Posting date: 9 June, 2021

Six years ago, we hosted a wonderful workshop with Sylvia Olsen, as part of her cross-Canada knitting tour.  She taught a fascinating class on Coast Salish knitting techniques, and shared stories from her book, Knitting Stories: Personal Essays and Nine Coast Salish-inspired Knitting Patterns.  Together with her partner, Tex McLeod, they spent six weeks travelling from Victoria to Newfoundland, and conducted workshops in more than 40 locations (including Creative Yarns).  She taught knitting, listened to stories from hundreds of knitters, and told her own stories.  Along the way, Sylvia gained a new appreciation and formed a new relationship with her country.

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Posting date: 9 June 2021

On Friday, 11 June, Creative Yarns is re-opening (again) for in-person shopping, at reduced capacity. Our hours will be:

• Tuesday: 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
• Wednesday: 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
• Thursday: 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
• Friday: 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
• Saturday: 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Creative Yarns will be following all city and provincial rules and guidelines for safe Step 1 re-opening.  In particular:

• Please read and follow the City of Toronto patron screening criteria before deciding to visit.
• Masks are required for all persons able to wear one.
• We cannot accommodate more than two customers in the store at one time.  Please be mindful if there are others waiting to enter, and keep your visits as brief as you conveniently can.
• We cannot allow extended ‘sit and knit’ time in the seating area.
• Hand sanitizer is available when you enter, and we are cleaning all customer-used surfaces after every visit.

Online shopping with curbside pickup is still available for anyone not comfortable with visiting in person, but we hope that this opportunity to look at our yarns for yourself will be helpful to many of you.

We are very much looking forward to the time when COVID restrictions are no longer necessary!  There is nothing we enjoy more than having a store full of knitters, relaxing together to chat, knit, and share creative ideas.

In the meantime, thank you very much for your continued patronage through this very difficult time.  Your words of encouragement and support, as much as your purchases, have made it possible for us to keep operating and have hope for the future.

Posting date: 10 April 2021

There’s a huge amount of yarn in one of these giant balls of lightweight Noro Kakagori.  So, your single-skein projects can be quite ambitious!

It’s a single-ply blend of cotton and silk, with a small amount of viscose and nylon added for strength and drape.  It’s the perfect mix for cool, summer projects.

Noro’s is famous for woolen-spun, long gradient colour blends, in nature-inspired colourways.  And this yarn is a standout example.  So, the texture and the colour combine to make simple knits become dramatic and eye-catching.

Try it for go-everywhere sweaters and cardigans, shawls and wraps, ponchos and accessories.

Posting date: 9 April 2021

I’m sure you already know, but retail stores in Toronto are closed again.  As of 7 April, our physical store is open for curbside pickup only during the current lockdown phase.

We will be happy to assist you by phone (416-331-8085), or through our online shopping portal.  Curbside pick-up and home delivery are both available.

Stay well and stay safe!  We look forward to seeing all our friends and customers again in person when it is deemed safe to reopen.

Posting date: 1 April 2021

We are particularly excited by our latest new offering.  Artfil Mericana DK is a wonderful, soft, smooth, squishable, hand-dyed DK weight yarn.

It’s available in a huge range of space-dyed, tonal, semi-solid, and speckled colours.  All of them are gorgeous!  It’s a very flexible weight of yarn, suitable for projects big and small.  It has a nice, multi-ply, high-twist character, making it sturdy and pill-resistant, but still soft and smooth.  Use it for sweaters and outerwear that will look stand up to years of love, wear, and laundering.  Use it for cowls and delicate accessories that  you need to be next-to-skin soft.  Use it for snuggly blankets that your family will consider heirlooms.  Or buy just one skein for that perfect hat.  And then maybe a second skein for matching mittens.  Because you will never run out of things to knit with Artfil Mericana DK.

Posting date: 30 March 2021

We’re now stocking the fun, new Bubble Tea yarn, from Hikoo.  This is a yarn with a lot going on – thick-and-thin texture, softness and drape, balanced with just enough ‘memory’ and elasticity.  It’s ideal for lightweight accessories, or loose, drapey wraps and cardigans.  And it’s a very easy yarn to work with.  The simplest patterns will come out looking terrific, because the yarn does all the work.  No complex knitting tricks required!

Posting date: 29 March 2021

There’s always room on the shelves for more beautifully hand-dyed sock yarn!  Nina’s latest ‘find’ is the ‘Tough Sock‘ yarn  from Martin’s Lab, a small independent dyer in Toruń, Poland.

This comes in a gorgeous range of vivid colours, and the 75/25 Merino/Nylon blend and high twist means that it lives up to it’s name – although deliciously soft, it is tough enough to be perfect for socks.  Or anything, really!  Sweaters that don’t pill; shawls that can be blocked aggressively and carried around for everyday in-and-out-of-a/c use; next-to-skin accessories; you name it.

What’s not to love about a hand-dyed sock yarn?

Posting date: 23 March 2021

This recent arrival falls into the category of affordable luxury yarns.  Illimani Santi is a gorgeous blend of ultra-fine merino, baby alpaca, yak, and mulberry silk.

This is a very versatile yarn.  DK weight,  it has great drape so it can be worked loosely for a garment with liquid flow.  But it also has terrific stitch definition, so you can use it at a tighter gauge for denser projects with cables or textured stitches that really pop.

And, it is very, very soft and smooth.  So you can use it for next-to-skin garments, including luxurious cowls.