Koigu? Why yes, we have a few skeins......

I'm a hog in merino yarn heaven after our 30 pounds of Koigu showed up tonight (and intermingled with what we already had on hand). There's nothing else I can say about it. See for yourself. Sorry, it's not on the website yet, and it won't be until the weekend, at best. There's just too much of it to scan in a hurry. But we did take an inventory, so if you're on the hunt for something specific, let me know and I'll take a snapshot for you.

One More Thing

Matt made significant progress on things and put up a webpage that supports the (content deleted at the request of higher authorities) that BLEEP got up and running. If you're interested in learning the fair isle technique to add color to your knitting, do consider this project and knit along. Details are on the web page above, and you'll learn two-color knitting, how to make a steek, how to CUT a steek, as well as how to add button bands, ribbing, and the like. Why not learn in this environment, which is low-risk (you have folks waiting to help you), low-cost (kits are $20 instead of having to buy over $30 of skeined yarn), low-stress (you knit for a bear who doesn't complain about a misplaced stitch), and low-time (you make a small sweater versus one for a full-sized person).

Check it out and let me know if you're interested in joining our growing group. When last I checked, we may have as many of 30 folks joining us. Why not you? And when you're done, you can knit gorgeous sweaters like the master of Fair Isle knitting, Wendy. Check out her gallery of beauty and finished works of art.

The Prodigal Felter Returns

Wow, what a fun weekend. In the scope of three days, we were sunburned, herded out of harm's way from a tornado, rained on, muddied, blown away with 60 mph winds, sunburned, and all but frozen out. That was this year's Broad Ripple Art Fair, and I wouldn't have missed it for anything. We had a great weekend, despite Mother Nature pulling out all stops. It's always great to interact with folks while they look at our goods, get their feedback on different aspects of the items, and learn and share our love of craft with other knitters who stop by. All in all, it was a fun three days, but I'd rather not do that again any time soon.

One of the highlights of the weekend was meeting other bloggers and some folks who read our blogs but don't have their own....yet. It was fun when Tanya just walked up, looked at the felted bags, and told Matt--you're Matt & Rob. It's a bit odd to be greeted that way, but very much fun once you start talking. And her energetic husband starts wearing felted handbags on his head. Don't blame him for this behaviour--he's from Wisconsin (where they wear cheese on their heads, so a felted bag is a natural transition).

We're struggling to get caught up on things that piled up while we prepared for the art fair, and let me take this space to apologize if you feel like we've forgotten you or that you've been back burnered. Such is not the case, trust me. We're back, we're putting in tons of extra time getting caught up, and you'll probably be hearing from us shortly. Especially if you're waiting for a color consultation/combination from Matt. He's busting a hump to get pages up, combinations put together, and people e-mailed. On top of shipping and stocking and other duties.

Speaking of stock, we've been absolutely inundated with goodies in the past two weeks. Our delivery drivers have brought more Noro Silk Garden, more Lorna's Laces (tons and tons in the past two weeks), much goodness from Sweetgrass Wool in the form of more of their Mountain Mohair and a special chunky-weight Targhee wool yarn in natural grey sheep color (nummy, and I don't like grey yarn--this stuff is BEAUTIFUL), a monster box from Cascade Yarns that included nearly 200 balls of their Fixation cotton sock yarn (I've designed two different socks that use it recently--want a free pattern? drop me an e-mail and I'll send a PDF for it--the sock was on this blog a few entries ago in a BRIGHT lime and purple), a big box of Koigu arrives today, and more Noro Kureyon and Silk Garden comes in Friday. Oh, and over 100 copies of patterns from Two Old Bags--ya gotta love their spirit for taking that name for their company.

And here's a couple quick shots of the chaos, even after about three hours of hard work by Matt

The Sock (and more) Room		The Cascade Room

He's been putting up more shelves, rearranging stock, and reorganizing the yarns. We're in serious need of more space. Won't some of you consider adopting some good yarn that needs a new home?

On the felting front, I'm in the middle of one of these using Kureyon #95 and then another daypack using Kureyon #92, and then an inverse image daypack just like Theresa's, just using Rainier Heather for the body and Smoke Heather for the stripes. Hers is just stunning!

More soon..........including pictures from tomorrow's Third Thursday dinner, which has an Indian theme--BRING YOUR SARI and your KNITTING! We're expecting a visitor as well, from the far east (North Carolina). But for now, I'M BAAAAAAAAACK.