The Amanda jacket is a lovely piece that can trace its roots back to a simple stockinette shrug in a similar yarn weight.  This time, the shrug was knitted in a Mosaic stitch pattern, documented by Barbara Walker, which gives a dramatic texture to the piece.  A wide Trinity stitch shawl collar was added, providing a lighter contrasting texture. The collar was “finished” with an i-cord bind off, a simple to knit that gives a polished look.  The transformation from shrug to jacket was completed with the addition of ribbed sleeves finished with a stockinette curl.  The construction of the jacket is deceptively simple since it is based on four rectangles with no shaping.

The store sample, knit in Bluefaced Leister yarn in Aran weight, is soft and lucious.  The yarn is 100% wool from West Yorkshire Spinners.  The company notes that the wool is  “reared, sheared and spun in Britain”.  More information about the yarn can be found here.

The jacket can be worn in the traditional fashion, with the shawl collar around the neck.  But, for the more adventuresome, it can be styled upside down, with the collar as a band across the bottom of the jacket.

For further versatility, there is no need to make all sections of the jacket.  If you stop at the first rectangle, you will have a gorgeous shrug with a textured stitch pattern.  If you knit the shrug with sleeves, you will have a collarless jacket.  The options are yours.

The pattern is available at Creative Yarns at no charge with purchase of yarn for the project.

Creative Yarns is now featuring four amazing Peruvian yarns from Americo Original. These yarns feel so soft and buttery and the colourways are so beautiful that they are a sensory treat for knitters. Americo has extraordinary pattern support for its yarns. You can see the fabulous garments and accessories patterns here. Patterns are available at no charge when Americo yarn is purchased for the project.

ABRAZOS:  Abrazos is an interesting thick and thin lace weight yarn that is a mix of cotton and bamboo. It makes the most incredible wraps and garments. See a close up of Abrazos yarn here.

BABY LLAMA:  This 100% baby llama, sport weight yarn is soft and luscious. There are outstanding patterns for sweaters, scarves, wraps and shawls for this yarn. See a close up of Dehaired Baby Llama yarn here.

COTTON FLAMME:  Cotton Flamme is 100% pima cotton with a matte, textured finish. It is said to be a fingering weight yarn but works to a sport weight gauge, ideal fro wraps, sweaters and shrugs. See a close up of Cotton Flamme yarn here.

SEDOSO:   Sedoso is a seductive mix of royal alpaca, cashmere and silk in a lace weight yarn. There are amazing patterns for sweaters, scarves and shawls. See a close up of Sedoso yarn here.

The new Berroco yarn, Folio, has been in the shop for a few weeks now. It is flying off the shelves.

Knitters love this trans-seasonal DK weight yarn with exceptional yardage. It is a luscious, superfine alpaca and rayon blend that feels as soft and luxurious as cashmere. It can be knit on many needle sizes to give the drape and flow your project requires. Folio comes in many wonderful colours that will remind you of Spring.  More colours are being added regularly.  You can see more information about Folio here.

Berroco has great pattern support for this yarn. Several of the projects shown here are photographs of their pattern book for sale in the shop. You can see the wonderful drapability in each piece.  You can see additional patterns here and a free capelet pattern here.

There was lots of lively conversation and laughter as more than 24 enthusiast women gathered at Creative Yarns on Saturday (February 15) to join in the second “Yarn Tasting” event.  They were there to “needle” or “hook” test the new spring yarns from Estelle.  What a fabulous way for crafty people to spend a wintery afternoon – dreaming of their spring knits, over coffee and sweet treats.  Our youngest participant, in her early teens, crocheted the small Granny Squares seen above as her taste test.

 Estelle not only provided the 15 yarn samples from Manos, Lang, Cascade, Estelle and King Cole, they also generously donated amazing prizes.  Norma, Linda and Evelyn were lucky enough to win draws for three special prizes – the yarn and pattern for a large project.  Everyone else took home great prizes too.- a pattern and a skein of yarn for a smaller project.

Our thanks go to Estelle for sponsoring this event and to Cristina for hosting it.  You can see Estelle’s full line of yarns on their website.

This wonderful, worsted weight yarn has made its debut at the shop. It is a soft, 100% wool yarn that is machine washable. And oh my – the colours. Creative Yarns has 31 of the 50 available colours in stock with more to come. The shades range from soft neutrals to bright jewel tones to sultry darks. The wide range of colours provide a wonderful palette for colour work in many forms: stranded techniques, intarsia or gradient designs. For Rowan’s full range of currently available colours and details about Pure Wool Worsted view the Rowan website here.

This will be a “go to” staple yarn for many knitters. It will be fabulous for any patterns including accessories, cardigans, pullovers, kid’s clothes and blankets that call for worsted weight yarn.  For inspiration,check out these free patterns available from Rowan.

There is a new scarf on display in the shop.  It is an original design, something we have come to expect at Creative Yarns, but this one was created by Cristina, knitter extraordinaire, knitwear teacher and member of the shop’s knit group.

The creation of this scarf has been a journey for Cristina.  She was inspired by a interesting, drapeable, felted lattice scarf that was gifted to another member of the knit group.  Cristina wanted to create a scarf that was different from her inspiration piece, but that was felted, draped well and had open spaces.  She tried several yarns, various felting methods and different stitch patterns.  These trial runs had some interesting results, but none of the scarves met all her goals, But then she hit gold this fall.

The Step and Ladder Scarf meets all of her objectives: it is very different from the inspiration piece; it is lightly felted and drapes beautifully; and, it has a lattice like grid with open spaces.  Best of all, everyone that sees it  loves it and doesn’t want to take it off.  The scarf can be styled in numerous ways as you can see in the photos.  Cristina confided that she made several as Chistmas gifts but couldn’t bear to part with them.

The scarf is actually quite straightforward to make – the difficult part was developing the design and finding the right yarn and felting technique.  Cristina has done all that for us.  If you are interested in making one for yourself, or perhaps as a gift (if you can part with it), Cristina will be teaching a class on the techniques used on February 22, 1-4 pm.  The pattern will be provided in the class.  You can find all the details here.

A wonderful end of year present arrived at Creative Yarns – a much anticipated, new shipment of Madelinetosh yarn.  The new shipment of yarn came in two weights.

There is more Tosh Sock, that wonderful fingering weight yarn that you can use for socks of course, but the array of luscious glazed solid colourways will inspire many knitters to create a beautiful, soft shawl, wrap or other accessory.

New to Creative Yarns is Tosh DK which works up to a versatile light worsted weight perfect for sweaters and accessories.  The colourways are beautiful, as we all have come to expect from Madelinetosh, but an added bonus is that this 100% merino wool is machine washable in cold water.  Perfect!

You can see the extensive colourways for Madelinetosh here.

A few Rowan Kidsilk Haze colours

Creative Yarns is delighted to start carrying Rowan Kidsilk Haze, which is arguably the gold standard in lace weight mohair.  It is a wonderfully soft and strong mix of mohair and silk that has a fabulous sheen and co,mrs in a wide range of colours.  You can view the full range of colours on the Rowan website here.  The yarn has been such a hit with customers that the blue shades from our original order are sold out.  But not to fear, more are on order.

Nina’s gradient Kidsilk Haze cowl

Nina created this charming, simple cowl, in a gradient of three colours, that will keep you toasty in the winter chill.  It is knit on larger needles to create a delicate, loose but very warm fabric that is light as air.  The mohair fibre has a ‘halo’ that captures warmth around the fabric.  This is a very easy, quick knit that is still elegant and luxurious.  A perfect cowl for Toronto weather in 2014.

Look out for more Rowan yarns coming to the store in the near future.