Threaded Bliss

New Camera - New Yarn

First, meet Chapello from Gedifra.

Here's a true Miracle from Classic Elite - 50% alpaca and 50% tencel. Beautiful sheen, drape and a wonderful hand to it.

From Plymouth comes Foxy - soft as can be and knits up into a great boa/scarf with one skein and in one hour. I am loving this yarn and seeing all kinds of trim made with it, including a cool, furry collar for a denim jacket.

In the customer wall of fame category, may I present Seri's new and wicked beautiful scarf. She used Zephyr wool/silk doubled. Our customers are so awesome and a constant source of inspiration to all of us working at the yarn shop.

I leave you with one of my favorite phrases (the sign was a gift from my cousin, aunt and uncle for my birthday):

P.S. Keep those pink ribbons and donations coming - the Great Pink Ribbon Project continues until the end of 2004. Let's all do what we can to fight breast cancer. Thanks!

Who Says You Can't Knit Hair?

I think Megan Reardon and her Hallowig pattern from the Fall issue of Knitty are both brilliant! This is a gift for a friend who has just started chemo and I made it out of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran so that it would be soft and washable too. I hope she likes it as much as I enjoyed making it for her. I've also put it on and showed almost every single person that's come into the shop since I finished it last week.

Speaking of Knitty - they have put up their fall suprise and it is a wonderful thing - an entire, prinitable mini-issue dedicated to Breast Cancer Awareness month. You can find it here.

That brings me to my next order of business - the Great Pink Ribbon Project. Almost daily I learn of yet another blog mentioning this project and could not be more thrilled. We still need many, many more ribbons. So far, the GPRP has raised more than $450! How cool is that????

I have decided that we should not just be aware of breast cancer and its affects on millions of people only during October. One in eight women will have breast cancer in her lifetime and one in five women will be touched by the disease when a friend or family member is diagnosed. Those numbers are astronomical. That said, the project will continue after Breast Cancer Awareness Month ends. For now I'm saying we'll continue through the end of 2004. Why not take a few minutes out of your day to whip up a pink I-cord and send it to the shop so that we may continue to raise funds to fight this ubiquitous menace.

Send donated ribbons (and/or a money contribution!) to:

Threaded Bliss Yarns
127 Franklin Road
Brentwood, TN 37027

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

One last thing - I finally got that new digital camera and check out this picture I took in a completely dark room: .

Who knew a digital camera could do that? Now, the strobe that allowed this picture appears like it might be able to blind you but hey -

Rudy can still see!

Ta ta for now.

This You Gotta See

Our Colinnete Point Five should be arriving soon, unfortunately probably not before halloween!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=15737&item=6715289739&rd=1#ebayphotohosting

Knitters Are Good People

Peggy and Robin both sent pink ribbons that arrived today.

Peggy got all fancy with the addition of sparkly eyelash, they are really beautiful - see:

Robin came through with a whole bunch of plush, soft, sweet ribbons. I bet she knitted them all while watching her beloved Red Sox beat my beloved Yankees. But hey, even a die-hard Yankee fan like me can appreciate how great it was for the Sox to finally win - now I think they had best go all the way with this World Series - right Robin?

Here's one of my simple little I-cord ribbons (4 stitches on US 9 with a worsted weight yarn):

And last but not least, here's the slew of i-cords I knitted while watching my beloved Yankees lose to Robin's beloved Red Sox! Now to turn them into ribbons...

Thanks Robin and Peggy - I really appreciate your contribution to The Great Pink Ribbon Project.

Great Pink Ribbon Project Postscript

I-Cords. They are fast and make wonderful, non-floppy ribbons. I've been making tons and will post a pic later.

Just thought I'd pass this info along.

Again, thank you to all the wonderful fiber folks out there in netland who have plugged this great project on their blogs.

Mommy and Me - Hats and Booties

The small (premie size) hat and booties are made from Debbie Bliss Cotton Cashmere using patterns from Gifts From the Heart (a great book). The Mommy's hat is a pattern I made up and uses Plymouth Indiecita Baby Alpaca Grande.

The Great Pink Ribbon Project is taking off and although we don't have 100 ribbons yet, we've already sold them and have raised $250 so far for breast cancer research. I'm touched already by the wonderful response to this project and thank everyone who has written about it on their blog and linked to this site.

It's been a very long day so that's it for now.

It's A Go - The Great Pink Ribbon Project

Okay, the responses were good so I'm now officially kicking off The Great Pink Ribbon Project. There's really no pattern necessary but Leisel has kindly posted a pattern for an adorable pink crocheted ribbon on her site (see the comments in the post below for the url to her blog). Whatever fiber you have that is pink - preferably light pink - will do and whatever size you want to make is fine. At the shop, we've made most of them about an inch wide and about 7 or 8 inches long before being folded. We've just folded them into the right shape and used the yarn to tack them together. We've used ribbing, moss stitch, garter, you name it. Another easy and fast way is to make an i-cord. That's all it takes.

Donated ribbons can be mailed to the shop and all donations are greatly appreciated. We'll be selling the ribbons and donating all of the proceeds to breast cancer research and the project will continue through December 2004. There's no good reason to stop working on this cause just because Breast Cancer Awareness month ends. As they say, every three minutes another woman is diagnosed with this cancer. One in every seven and a half women will have breast cancer in their lifetime. One if five people's lives will be touched by this disease when it affects a mother, wife, sister, daughter, aunt, grandmother or friend. Let's do all we can to make sure that all of these women can survive.

The shop address is:

Threaded Bliss Yarns
127 Franklin Road
Brentwood, TN 37027

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

Klaralund and Eleanor and Knitted Ribbons

Here you have me, an unblocked with unwoven in ends Klaralund and the grand dame of Nashville Knitting with her Silk Garden (color 87) Sally Melville Knit-Around Scarf. Are we cute or what in our matching projects? Eleanor is without a doubt one of the most fascinating people I've ever been lucky enough to know. If you are local and have attended a Nashville Knitting and Crochet Guild function, you'll have had the pleasure of meeting Eleanor. She is the original founder of our guild and we still have our meetings at her place.

Speaking of the Guild, this month's meeting is this coming Thursday. Don't forget that we close the shop promptly at 5:30 on Guild evenings so that we may all (customers and staff alike) support this invaluable organization.

On another note. Remember a few posts ago when I put up a picture of all the little pink ribbons we've been knitting in honor of it being Breast Cancer Awareness Month? Well, I started making them for a couple of reasons - the most important being that my best friend was just diagnosed. To that end, I have concluded that I MUST do something. So here's the grand plan in the making...

Lots of folks have come in the shop to try to buy a knitted pink ribbon and that brought an idea to mind. If I can collect donated knitted pink ribbons and sell them I could donate the proceeds to breast cancer research. What do y'all think of that idea? If it seems like it might fly - I'm willing to start the great Pink Ribbon/Awareness Along.

Feedback please!!

Would love to post, but . . .

Klaralund awaits further seaming. It's been so long since I actually finished anything that needed seaming that I'd forgotten how much I love the mattress stitch. It always strikes me as something magical. That said, it's been a long day and I don't have the energy left to both seam and post and this time, seaming wins.

Pictures to follow!

Poncho Mania Continues . . .

Here we have the long-awaited debut of my scribble lace poncho. I used Zephyr wool silk in periwinkle and Schaefer's Esperanza in the Tink colorway to make a big rectangle. Truthfully, when I started knitting this, I had no idea what I would end up making. I used a size 17 addi turbo and had I worked on it more steadily, it would have taken NO time to work up. I did a row of single crochet around the bind off edge and then attached the two sides of the rectangle by crocheting them together using Berroco Zen, also in periwinkle. Here's a close-up of the fabric. Cool, huh?