Yarn Blog | Adventures with Yarn

It seems to have been a fleeting summer this year. My short sleeved t shirts have barely been worn and already I am thinking about knitted sweaters to wear each day. I love this time of year with a cool start to each day and a slight chill in the evenings and I know my garden is enjoying the cooler temperatures.

So much new yarn has come into Filati in the last few weeks, it is like Christmas for knitters…. I have already put aside a bag of the new Rowan yarn called Tapestry for myself, and today when the Manos Del Uruguay yarn arrived with some gorgeous patterns, well, lets just say it was very tempting too. The patterns that arrived along with the yarn are very nice, lots of basic sweaters and jackets along with some really elegant throws too.

But back to the real world. I have just completed knitting three hats in Crystal Palace Iceland as the main yarn, and splash, squiggles or fizz as the trim on each of them. Over the weekend I will felt them using my Bosch frontloader, and then find three bowls to shape them and dry them on for a couple of days. I also have a lovely bolero to finish made in Crystal Palace Deco-ribbon and that pattern as well as the hats are available free on the Crystal Palace website. As felting is so popular I am also making a bag from a Vogue book with a new Ironstone Yarn which has just arrived in the shop.

Janice, Alice and I along with one of our customers called Alison have been busy making the estonian shawl by Fiber Trends. Alice made the first one, and then I started mine with Alison knitting in the shop together on Wednesday evenings. Janice then decided she rather liked the pattern too so made hers slightly longer as a gift for a friend. I still have to finish mine and have reached the first end of the nump pattern! Trying to knit all the things above for the shop as well as a vest for my Dad (he will be 80 in November) has left me little time for ‘numping’ but I will get the shawl done soon, I hope.

Three years ago I taught a young lady called Samia to knit and now at 13 she is knitting up a storm. She called me three Saturdays ago and asked if she could spend the day with me at Filati so that I could help her complete the bottom of the bag we had started together while she was on summer vacation. Samia had a great day with us and felt rather grown up going to lunch with Diane and Cathy. As well as getting the four double point knitting needles under control she also learned how to sew in the ends properly. Samia is the only person I have ever taught to knit and I have to admit that I am very proud of her progress. We don’t get together as often as we would like as she is very busy being in Grade 8, but her Mum told me that each night before she goes to bed she knits to relax after studying for so many hours. Sounds as though this hobby will stay with her for years to come.

I am going to see what Chester and Lester are doing as it seems a little too quiet downstairs and I left some knitting on a sofa.

So long for now,
Sally

Email can be a pain. Some of our sale notifications didn’t arrive and some of them ended up in bulk folders! So Janice decided to continue the summer sale for another week. Alan just changed the date on the website www.filatiyarn.com

We had a great week, saw lots of new people and many old friends.

The Fall classes are filling up nicely, including some really great beading and felting classes. I just finished making three felted bags and I really love them. Two are for friends and one is for me.

Where does the time go? Its August already. I seem to have missed a few months. Ive been kitting up a storm. Baby blankets, lace shawls, felted bags – its great to see them all take shape.

This week, the Filati annual Summer Sale is on. There is a huge selection of Fall and Summer yarns. I’ve got my eye on several things.

Some of the Rowan yarns have been discontinued, so have Louisa Harding, Curious Creek, Mountain Colors and others.

Today (Saturday 12th August), Betsy Coyne and Pat Clark, knitting instructors will be at Filati so you can ask questions and sign up for classes. Betsy Coyne is from “Cultured Purl”. Her Fall classes are for felted items – be quick before the classes fill up. I made two felted bags recently and they both turned out really well. I felted them in my front loader Bosche washing machine and I’m really happy with the result. Pat Clark’s Fall classes are for beaded knitting and there has been a lot of interest so far.

The Filati Fine Yarns has directions to the store, if you need them.

I am so excited about Jo Sharp’s visit on June 17th to Filati Yarn. One of her new yarns for fall has arrived in the store and we have also received the new book for fall as well. Come rain or shine and in our case even if the temperatures rise above 95F I shall be wearing the new sweater I just knitted made with the aran weight cotton!!!! The very first colour knitting I ever attempted was a gorgeous jacket designed by Jo. I used her dk weight wool which at the time was the only yarn available in the Jo Sharp line. Even now each time I wear the jacket I feel proud to say Jo Sharp from Australia designed both the pattern and the yarn. I am sure the two hours, 1 – 3pm she will be in the store will fly, but we will all enjoy every moment of her visit.

Sally

We’re so excited! Next week, Jo Sharp will be in California.
Famous Knitwear Designer Jo Sharp to Visit Filati Fine Yarns

Good morning,

Well I did all the shops in the first Sacramento area Yarn Shop Hop and it has taken me a couple of days to recover. I was lucky enough to have a few days off from work so that gave me the opportunity to spread the stores over three of the four days. Actually it was four days because I worked at Filati all day on Thursday which was the first day of the shop hop. I finally turned my passport in on Sunday around lunch time at Cameron Park and then relaxed.

It was nice to see all the stores in this area carrying a wide variety of yarns and also supplies for other crafts as well. Now when we get calls at the store for non knitting supplies we know which names to give out instead of just the box stores like Beverleys and Michaels!!! I always support the speciality stores first no matter what I might be looking to purchase. This was a great opportunity to get all the information needed to keep the clients within the small business network.

I did use this shopping time to buy of course. My goal was to purchase a” Christmas gift” to knit in each of the 12 stores and yes I certainly achieved that very easily. I will of course need all the time between now and December 1st to get all the gifts completed for overseas friends and family members.

Just before leaving Cameron Park on Sunday I called in at a Quilt store to satisfy my other hobby needs. As I made my purchase I was handed a flyer for a Quilt Shop Hop in October. Although I might not have the time to do that one is was nice to see it advertised so far in advance.

Sally

Have I been knitting up a storm with the discontinued yarn by Sirdar called Kool Kidz. In the past week I have knitted two sweaters for our friend Devlin who was born in February this year, and one cardigan for his sister Bliss who will be four in September. I just started a new sweater for Bliss this morning and with any luck will have that one completed by the end of this week. The two for Devlin are age 6 – 12 months, and I decided to knit age 5 – 6 years for Bliss, because if they are far too large they can be stored until the following winter. When Devlin was born I had knitted a lovely top down cardigan in hand dyed pure wool yarn for him which Craig and Karen were thrilled with. However I decided that with the Kool Kidz yarn being completely machine washable and dryable why not make some quick easy sweaters for both Devlin and Bliss while the yarn is still in the sale area of Filati.
The Sacramento area Yarn Shop Hop is on this weekend running from Thursday through Sunday. Fortunately I have my long weekend off starting from Friday, so will attempt to go to all of the stores on the passport while I have the chance. The quilting world has been holding these fun weekends for many years and are they very well organised and extremely successful. Let’s hope this “copy” works well for the knitting stores and knitters when organizational problems have been overcome!
For those of you who knew him and those who didn’t know him, Filati’s greeter, Max, the german shorthaired pointer passed away on May 4th 2006. He had been a staff member for about 10 years and is missed by everyone. We have a new greeter in training at the moment called, Molly, a three year old Golden Retriever. She has always been described as a terrorist because she can and does cause havoc at home, but so far after three full days at work she is fitting in well with both the staff members and our customers. Obviously she has large shoes to fill and will never replace Max, however it is lovely to have her in the store and she is certainly bringing much laughter and joy back again.
The warmer weather in this region puts a halt on sweater knitting for a lot of people, however we are already seeing the fall range of yarns and patterns…… I am going to start knitting lace scarves and shawls over the next few months and may even try my hand at some of our new felted bag patterns with the idea of getting on top of my ever growing gift list for both Christmas and birthdays. All small projects which can be knitted in the warmer months and are quite portable too.

Sally

Good morning,
The Filati Spring sale is finally over and now we can look forward to all the new patterns and yarn arriving for both Spring and Summer. We were disappointed with the Rocklin post office who had certainly failed to deliver the sale flyers by first class mail. Speaking to many of our regular customers it was easy to see just how many flyers had failed to arrive in time and some like me and others in Folsom have not received them at all. Of course this could have been compounded by the usual problems that many have with the Folsom post office mail delivery!!

Janice finished and blocked my Blossom cardigan from the Rowan book 17 so I was able to wear that in the store on Saturday. I absolutely love the cardigan and am thrilled that after admiring the pattern for so long it is finally mine. That was the last project for me to be completed and I am now doing the cotton sweater for Alan which is turning out very nice indeed. I bought quite a lot of yarn in the sale of course, mainly Rowan cotton, and have enough for a sweater for Alan and probably enough for two ladies sweaters as well. Now whether they will be for me or for sale remains to be seen. I have so many projects that I would like to make, but if I finished them all firstly I would probably never have time to wear them all, and secondly we would need more cupboard space just for all the sweaters.

The new Knitters and Vogue magazines have been delivered to the store and I have received my copies at home. Both magazines are very very disappointing again and it is becoming harder to justify a subscription renewal each time that time comes around. Even the magazine Cast On has become overly trendy which was a bitter disappointment to me, as the older copies I have are so nice. So far Interweave Knitting magazine seems to be the only one continuing to cater for experienced knitters who don’t bare their middles and prefer to knit on needles and not tree trunks. When I talk to knitters in the store they all say the same about the magazines and books currently being printed and we all seem to go back to old Rowan magazines, Alice Starmore books and cherished vintage Vogue knitting magazines. Even Rowan which is a company I adore has produced little recently that I have to knit, and in fact I have not bought the magazines since #32 prefering instead to purchase the Jamieson books instead.

Well on that note I shall go and do our grocery shopping as we have to eat and then get some more of Alan’s sweater knitted this afternoon.

Enjoy the last week of March

Sally

Hello again,

What a week it has been at Filati’s with such a succesful sale. It was lovely having areas of “yarn on sale surprises” as well as the usual dedicated area at the back of the store. Naturally I found a couple of bargains, but there are a lot of good selections still available. The sale is being extended throughout this week so we will be busy again each day I am sure. Of course I might find some more tempting selections too.

I have finally completed all of the projects on needles for myself. I have also competed the blanket for baby Fisher and have knitted him two sweaters which have to be sewn up and then I can get the package in the mail for him. I am currently knitting a sweater for Alan out of an Annabel Fox yarn called Oasis. Last year I started a Patons pattern for him, and suddenly realised that the finished measurement of 54inches was FAR too large…. So I have chosen a different pattern this one by a company called Panda and this one has a finished measurement of about 43 inches. Poor Alan I gave him two packages of yarn and patterns for Christmas and so far haven’t had time to start either of those for him.

This Summer I would like to make some more shawls out of the Folk Shawl book as I think they would make nice gifts for Christmas. The first lace shawl I tackled was out of that book and I thought the instructions were very good. Thankfully I do have Alice at the store for lace help and when Lew comes into the store he always inspires me and gives me much needed support. I do have a shawl on needles at the moment and that pattern is out of the Knitters magazine, Shawl Book so that will be the next “me” project to complete.

It is the first day of Spring in North America but you wouldn’t know that by looking out of the window. It is very bleak with strong winds and rain pouring down the sliding door upstairs at the front of the house. We had such a nice day yesterday and Alan managed to mow the new lawns thankfully before the rain started again this week.

Chat soon
Sally

Well I haven’t had too much time to blog over the last few weeks. I have completed my Alice Starmore sweater at long last. It has been a pleasure knitting it, but I am now looking forward to wearing it before our weather warms up in California. I also completed a jacket in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Chunky out of a lovely new book and again am anxious to wear that too. Since Thursday of last week I have been home with a dreadful cold. It is not much fun working with people feeling as miserable as I did so Janice suggested I stay home until the store opens again on Tuesday. This has given me the opportunity to get over this cold and also once I felt a little better on Saturday evening to get some knitting done. Yes I have finally completed the Yokohama jacket which I have been knitting for ever. So three large projects are behind me and I just have one jacket on needles now for me and that should be completed fairly soon. Just one more sleeve to knit and then I can choose some buttons for that project. I seem to have been knitting a lot of jackets so maybe my next new project will be a sweater by Jo Sharp.

The blanket for the new baby is about half done, and I have almost completed a size one jacket by Ann Norling in a lovely chunky yarn. The jacket is knitted from the neck down and it is fun to knit garments that way for a change. This seems to me to be quite a unique American invention, however perhaps I have just always picked out patterns that are knitted in several pieces from the bottom up. I have knitted two Alice Starmore sweaters in the round but again they were from the bottom up too.

We had almost two weeks of very pleasant weather with record breaking highs during the days. Now we have a blast of winter again which is lovely. We needed the rainfall in our area and I know the Sierra’s were due for some snow too. But at least the dry weather gave us the opportunity to prune all our new roses and enjoy the new garden for a little while.

Best wishes for a great week
Sally