Ysolda's Here!

We are honored to be hosting Ysolda Teague for a weekend of knitting and fun times!

Join us tomorrow night to welcome Ysolda on her first visit to the beautiful Mile High City! We will be wooing her with locally crafted beer and your smiling faces. Bring your favorite Ysolda book for her to sign or pick up a copy of her new book, Little Red In The City. Ysolda brought samples of each of the sweaters from Little Red in various sizes for you to try on!

Ysolda Teague Meet n' Greet & Booksigning
Fancy Tiger Crafts

1 S Broadway

Friday, October 28th

7:00pm - 9:00pm

See you soon!

Cat's Tunisian Baby Blanket

Hello, Gentle Readers. This is Cat. Recently, I was commissioned to make a baby blanket for a friend. I have become completely obsessed with Tunisian Crochet, so a sampler blanket was an easy choice. Blue Sky Alpaca's Worsted 100% Organic Cotton Yarn is always my go-to for baby blankets. It's so soft and squishy! Perfect for baby's skin. I chose Dandelion, Wasabi, Thistle and Stone for the squares and Drift for the sashing (done with standard crochet).

Personalizing hand-made items always makes it extra special for the receiver. I like to embroider initials or crochet them right into the blanket. This simple embroidery stitch makes a big impact.

Tunisian Crochet (also known as Afghan Stitch, German Work, Russian Work, Shepard's Stitch and Railway Knitting) is so simple, fast and fun. It creates a thick, dense fabric that is perfect for blankets (Afghans!), scarves and sweaters. There are dozens and dozens of stitches, but you can easily make beautiful items (like this sampler blanket) by using combinations of just three simple stitches!

If you are interested in learning this wonderful craft look for classes on Fancy Tiger's upcoming Winter class schedule!

Amy Butler's Lark Collection is Here!

New Lark fabrics by Amy Butler are here! We are seriously digging her fresh color palette--deep indigos with pops of coral and chartreuse. These bold, modern florals are available in quilting cottons, sateens and laminates.

Get in here and get sewing!

Sewing Summit Report: Amy, Christina & Sadie Visit Salt Lake

Fancy Tigresses: Sadie, Amy & Christina

 Amy:

What an amazing weekend at the Sewing Summit in Salt Lake! Imagine a 3 day slumber party with 200 of your favorite crafty, bloggy friends, sewing, knitting and gabbing 24/7...nothing short of euphoric. Us Fancy Tiger gals were out in full force, sewing and schmoozing it up with our favorite bloggers, authors, and designers. So many fabulous classes on everything from photography and publishing, to improv quilting and couture specialty seaming...

Amy with Amanda Jennings & Elena Roscoe of Breakfast for Dinner

One of my favorites was "Marvelous Minis" taught by the endlessly fun and whacky Amanda Jennings (aka HeyPorkchop!) of Ms McPorkchop Quilts and The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery. I was reluctant to sign up for this class at first because I didn't really "get" mini quilts. Like, what's the point? Wrong. Turns out they ROCK!!!

Adorable Mini-Quilts by Amanda Jennings

Mini quilts are a super fun way to get a quilting project done lickety split fast (think less than an hour), and they pack major punch - highlighting your absolute favorite fabrics and telling a story. Think wall art, snack mats, mug rugs, notebook covers, bags, pouches, trivets...just little bursts of happy scattered about your home. I was so inspired by Amanda's stunning collection (and enthusiasm!), that I whipped out a little improved mini of my own after class, and it's currently hanging on the wall behind my sewing machine, making me smile every time I sit down.

Amy's Mini-Quilt

Stitch up a modern little mini of your own in next month's Modern Tonal Quilt Class here at Fancy Tiger!  

Sadie:

On October 6th, Christina Patzman and I boarded a plane headed for Salt Lake City and the first annual Sewing Summit. I was looking forward to getting away for a mini vacation, seeing Salt Lake City for the first time, and mingling with like-minded bloggers and sewing enthusiasts. The Sewing Summit was so much more!

The Sewing Summit creators Amy Eillis and Erin Singleton

First up was a bus tour of three fabric stores. Christina and I missed the bus because we were standing in line for a much-needed Starbucks. Lucky for us, some sweet crafty locals were willing to drive us to the first stop. We caught up to the party bus, full of fabric-crazed ladies ready to shop until they dropped. Let me say one word: swag. Each store had prizes and giveaways galore. I needed an extra carry-on for all the Sewing Summit swag and giveaways we received. I think I was most excited about the thread!

Saturday was a day full of classes and seminars. I was completely star struck when I got to meet Gretchen ("Gertie") from Gertie's Blog for Better Sewing and Sunni from A Fashionable Stitch.

Sadie and Sunni

Gertie led some amazing garment sewing classes like Garment Fabrics from Angora to Zibeline, Essential Hand Stitches for Garment Making, Tailoring by Hand 101 and Getting a Perfect Vintage Fit. One of my favorite classes was Photographing Your Creations that was led by Vanessa Christensen of V & Co. There was also a class about blogging and a panel discussion with published crafty authors Gretchen "Gertie" Hirsh, Bari J. and others.

I left Salt Lake and the summit feeling inspired and motivated to create, blog, and teach even more!

Christina & Sadie stitched up these cute coinpurses at the Sewing Summit.

Tosh Light, We Are Enamored With You.

Let me just preface the following by saying that Madelinetosh's Tosh Merino Light is one photogenic yarn. Apologies for the image-heavy post, but I couldn't stop myself from documenting this yarn in detail and trying to capture all it's glowing-hued-glory.

Since unpacking it a few days ago, all of us at Fancy Tiger Crafts have been finding excuses to hold skeins and ponder projects of Tosh Light. If you come in to the shop we may drag you over to it on the yarn wall and show you our own favorite colors. I'm just warning you that we might gush about how pretty Tomato looks with Celadon, or how Antler and Edison Bulb are a perfect pair.

Scroll down to see brand new Madelinetosh patterns at the end of this post!

Lepidoptra

Fragrant | Corsage

Mulled Wine | Scarlet | Tomato

Chamomile | Edison Bulb | Maple Leaf

Olivia

Moss | Jade

Celadon | Well Water | Cousteau

Ink

Logwood | Flashdance

Dusk | Fawn | Antler

Antique Lace | Badlands

Twig

Hömin Shawl for Krista

When one of our dearest friends, Krista, announced she was engaged, Amber and I knew we had to do something really crafty and special (we own a crafts store after all).

Krista Williams Peltzel teaches our ever popular Sewing Skills Series and last weekend she was married to an amazing fellow, Kit! The wedding took place on a beautiful farm in north Boulder. Fall officially arrived on the day of Krista's wedding, so it was a bit chilly, but we had just the solution for that: a handknit cashmere shawl.

A good friend, Chase, joined us to knit the shawl and the three of us chose an elegant yet modern Shetland Trader design, Hömin. In the traditional Shetland dialect, hömin means "evening twilight". This shawl has a traditionally styled lace edge and is long and just a bit narrow instead of being triangular. Krista chose Jade Sapphire's cashmere 2-ply in the color Thunderstorm. It was the perfect yarn for this project--soft, warm and special enough to go with a wedding dress.

Amber, Chase, and I all worked together to make this shawl and for weeks it was a knitting relay race--one of us knitting for a few days and then meeting up to pass it on to the next knitter. Luckily, we all have similar gauge! A handknit shawl like this is such a special gift for someone on their wedding day, each stitch infused with love. We were so happy to be able give this to Krista and she looked amazing!

What is more amazing than a handknit cashmere shawl? A hawk ring bearer! Thanks to the falconers at Hawkquest, Kit and Krista had some awesome falconry elements going on in their ceremony. Congratulations you two! We're so happy for you!

New Kokka Fabrics Galore!

Jaime and I were inspired to drop everything and stitch up some new outfits, thanks to a tempting box of  Kokka fabrics that just arrived! Japanese style must be all about photographic prints of woodland creatures and a love of eastern European folk style right now, and we are digging it.

 Jaime

I chose this friendly animal print to make an adorable Barcelona skirt from. I love the photographic quality of the animals and mushrooms and was super excited to have new fall skirt!

The Barcelona Skirt pattern by Amy Butler is our number one selling pattern of all time - it is a classic design that flatters many body types and an easy-to-make pattern. Our A-Line Skirt Class is also a favorite and is a great choice if you would like some help making this skirt. I have made it so many times, I can whip one of these up in about a hour and a half, lined and all. I love it!

Amber

Colette's Macaron dress is a sewing pattern that I've been wanting to make for a while--when I saw this European folk inspired fabric form Kokka I knew I had to make an adorable little dress.

This was my first time making the Macaron, but I knew I would enjoy sewing it. Every Colette pattern I've made has worked out wonderfully. I paired the print with an Echino solid in teal, added a navy piping to the sleeve and placed the fancy red heart of this cute print right in the center of the bodice.

That's not all that was in this box of fabrics either, there are plenty more Kokka fabrics that are just waiting for someone to turn them into the cutest sewing projects of all time. What will you make...

...an owl oven mitt, a partridge pocketbook?

A babushka bookbag?

A rabbit romper? Perhaps a mushroom miniskirt?

Happy sewing!
♥ Amber & Jaime

Jaime's Icelandic Lopi Sweater

About a year ago, Amber and I went on an epic knitting journey to Iceland. We were able to learn about the Icelandic knitting traditions, go on tons of magical Icelandic adventures and meet and make friends with many amazing knitters. Iceland has a rich knitting tradition and Icelanders take great pride in it. On our journey we picked out some Lopi yarn and started our Icelandic Lopi sweaters. We took classes with Ysolda Teague who helped us to write our own patterns perfectly suited to our body type as well as Ragga Eiriksdottir who taught us how to do the colorwork yoke.

I started my sweater on the plane back from Iceland and just finished it a few weeks ago. I absolutely love it! The fit is perfect thanks to the shaping techniques that Ysolda taught us in our class. Denverites, you are very lucky because Ysolda will be teaching a very similar class here at Fancy Tiger Crafts in just a few weeks! The colorwork pattern was designed by Ragga and is her Lopapeysa free pattern colorwork design.

I loved loved loved working with the Lopi yarn. Lopi yarn is made from Icelandic sheep which are a rare, dual-coated breed of sheep. Their dual coated wool makes for a super-sturdy, warm and weather-resistant wool. This yarn is a single-ply yarn and has great durability - it's amazing! It is coarser than our more refined Merino sheep, but this is perfect for a garment that will stand the test of time. This sweater will keep me cozy and warm for many many years to come.

My Icelandic Lopi sweater has a special place in my heart. When I wear it I am connected to a rich knitting tradition I am honored to have experienced. Thanks Iceland!

Mary Flanagan Woolens are Here!

Mary Flanagan's 100% wool precuts are here! We are in love with the rich, hand-dyed hues. The felted twill won't ravel and has the beautiful, classic texture of woven wool.

Each package comes with six coordinating colors. They are fantastic for applique projects, or use them for woolly patchwork, handsewn toys or sewing projects!