November is going to be a busy month at the shop! As the Halloween decorations get put away, and the paper pilgrim hats and hand print turkeys start coming home from school, our brains start itching with gift lists and knitting ideas. Have you seen the new Interweave Knits Holiday edition? It has TONS of great ideas for gift giving and gift getting, many of which only take a skein or two of yarn. But we have a lot of events happening before our gift deadline. Let me tell you about a few. (New yarns are listed at the end…but you don't want to skip through all that's going on, do you?)
 Our wide selection of Flat Feet. Each one is different. |
The first event, and possibly our biggest, is our Anniversary! Can you believe Natural Stitches has been open for an entire year?? That's right, on November 15, 2007 we opened our doors as a service to the fiber communities of Pittsburgh. To commemorate, of course, we're having our First Anniversary Sale!! Mark your calendars for November 9th – 16th. That's when we'll be marking everything – EVERYTHING – in the shop down by 10%.
That's:
Every purchase that week (limit one purchase per day) gets put into your choice of raffle – a $20 gift card, a sample pack of Eucalan (value $20), or a "flat" of Flat Feet (value $25). |
Several of our employees have decided to stage a coup. "Who wants to work the day after Thanksgiving? All I want to do is sleep!" "I'm one of those types who rolls out of bed at 3 am, throws on a hat and is hitting the sales in my pajamas." Either way, the potential is there to spend your entire day in PJ's. Benevolent manager that I am, I figured we could relax the staff dress code for one day. So we've dubbed the day after Thanksgiving - "PJ Day." Our staff can choose to wear PJ's or sweats to work that day. We're going to have FREE bagels & cream cheese from the Bagel Factory (byol – bring your own lox), and the coffee will be brewing. If you've been out hitting the sales, stop in on your way home. Or if you're having trouble getting out of bed, drop by once you're awake. For everyone who comes in wearing their PJ's, we'll enter your name into a raffle for an extra special edition black n' gold Flat Feet (we can't show it here, but trust us, you'll love it). We'll give you an extra raffle ticket if your PJ ensemble contains hand-knitted / crocheted elements. Does anyone else remember those sweat pants in Interweave Knits out of Lion Brand Homespun a few years back? How about the Desperate Housefrau from Knitty? I dare you! |
 Optim and Soysilk Roving from Conjoined Creations. Are your PJ's softer? |
 We have over a dozen different types of spinning fiber! |
Some of our spinners have decided they'd like an evening at the shop all to themselves. A night where the wheels and spindles rule. A night where "it's ok to bring your knitting…if you want," but really where it's all about MAKING the yarn. The second Thursday of every month will now be Spinner Central! (Or if Lee can come up with a better name…) Bring your wheel; bring your spindle; bring that luscious Blue Faced Leicester that we just HAVE to feel. 6-9 PM, Second Thursday of the month. That's November 13th & December 11th. |
With a lot of stitchers buckling down and planning those projects for the Holidays, have you taken a moment to think of yourself? What do you want during the season of giving this year? Inspired by several spouses, siblings, and kids, we've decided to start the Natural Stitches Registry Program. The next time you're in the store, be sure to ask for a form to fill out. Be as descriptive (10 skeins, Malabrigo, Water Green) or as vague (yarn…lots of yarn) as you like. We do recommend making note of your favorite colors, fibers, and weights of yarns so that we can better help those special non-stitchers pick out something for you. It helps to mention if you prefer machine washable yarns. There will also be a place to request needles, notions, books and patterns. Like a wedding registry, however, we couldn't figure out a way to hide what has been purchased for you. We'll be keeping the registry going all year round, so feel free to fill one out for birthdays and anniversaries too. Just make sure to tell everyone, "I'm registered at Natural Stitches." |
 Is black & gold sock yarn on your gift list this year? |
Along with clueing you in on free patterns that I find on the internet I want to help you to find them on your own. Who knows, you may find some I missed and can share them with me (Hint! Hint!). I have had many folks ask me how to find free patterns on Ravelry, so this time that's what we are going to do. By the way, if you haven't discovered Ravelry yet—what are you waiting for? Surf-don't swim- over to www.Ravelry.com and sign up. This is the greatest resource yet for anyone interested in any of the fiber arts.
Once you are all logged in on Ravelry there are a lot of things you can discover there. I'm not familiar with all of them, but finding free patterns I can do. And it's really easy. Ready? Here we go.
The first page you will see after you have logged in has a navigation bar across the top
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You can see above that I have marked with an arrow the button titled ‘Patterns". Click that one.
You are now on the pattern search page. Lots of ways to find patterns here, so take a look around and click a few buttons to see what happens. My purpose is to show you how to find free patterns so I'm sticking to that.
See the arrow below pointing to ‘The Pattern Browser'? Click there.
Now look at the left hand side of the page and you will see the Pattern Browser. In this box you can refine your search to anything you want. Click a few choices and watch the pattern pics on the right side of the page change to show you what you have chosen.
I'm particular about the patterns I want to look at, so I use the top set of filters to hone my search. I click the "Only Free', ‘Only Knitting', and ‘Only With Photos', buttons. (See arrows on following pic.)
Naturally if you are looking for Crochet patterns, you would click that button instead of the knitting button. If you don't care if there is a photo of the pattern, you would not click the one that says ‘Only With Photos'. Watch the right side of your page and all of the patterns that come up will fit right into the criteria you have chosen. From here you are pretty much on your own. Look at the pics of the projects and click the ones you like to be taken to a link that will get you that pattern.
Please remember that Ravelry is a worldwide community so some patterns will be in foreign languages, but I think you will find enough patterns to keep you busy for a long time. Some free patterns can be hard to follow due to bad grammar, hastily written instructions, or plain old bad design. Take the time to read through any free pattern to determine how much a challenge it will be.
Ravelry is a whole world to explore. I didn't even delve into how you can search for patterns for a particular weight of yarn, for only hats or only toys. (Thinking gift knitting here!) Click buttons to see what happens. There is so much to find! Happy Free Pattern Hunting!!!
Now for just a few free patterns this week as Martha and Melissa keep telling me to "KEEP IT SHORT, CARLA!" (Melissa's note: I believe my exact words were "Don't give them everything all at once!")
This pattern would be great for an Advanced Beginner project. We carry the Panda Silk DK, so hop on in to get the yarn for this beauty. http://knittingonthenet.com/patterns/scarfseafoam.htm
Check out these cabled wrist warmers! What a great gift this year! http://amazonminknits.wordpress.com/2008/10/29/knitting-recipe/
Another easy and quick project for the Holidays: We've found several inventive ear-warmers over the past few weeks. This one from Kraemer is used with a baseball cap. (Melissa's note: my husband and brother both LOVE theirs!) http://www.kraemeryarns.com/patterns/pdfs/earwarmerbaseball.pdf (link will take you straight to a pdf file.) If you saw the World Series, you'd see that the pros are already wearing something similar.
These fit right onto a bike helmet. Don't you love the ingenuity of knitters? http://brineydeepdesigns.blogspot.com/2008/10/free-pattern-bike-helmet-earmuffs.html
One last link -- this one is for all of you crocheters. http://crochet.about.com/library/blfreepatts1.htm This takes you to the index of free crochet patterns on the www.About.com website. Happy Hooking!
Remember that Natural Stitches carries many of the yarns listed in these patterns, and if we don't carry it, we can find the perfect substitute for you. Just remember to bring in your pattern so we can see exactly what you need. See you at the shop!
You either love it or you don't get it at all. Of course I'm talking about the popular BBC sci-fi series, Dr. Who. As we seem to have more than a few folks who really love the show, we thought we'd share the hard work of one of our customers. Amberlee noticed that we have a chart near the Cascade 220 listing all of the team colors of the NFL and their Cascade 220 equivalents. Why can't you have the same thing for the Dr. Who scarf? (By the way, if you're looking for the NFL colors and Big Ten colors, try here and here)
So Amberlee took the colors from the Dr. Who Scarf Pattern (this is just one pattern option ...there are MANY out there), and gives us the Cascade 220 equivalents:
(created by Amberlee Batchelor)
C220 # |
Scarf Color | Skeins Needed |
|---|---|---|
| 8885 | Purple | 1 |
| 2415 | Camel | 2-3 (Definitely 3 for 26 ft scarf) |
| 2435 | Bronze | 1 |
| 7827 | Mustard | 1 |
| 2425 | Rust | 1 |
| 9419 | Blue Gray | 1 |
| 9322 | Green Gray | 1 |
| 9429 | Olive | 1 |
If you decide you want tassels then you need to decide how long you want them and how many more yards of each color you will need to decide if you have enough yarn with the above list. Amounts are approximate.
Wow! Thanks, Amberlee!
You've made it this far; it's time to reward you with the new yarns we have in the shop:
Sock yarns:
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 Pagewood Farms: Three varieties, each softer than the one before. |
Chunky yarns:
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Eagerly Anticipated:
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And, as always, if there's anything we can do to help, just let us know!