Nordic Travel Companions' Knit-Along with Sleep Season Goods

--amber

Our friend Megan makes stunning yarn.

Megan is the dyer and color magician behind Sleep Season Goods, one of our favorite local yarn dyeing companies. As we planned our trip to Estonia, some of our crafty Denver friends joined in on our international adventure. Megan, Alsn, and Jess traveled the whole trip with us, sharing the journey through the mossy lava fields of Iceland, the modern coffeehouses of Helsinki and the medieval streets of Estonia. Megan surprised our group with a special, five-of-a-kind, single edition colorway to knit with on our Nordic journey.

We all chose a few different patterns to knit with our single skein. Megan knit the slouchy Sockhead Hat, a simple hat with a ribbed brim that folds up and finishes with a stockinette stitch slouch. Perfect for a travel project!

Alsn took on the challenge of a Booknits lace shawl, the Mustardseed. She's pretty amazing and whipped this delicate shawl up by the time our trip was done. Impressive!

I have been wanting to make a Norby hat for some time and thought this was the perfect yarn choice for it. It was a fun stitch pattern, and simple enough to easily pick up for a bit in between learning all the other crafts at camp.

Jaime and Jess both liked Megan's choice, and they both knit-along with her, making the Sockhead Hat. Jess shortened her ribbing section so her brim is only one layer, and both versions turned out super cute!

We all love the deep teal grey color of our special yarn, and what a magical hand knit souvenir of our trip together!

Thanks Megan! We ♥ your yarn and your stinkin' cute face!

Tina's Handspun Magic Cowl!

Hey guys, It's me Tina, and my new handspun cowl! 

My new cowl is made of yarn I spun during Spinzilla (cough cough winners). I used a hand dyed merino roving made by our friend Meg of Sleep Season Goods. Meg teaches classes and sells her amazing hand dyed yarn and roving at FTC. This colorway is called Sleeping Beauty.

I can't believe it took me so long to cast on with my magical Sleep Season handspun, because it was so fun to knit with! When I finally did cast on, it went so fast. I was overly enthusiastic with each pop of new color. The cowl is a pattern I made up, and only took 400 yards of a sport weight single spun from my 4 ounce Sleep Season braid. The cowl was knit in the round, casting on 250 stitches on size US 10, 40" circulars. Using a larger needle really lets the yarn bloom and drape, showing off all the amazing colors.

I knit this while watching Dexter and it was done in no time which is a good thing, because the last two seasons were really dragging on. When I was almost out of yarn, I skipped to the last episode and started on my garter stitch edging and bound off. The perfect project to show off a beautiful handspun!

Thanks for checking out my new cowl! I love it so.

Katy & Jaime: Arbutus Cowl Pals!

--jaime

We just got in Rockwell and it is an adorable and wonderfully farm-y yarn. I wanted to knit something up quick using one skein of this yarn and choose the pattern Arbutus by Jane Richmond in her beautiful book, Island. Katy had already made an Arbutus cowl and wore it to work often so I knew how cute this little cowl was. Arbutus is a 3-tiered cowl that is knit in the round. The tiers are constructed by casting off stitches and then casting on even more stitches than before. The cowl knits up super-quick and it fun and interesting to knit with reverse stockinette stitch ridges. 

Katy made her cowl out of local dyer Sleep Season Goods hand-dyed, DK. Arbutus uses 225 yards of DK yarn so it is a one-skein project for a lot of luscious yarns we carry. Sleep Season Goods DK merino often comes in one-of-a-kind colorways and this pattern shows off the amazing hand-dyed nature of the yarn perfectly. 

Katy in her hand-dyed Arbutus

The Rockwell made for a extra squishy cowl - Rockwell is a Cormo/Merino blend so it is a spongy yarn and it even retains some of the natural lanolin for more woolly goodness. I love the feel of this special yarn close to my neck and wear my Arbutus often. I used the color Marine which is a super-saturated turquoise-blue, but still retains the marled look of Rockwell.

We carry Jane's stunningly photographed book, Island, here at the shop as well a ton of beautiful yarns to choose from. This cowl would also make a great gift - it's quick to knit up and everyone can use a cozy cowl!

Yarn Along The Rockies Yarn Crawl!

We are gearing up for 9 days of fun starting this Saturday with the second annual Yarn Along the Rockies! Yarn Along the Rockies runs from September 21st - 29th and includes 23 local yarn shops each with amazing things to giveaway to participants. Here are seven reasons you should come to Fancy Tiger Crafts during the Yarn Along the Rockies!

1) New this year - each shop will be giving away a free blanket square pattern. Collect all 24 patterns-designed by each of the shops and make your own blanket!

Fancy Tiger's YATR Chevron Blanket Square made in our own Heirloom Yarn.

2) Souvenir shop buttons are free, too, at each destination. Pin them to the map on your souvenir tote (available for purchase at most shops) to show your shop-hop spirit! We have Fancy Tiger buttons in so many colors!

3) We are now carrying Quince and Co. yarns (more on that later this week!) and will have a beautiful Quince trunk show of accessories in the shop during the yarn crawl for you to peruse and try on.

4) We will have Brooklyn Tweed's Wool People 5 trunk show in the shop as well! See all the beautiful samples of garments, blankets and accessories for you to check out. We have all colors of Loft and Shelter in stock so you can pick up some new knitting projects.

5) Enter to win one of 5 Grand Prizes! If you go to all 23 participating shops during the yarn crawl, you can drop off your completed passport for a chance to win one of five Grand Prizes! Four of the Grand Prizes are baskets filled to the brim with awesome yarn and goodies donated by vendors and one special prize is this completed handknit afghan.

6) Stop by Fancy Tiger Crafts during the yarn crawl and you can enter to win our shop prize basket. There is no purchase necessary to enter - simply stop by from September 21st - 29th. Even if you can't visit all the yarn crawl shops, you can still have a chance to win lots of awesome goodies!

Fancy Tiger Craft's shop basket could be yours!

7) Our fave local dyer, Sleep Season Goods, has dyed up a very special limited edition colorway for this year's Yarn Along the Rockies. It came out beautifully and will only be available during the yarn crawl while supplies last!

We hope to see you soon! 

Dyeing with Jacquard Jars of Magic

Okay. So sometimes, we are a little behind. For instance, last week all the staff here at Fancy Tiger Crafts took our yarn dyeing class taught by the wonderful Megan of Sleep Season Goods and we found out about the wonderful world of Jacquard dyes!

You may have known about these little jars of powdered magic for a while, but they blew our minds! We promptly ordered almost all the colors for the store so you, too, can create beautiful yarns, rovings, locks and even fabrics. That's right, these little babies can dye all sorts of fibers from silk to cotton to wool and alpaca. A little goes a long way too, so one little jar will have you dyeing loads of things.

Click here for a pdf of instructions for using the Jacquard acid dyes.

Here is some of the magic we made with Megan the other night...

We can't wait to see what you dye!

Brooklyn Tweed + Sleep Season + Iceland = Magic

Megan Mahaffey of Sleep Season Goods dyes beautiful yarn. When she delivered the latest batch of her hand-dyed yarns, I fell in love with one and had to keep it--the skein is a pale green with hints of neon green and yellow-y brown. I needed a project to keep me busy on a flight to Iceland so when Allison suggested a Norby hat, I was sold.

The Norby pattern is a design by Gudrun Johnston for Brooklyn Tweed and was featured in their Wool People 2 collection (also available here at Fancy Tiger Crafts!) I love the slouchy look and thought it would show off the slight variegation of the yarn perfectly (not to mention, I'm a huge Gudrun fan!). Several Fancy Tiger staff had already knit this pattern up so I had a chance to covet their hats as well. A seven hour flight to Reykjavik gave me plenty of time to finish the hat so I had a new accessory to show off in Iceland.

This hat was the perfect hat for Iceland! The colors were reminscent of the moss and changing trees that covered the lava fields. Megan called this color "Juniper", but I've re-named it "Iceland Moss Magic".

If you want to dye yarn this beautiful yourself, be sure to sign up for Megan's class this Tuesday (tomorrow!) here at Fancy Tiger. Stay tuned for more about Iceland in my 2012 Iceland Wool Report!