<3 Style

I’ve recently discovered the addicting fun of Polyvore. So I made some style boards on how I might wear the new <3 hat, which you can make with the Yarn Love Yarn Club February Shipment.

Since warmer weather is just around the corner, or maybe already arrived, depending on where you live, I’ve created some looks with warmer weather in mind. The <3 hat is made in Marianne Dashwood, a superwash merino sport weight yarn, the hat is lightweight and breathable, perfect for transitional weather!

Spring into Color!

Spring is here and it’s time to break out some bright and happy spring colors! Here’s what I’ve been seeing in the new color trends for Spring 2013, and some Yarn Love yarns you can use to make accessories and garments.

Citrus Pop

Granny Smith

Candied Lemon

Classic Navy

Into the Deep

Pretty Pastels

Fresh Celery 

Whisper

Champagne

Orange you glad to see me?

Walden Pond

Blood Orange

Saffron

As always you can order your yarn through the Yarn Love Etsy Shop, every color is available on any of our base yarns.

Yarn Love Club: <3

Yarn Love is really excited to announce the new Yarn Love Club. We’ve made it easy: no subscriptions to manage, and very little waiting. Once a quarter we will list a one-of-a-kind club kit. About two weeks after you place your order it will be on it’s way to you! Every kit is limited edition, so if you want it please grab it while it’s available. This month’s kit includes a Yarn Pop bag, 165 grams of Marianne Dashwood in Bolivian Chili (90 grams), Blood Orange, Ochre, Granny Smith, Persian Bride, Scottish Heather, and a pattern! This kit includes a pattern by Mari Chiba for the <3 hat!

Here’s a guest post by Mari about her inspiration for the pattern.

I’ve been going through a bit of a heart phase lately, and when Katie mentioned she wanted to do a kit with several different colors of yarns I instantly thought of this sketch which I had drawn just a week before our conversation.

Sketch

Swatch

I really enjoyed working with Katie, because I felt like she really understood my vision. I was very excited when I opened my package from Katie to see all her beautiful yarns! I loved her color choices, and I’m so excited to see the finished product.

The hat is knit from the brim, and the brim is knit flat, then the upper portion of the hat is knit in the round. In order to get each heart to be a unique color they are all worked in duplicate stitch, though if you so desired you could follow the charts and work the hearts in intarisa as you knit the hat.

Here are some lovely photos of Katie modeling <3, and of course hop on over to the Yarn Love Etsy Shop to buy your kit now before they run out, because they are a very limited quantity!

You can see more my work and read my blog at mariknits.com.

Knit Love!

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, so hearts are in the air and soon to be on your needles! I’ve gathered some of my favorite Valentine’s themed knits with Yarn Love suggestions, and stay tuned because we have our own pattern release coming very soon!

The Valentine Hearts by Elizabeth Murphy can be attached to cards to make the cutest Valentine that even your non-knitting friends will appreciate! Use leftover bits of Yarn Love Anne Shirley or Amy March Worsted.

Show true love for your Valentine and give them your heart this year with Kristen Ledgett’s Heart. This heart could be made in any shade of Yarn Love Elizabeth Bennet, Diana, or Juliet.

If you’re more interested in sharing the sentiment of Valentine’s Day try out Mari Chiba’s Two Hands Make A Heart. Knit these mittens in Yarn Love Amy March DK for a cozy and washable mitten.

As always, all Yarn Love colorways can be dyed on any of our available bases! See what we already have in stock in the Yarn Love Etsy Shop, and now through 2/15 get $3 off any pink or red skein! Perfect for knitting one or all of the Valentine’s Day knits above!

And in case you need more temptation, here are a few of our favorite colors for the holiday!

Knitting Resolutions

It’s almost time to say farewell to 2012, and hello to 2013! That means its time to make our new years resolutions. Speaking from personal experience as a yarn addict, I know many knitters have one resolution in common: use up some of that stash!

So this post is all about stash-busting, because every skein you use must be replaced! And of courseI’ve included some Yarn Love substitutions for all of these wonderful patterns.

Here’s a great new pattern for that one skein of beautiful fingering-weight yarn that’s almost too pretty to use:

Song Thrush by Kristina Vilimate 

Yarn Love suggestion: 1 skein of Juliet in Crystalline

Are you a prolific sock knitter with lots of leftovers? Remember and cherish all those little bits and pieces of special yarn with Sarah Core’s Mini Mania Scarf.

Yarn Love suggestion: Use leftovers of Elizabeth Bennet, Juliet, Joan of Arc, and Diana in a collection of fun colors!
Colors shown: Haute Couture, Walden Pond, Ochre, Sparkling Pool, and Into the Deep

Toys are also great projects for using up small amounts of yarn. Try Susan B. Anderson’s Elefante! You could use 200 yards of one worsted weight yarn from your stash, or make it striped and use 6 colors and less than 50 yards of each color!

Yarn Love suggestion:  Amy March or Anne Shirley, if using one color try a fun variegated color like Charm

Or, for a whole book of ideas, try Melissa Leapman’s Stashbuster Knits. The book includes great patterns as well as information on picking colors that go well together and how to sort your stash by weight, and more!

Quick Knit Gifts

Are you knitting gifts for your loved ones this holiday? Here at Yarn Love we think that nothing is better than a hand made gift! When you give someone a gift that you knit so much love goes into it. You took the time to consider what sort of item the recipient would enjoy and find useful, find a yarn that works well with the pattern and suits the tastes of the gift receiver, and most of all you spent hours knitting the item! Best of all every time that person wears, holds, or uses the item that you made for them it will be like getting a big warm hug from you!

If you still have people on your list that you would like to knit for don’t fret, we have some suggestions for great projects that that use beautiful Yarn Love yarns and won’t take too long to knit!

The Blue Ice Beret by Erica Jacofsky is shown here using Yarn Love Charlotte Bronte Aran in colorway Blue Cove. This beautiful hat features fun stitch patterns that show off the lovely semi-solid tones of the yarn.

Blue Ice Beret by Erica Jacofsky

Is there a little one on your gift list this year? If so we have the perfect little set! Kate Oates’ Jolly hat and mitten set, shown here in Yarn Love Amy March Worsted. Baby items are smaller, and thus faster to knit! These would also make a great gift for moms-to-be.

Jolly by Kate Oates

Ravelry user Mercourier knit Rebecca Danger’s Presely Cash the Monster using Yarn Love Anne Shirley  in colorway Tulips. This adorable little monster would be appreciated by people of all ages on your gift list!

Presley Cash the Monster by Rebecca Danger

Yarn Love Matchmaker

Have you been drooling over all the new Yarn Love colors, but you feel guilty buying yarn without a plan? Well wait no more! We can help you plan some beautiful projects matching up Ravelry’s most popular patterns and Yarn Love’s fabulous colors! We’re continuing our theme of combining beautiful colors for stunning combinations! We’ll be focusing on the new fall colors, and the best part is you don’t have to worry if the yarn is available in the proper weight needed for your project, because you can have any of these colors custom dyed on any weight yarn that we carry! Visit the Yarn Love Etsy Shop to create your custom order.

Snawheid by Kate Davies is the perfect winter accessory!
Make this cute hat into a statement by using a beautiful deep dark cobalt combined with a softer, lighter, and slightly variegated blue with shades of grey by combining Indigo Bunting and Allure

Geysir by Stephen West is an awesome quick knit gift (for yourself or another).
Employ the split complimentary color scheme that we talked about in our last post and use these three beautiful colors to create a bold and stylish shawl! From right to left: Walden Pond, Granny Smith, and Arabian Night.

Beach House by Megan Peters looks like the perfect project for wrapping yourself up in a cloud of wool. Use this beautiful teal as the base and the pink and brown as accents to create a warm and comforting shawl you’ll want to use every day as you sit near a fire. Colors: Steel Blue, Nutmeg, and Scottish Heather

We hope you’ll have as much fun experimenting with color as we do!

Yarn Love Cast, Part 2

Previously on Yarn Love Cast, Part 1 we introduced the beautiful stars of  the upcoming feature film “Yarn Love: A Knitter’s Dream Come True” Elizabeth Bennet and Juliet.

This time we’ll be introducing our final starlet: Anne Shirley, and Dyeing Diva Extraordinaire and Yarn Love Fearless Leader: Katie Franceschi.

Anne Shirley is a smooth multi ply worsted weight yarn comprised of 100% Merino wool. Each skein of Anne Shirley is $18 and contains 250 yards and 115 grams of yarn love. Want a little Anne Shirley for your private stash? You can find Anne Shirley at the Yarn Love Etsy Shop and at Eat Sleep Knit.

Anne Shirley in colorway Tulips has recently been featured as Springtime Monster in mercourier’s new claymation movie Monsters of Green Gables.

Aberdonian’s Lenina in the Forest is a sequel to Sin City and features Anne Shirley in the Ancient Forest colorway.

Here are some more great roles for Anne Shirley:
1 skein project:  Windschief Hat by Stephen West
2 skein project: Blueberry Scowl (Cowl) by Liz Abinante
Sweater: Que Sera by Kirsten Kapur

And finally, Dyeing Diva Extraordinaire and Yarn Love Fearless Leader: Katie Franceschi.
Katie is a mad scientist with a love of colors. Here’s a sneak peek at her dye studio/home/laboratory.

All the component colors used at Yarn Love are mixed into concentrated dye liquids in those water bottles. Dyes get goopy over time so these bottles get recycled and replaced regularly. All the Yarn Love colors are mixed by hand from these 11 hues.

There is a window directly above this mixing station to provide the best light possible. Katie spends a significant portion of every dye day standing right here measuring and mixing up each color.

 The hand-painting station with freshly dyed skeins stretched across the sink. Skeins are tied for dyeing, soaked and then stretched across this mesh shelf for dyeing. Once all the colors are applied the freshly dyed skeins will be wrapped and moved to the oven to set. This is Early Crocus.

After the skeins are properly set, they go into a soothing wool wash bath. Small buckets are used  and like colors are grouped together; this helps conserve water.  Some days there is an entire line of soaking yarn!

Immediately after their soothing wool wash, the skeins are spun out in the spin dryer to remove excess water and hung on one of our drying stations. Each drying rack has a fan along each side to encourage swift and thorough drying.

This canvas bin just to the side of the drying station is where finished yarn awaits banding. It’s a waist-high laundry bin & it holds a lot of yarn. Diving into this baby is the most wonderful experience ever! In this shot, it’s filled with Elizabeth Bennet – about 12 lbs worth. The finished bin will be carried off to the banding table when the yarn is ready to be shipped.

Like any respectable operation Yarn Love has it’s own quality control team. Our Yarn Love mascots ensure your yarn is of the highest quality by hanging out on the dyeing counter making sure every skein is dyed just right. These two goldfish, which are named The Daddy Fish and The Xavier Fish are 3 years old and huge! We also have two lyre-tail mollies and an algae eater, but they’re holding a staff meeting off-camera.

But there’s more! In addition to dying beautiful yarn Katie also designs knitting patterns! You can find Katie’s patterns here, on the Yarn Love Website, and on Ravelry.

In this photo Katie is modeling her Twinkle Mitts and Brilliance Pullover.

Acknowleding fear, and moving on

There’s a lot of family changes happening in our extended family this year. I’m grateful that they are of a positive sort, but all the same they’re major changes. People are getting married, babies are arriving, and family members are scrambling around to make the necessary plans for the upcoming changes.

Being the responsible sort, who loves her family, this is resulting in my internalizing a lot of stress. In many ways our household functions as a sort of hub between siblings and parents….which means that we hear a lot about individuals’ opinions. They don’t often agree with each other or mesh with my view. The long and the short of the current situation is that I feel a lot of competing pressure to be helpful, supportive and available but I’m short on ways to actually help out. There are just certain things I cannot do for others.

I realized last night that I’ve been spending a lot of time grinding my mental gears on familial guilt-trips, assumed obligations, actual obligations, and worry over the needs of my own family. It’s wearing me out, and it’s wearing me down. My attitude is crappy and I don’t like rehashing my feelings of overwhelm and anxiety.

Previous experience has taught me that this sort of negative emotional loop happens when I feel emotional pressure, and the unvoiced fears associated with them, but never acknowledge what I’m afraid of. If I don’t acknowledge my fears – rational or not – I can’t deal with them or escape the negative, oppressive emotions that they cause.

Fortunately, there’s a simple fix: acknowledging my fears…rational or not…..big and small. I’ve thought them out. I’ve written them down. They look better on paper. I can deal with them one-at-a-time. I understand myself better, and I feel able to tackle each fear as an individual problem. I’ve dispensed with the guilt and overwhelm.

I feel better. Lighter. Able to cope. I can move on.

Fear can be caused by anything in life. Sometimes I feel fear about business changes or creative endeavors or new opportunities. Though the “fixes” for fears are not always easy, acknowledging the fear in the stark light of day will give you the power to overcome it.

If you, too, are feeling stressed out and overwhelmed, take some time to really figure out what’s underneath. Write it down, and make a plan. You’ll be more productive. You’ll be happier. You might even discover that fear is an opportunity for positive changes.

Katie wonders why she isn’t Japanese

Do you ever find yourself wondering why you don’t fit into a radically different category than the one you usually occupy? For instance, if you were a petite but mightily curvy woman born & raised in the Midwest you might find yourself wondering (many times, on multiple occasions, over a fairly decent spread of time) why you weren’t Japanese.

No, I’m not crazy. And I furthermore blame the Japanese people for my self-perception issues. Why? Because of things like this:

And this dress:

(This dress is from a Japanese sewing book called the Stylish Dress book, more about that here. For sale here.)

And if that weren’t enough, the things they do with knit & crochet blow me away. If only I had a few dozen more hours per day to spend sewing, knitting and crafting crazy-cool Japanese crafts!

Now you know….the secret & somewhat silly thoughts of a midwestern girl. I even have a pinboard devoted to “Japanese Inspiration” over on Pinterest. I’m YarnLove over there, in case you’re in the mood to oggle my pins.