

                
                    8pm

Bolting by Stephen West

Effortless by Hannah Fettig

 

Ambroso Mittens by Carol Feller

                                                                                                                                                                 

***

Merino Silk Sport: 12pm 

Shift Of Focus Veera Välimäki

Slanted Sleeven by ANKESTRICK

Contemporary (hat and cowl set) by Veera Välimäki

***  

 

Top Draw Socks: 12pm 

River Crossing by Cecily Glowik MacDonald

Zilver by Lisa Mutch

Rubbish Mojitos by Woolly Wormhead

   

*** 

Merino Worsted: 12pm

Reversible Smocked Hat by Elisa McLaughlin

Owls by Kate Davies

Autumn Leaves Stole by Jared Flood

   

 *** 

Himalaya DK: 8pm

Celia by Ariane Caron-Lacoste

Kællingesjal 1897;ENGLISH;recreation from Vendsyssel Museum, Denmark

by Mette Rørbech

Pasha by Jane Richmond

  *** 

Merino Silk Worsted: 8pm

Ahni by Julia Trice

Moose River by Stephen West

Snapdragon Flip-tops by Ysolda Teague

  *** 

Super DK: 8pm

Downtown Block by Veera Välimäki

A Grey Loop by Helen G

Sweet Life by Ara Welch

   ***

Merino Cashmere Fingering: 8pm

Boxy by Joji Locatelli

Whippoorwill by by Carina Spencer

Ripple by Wendy Bernard

  

 P.S.  Dont forget, all yarn orders over $100 receive 10% off, just use the code - SKEIN - at the checkout to claim your discount!  For more info see here.

Like Mother, Like Daughter

I'm not the only hand-dyer in my family..

...my mum has been dying fabrics for many years, and has finally opened up her own etsy shop!

Most of these scarves have been dyed using natural dyes which are collected and extracted by hand, a process I remember watching when I was younger.

 

Check out Lindy's beautiful hand-dyed Shibori Silk scarves and shawls over on her shop, Kimi Silks. 

In the Loop

Thanks to the wonderful people from the French webzine 'In the Loop", my free shawl pattern Wave is now available in French!  I've been enjoying past issues of this webzine and was thrilled when Caroline contacted me asking for permission to translate and publish my pattern.

So, grab a coffee or tea, head on over to 'In the Loop' sit back, relax and enjoy this inspirational  webzine.  If your French is as good as mine, head on over to the google translate page, type in the web address (http://intheloop.fr/) and hey presto, a translated version will appear.

Enjoy!

Cranberry Buttons

Every night this week I've been knitting away on my Downtown Block Cardigan and am already up to the waist decreases.  This project has been keeping my hands busy while we watch the first season of the TV series 'The Killing', which I highly recommend (plenty of knitwear eye candy as well!).  I have already bought some cranberry coloured buttons which look great with the Rouge coloured yarn.  Cant wait to finish!

Busy, Busy

The new studio!

Wow, time has just flown by!  Things have been extremely busy here at Skein and the new studio has been getting a good workout.  We are still in the process of setting up the studio/office space, its a lot smaller than the warehouse so we have been trying to come up with space saving solutions. 

We bought a bookcase to store the dyed yarns and just the other day purchased a large industrial shelving unit which will store the ten or so creates of our undyed yarns.  Things are starting to look a little more organised, although we still have quite a bit more to do.

In knitting news, I was absolutely thrilled to see Skein make an appearance in Veera Välimäki's new eBook 'Modern Times'

Shift of Focus - Photo taken from Modern Times

I got quite a nice and unexpected surprise when I was browsing through my copy and noticed my yarn, Merino Silk Sport, was used for the"Shift of Focus" design.  I love all of the designs in this eBook and decided to cast on for 'Downtown Block'.

Downtown Block - Photo taken from Modern Times

I've used Skein Super DK in Rouge, my wardrobe is seriously lacking in red so this will be a very welcome addition.

Sunday Swatches

Some colours that have caught my eye during the week...

  
...most certainly inspired by the beautiful autumnal colours that have taken over the New England region these past few weeks.

This is the last autumn I will see here in Armidale as we are moving to the coast!  A new location and a new beginning which is very exciting.  Although it will be sad to leave the current (and first) Skein studio, the new space is very inspiring with lots of light, hopefully I'll have some pictures to share next week.


Something else that caught my eye...

Photo courtesy of
 stripespolkadots (ravelry)

...Owl Puffs (original pattern here).  So cute, and the perfect size to try out some Fair Isle knitting patterns, I can see quite a few of these little fellows adorning my new creative space.