Shibui Knits! Yea!

Oh, it is so yummy! Seven lovely colors of Shibui Knits Merino Kid DK. Soft as ever and with super saturated color and not to mention the sheen on these puppies! Stacy has already stashed a sweaters worth in the back!
We also got a little bit of new Alchemy, four colors of Alpaca Pure (two which are new for us). This is a great hand-dyed alpaca, and we have a nice popover mitten pattern for it here.

We also got three new colors of Alchemy Haiku-- Mediterranean, Dragon and Montreat Path Which rounded out the shelf nicely.
And I guess we have to admit that that time of year is looming ever nearer. Interweave's Holiday Gift issue arrived this afternoon, full of great patterns for quick (and not-so-quick) gifts.

All in all, a very nice day!

Stitches is coming!

Baltimore, you're home to me!

Stitches East 2007-October 11-14th

Rosie's Booth #430-432

We are beginning to gear up for our annual excursion to the Stitches East Convention, being held this year at the Baltimore Convention Center.

If you are coming down for the day, make it a Friday to see Kaffe Fassett in our booth starting at 10:30. He'll be signing his new book, "Kaffe Knits Again." If you are down on Saturday Veronik Avery will be signing her new book, Knitting Classic Style, at 2pm.

Stay for a while and maybe take a class of two with your favorite designers! Download the class schedule here. It's going to be a fun and busy weekend, we can't wait to see you!

Some things to do (non-knitting, you know, to appease the kids and spouses) in Baltimore:

Come on down for the day, explore the Inner Harbor, send the kids to the Aquarium and shop til you drop! Or, stay for the weekend, whack some crabs and maybe explore the seedier side of B'more with my personal favorite, the John Water's walking tour, or pretend that Baltimore really has gotten to be a nice place by spending the day at the Art Museum, where you can see mediocre art by great artists. I personally recommend the American Visionary Art Musuem if you are looking to be cultured, Baltimore style. Or traipse over to the Enoch Pratt Library which is very pretty. "Baltimore, the City that Reads" was actually a slogan the mayor developed to put on benches throughout the city in the late 90's. More often people were passed out drunk on the benches. As a teenager we always wanted to graffiti them to say "Baltimore, the City that Drinks". But there you can check out a copy of The Tale-Tell Heart and go sit on Edgar Allen Poe's headstone.

I love Baltimore, can you tell?

Yummy Cashmere

Mmm...Yummy yummy cashmere from Jade Sapphire in 5 new colors:


Mahogany
Mallard

Silver Fern

Smokey Mountain

and Wasabi

2 ply, perfect for shawls, stoles, delicate baby items or anything you need to get your luxury on with. $37 per skein for 400 yards.
And also arrived with a new label, in English this time (which is helpful when you are trying to figure out the yardage or something else silly like that!) is new colors of Lacey Lamb, the yarn we used for the Half Circle Shawl (<--see Wendy's Blog!) from Victorian Lace Today.

Auburgine
Charcoal

Chartreuse

Light Red

and Seafoam

And also Brown, but I seem not to have taken a picture of that one. Ah, yarn...another reason to love fall!

Classic Elite Alpaca Sox

Boxes, boxes everywhere!
We got the new Alpaca Sox today from Classic Elite, and it's even better than I remember it being!! 450 yds/100g skein, 60% alpaca, 20% merino wool and 20% nylon, this yarn will be heaven on your feet! A truly luxurious pair of socks for you, or as a gift for someone you particularly like this season. Consider it for any of the other things you'd use a super soft fingering weight alpaca for; shawls, scarves, stoles, baby items...endless possibilities especially considering the price--$18 for the solids and $20 for the multis! Did I mention it's 450 yds per skein?
It comes in 12 lovely solids

and 8 amazing multis!

Yarn? Yeah, we got that.

As promised, I have finally gotten photos of tons of yarn, courtesy of Carrie the photographer extraordinaire. We spent most of Wednesday pulling yarn and photographing it and then I have spent the past 2 days resizing a bajillion photos. Not as fun as knitting with the new yarns but itames, color names and color numbers. Sometimes I wonder what I would fill that space in my brain with instead of, "That blue Kidsilk Haze is #592 Heavenly, 229 yards and $14 per ball. I happen to know that we have 5 skeins left, I sold 4 this morning to Anne and there is one on the shelf." Maybe I would be an astrophysicist. But then, I'm not even sure that's how you spell "astrophysicist."
I digress. On to the hot pics:

This is the new Misti Alpaca Chunky (108 yards, 100 grams per hank, 2 ply
Suggested needle size: 3.5 stitches per inch on U.S. #10), which is 100% baby alpaca and is soooo incredibly soft! It comes in 36 amazing colors, tweeds like this:

And solids like this:

The color above is the one Stacy is using to make this awesome Drops sweater that Kate covets. Andrea is making Juliet from Zephyr Knits and I think I may be a copycat and make it too out of this color
and Carrie made the scarf seen above out of one skein of the Chunky and the pattern is available free from the Misti Alpaca website here.
We also got the Misti Alpaca Super Chunky, in all of its 12 colors. It is a 50/50 Alpaca Wool blend in solids and heathered colorways. The two ply construction gives it a little extra strength and should keep it from pilling really badly.

Below is a steal from Berroco, Ultra Alpaca Light. A sport weight wool alpaca blend, 144 yds to 50g at, wait, are you ready? $5! rock on Berroco. And there are designs for this in the new Norah Gaughn book out from Berroco too.




And also from Berroco is the new yarn Peruvia, which I think is my favorite "yarn-like yarn" this season. A good price, $8/skein, and decent yardage (174 yds/100 g), knits up at a decent 4 stitches/1" and would be great for felting. Check out some patterns here, and stop in to see Norah Gaughn's new book from Berroco too! And the cover of the new Interweave features Norah's "Tilted Duster" which has a very loyal following.


















This yarn is one I couldn't resist. The colors spoke to me. Autunno, from Di Ve (distributed by Cascade Yarns) is 4 sts/1", $6.75 / ball and it comes in these crazy colors:






It is a single ply of 100% wool, but it is lofty, lustrous and incredibly soft to the touch, like wear-next-to-your-skin-soft. I really want to make a sweater out of it, but can't figure out which is the best color and then maybe it needs to be multiple colors and maybe I should just make a hat...Argh!
Stay tuned for more, there's new colors of Handmaiden Sea Silk, new books, tons of Anne on the way, and a new sock yarn from Schaefer called "Heather" which is a silk, merino, nylon blend (superwash, wow!) which promises to knock our socks off...and hopefully a new Sock Boutique will appear on the Rosie's site soon!