Saturday night, December 7th was Gallery Walk in town along with the community tree lighting and the arrival of Santa. It was an exceptionally cold night was temperatures in the teens. Crowd turn out was small but welcomed and in between customers in my gallery ( the 940 Gallery ), I knit. Determination is my middle name these days as I strive to make new things from new yarn for the shop and also to finish some of the projects that fill my work basket by the chair in the living room. I am making progress and last night finds me knitting on a baby afghan in cotton that I began years ago, a shameful admission. What sorts of things are you working on? These knitted projects may not turn into gifts this Christmas but they will be ready for next Christmas or a birthday here and there! I am going to snuggle tonight under my fake lamb's wool blanket and knit on this cold winter's evening.

The days are definitely shorter and this week, much colder. Temperatures that have my teeth chattering make me take out all my knitting, especially those unfinished projects and begin on them again. Maybe I should say begin to finish them again. I like to snuggle in my favorite chair, put my feet up, watch a television show or movie, and knit away a couple of hours.

This was my Thanksgiving Day knitting.

The shop is loaded with new yarn, felt kits, new book titles and new needles. It was so difficult to control myself when it came to purchasing all the fall and winter yarns. I loved this one's color, the softness of that one, the texture of this one, the amazing patterns for the yarn over there.... and on it went just buying my favorites until we were bursting at our seams. 

New Yarn!

The shop is all warm and cozy and inviting you to browse through the patterns and fondle all the yarn. Bring your latest project in, we would love to see it. Come sit a bit and knit a few rows. let us know what you hope to see for - dare I say it? - spring! Surely as we approach the shortest day of the year, we are all looking forward to spring and the lovely days that lie ahead. 

This Saturday at Diva there will be a trunk show and special sale of my friend Jane Shreven's buttons during Gallery Walk. We will stay open late, until 8 and display her buttons along with some of the holiday knitting we have done for the shop. Come in and join us! Now, as for me, it is back to knitting on that baby afghan. Have a wonderful, warm evening this fine winter's night. 

Knitting Through Paris

Lately, I have been thinking quite a bit about my knitting and the times I choose to knit. I think of it as my stress reducer, my calming activity, the motions that carry me through an event or times when I need comfort.

Recently, I was on vacation in Paris where I had taken three knitting projects with me. I figured I would knit on the plane coming and going and perhaps a bit in a quiet moment or two. Instead, I knitted every where. I stood in line at the catacombs for almost an hour and knit in line. I returned to the apartment in Montemarte in the late afternoons and knit until dinner, then knit again until bedtime. Waiting for my traveling companions to get ready for the day, I knit in the comfy chair in the living room. The knitting soothed me, focused me, gave me patience as I waited for plans to come together. I carried it to every tourist sight as if it were a talisman.

During this trip, I realized just how much I needed the very act of knitting. I taught a friend on the trip to knit and she created a long and winding scarf, a real beauty and then as she craved to knit more; we searched out and found a yarn shop in Paris. I didn't need something specific to make, I just wanted to knit. I could answer the question, " what are you making? " because I did have patterns for the projects with me but it was difficult to explain to the non-knitter, just what it was that I WAS doing.

Without the thousand things I have to do at home for my family, the businesses and the many, many things to distract me ( television anyone? ), I just reveled in the act of knitting. Yes, I finished two projects, goals were attained but I knitted for sheer joy and comfort, so far from home.

So, the trip to Paris became an actual time of vacation, the first in decades, as I worked on knitting for the shop without distraction in the company of friends and conversation. I knitted in the company of strangers where I could still be aware and a part of what was going on around me. I knitted for me. I knitted for comfort. I knitted for the love of knitting.

Summer is moving ahead at a brisk and sunny pace in Diva. New fall yarns are arriving and there is excitement in the air as we plan all the projects we will be knitting for shop samples. Lots of color, texture and unique kits are in stock along with really interesting new book titles. I was knitting a little fair isle cap from Silky Wool but I have decided to turn it into a stocking cap. I've never knit a stocking cap before and after looking at many different patterns, I think I have put something together that will be fun and challenging. Stay tuned.

We also have added a selection of hand dyed wool felt in fat 1/8ths hand dyed in Port Angeles. Working in and with wool is one of my favorite things to do.

So as we head into the long last days of August, get some knitting and head into the great outdoors, find a shady spot and knit your heart out. Happy knitting!

Recently, someone mentioned to me the importance of community in my yarn shop. I had never really thought about it before. I love to knit and crochet, I use it as a soothing meditative activity for however brief a time in my day when I get to do it. I have always knitted my way through stress and life's ups and downs. I knit in public, private. On planes and in grocery store parking lots. I knit in doctor waiting rooms, in the dark at movie theaters. I knit alone and in groups, with friends and strangers and yet I never thought of community.

I guess knitters, spinners, crocheters and weavers are community. We share a love of fiber and color and texture, of progress done and things made. We crave the comfort our handwork brings. The soothing to our soul the pursuit of handwork that has been done for centuries. A bond between people that has lasted generations.

So yes, there is community, whether one person is knitting alone or in a group; there is a community of previous lives and generations knitting with them. A community across the ages.

I am thinking of all the people in Oklahoma displaced and injured in the giant tornado that struck the town of Moore, Oklahoma. I am so sorry that it happened and heart broken over the loss of lives and disruption of their days. A disruption that will last a long time.

When I am stressed, deeply troubled and feeling overwhelmed, it helps me to knit. I am calmed, contented and clear headed as I sit down to knit. I am thinking of all the knitters and crafters there that have lost their projects. How they must long to reach for them in this horribly stressful time. I think of the moms and dads who settle their children for the night and would reach for their knitting to have a few centering moments for themselves. I am sorry for this loss too. I wonder how I can help. I would love to send yarn and needles to Oklahoma but it is likely too early in the chaos to send off this comfort. In the meantime, I will knit and pray and send comforting thoughts to all the citizens and crafters of this area. Later on, I will find a way to donate yarn. Donating the comfort of the familiar stitch, the welcoming project, the becalmed moment.

Much new sock yarn has been added to our sock corner in Diva. I figure with the warmer and longer days of spring and summer, a quick, easy to carry knitting project is in order. With that reasoning in mind, I knit socks, many times the same sock pattern but different yarns. With Indulgence there are so many colors, I think I can knit all summer long! Of course, first I am taking a few weeks to detour into crocheting as a friend recovers from some surgery and needs something new to do. It has been years since I taught someone how to crochet but I am certain it will be accomplished in a mere twinkling moment! Happy Spring - we are expecting warm days the rest of this week!

It's in the shop now baby!

For the past several months I have had a sample of boucle yarn on my office desk from Schaefer yarns. I would look at it. Fondle it. Pet it and remember the little poncho I knit from my last boucle yarn I carried in the shop. Finally, I picked the yarn up from my over worked office desk on a gray, rainy morning and called a sales rep to order. 

Amy's new crochet work from a Weezie Wear pattern.

Great color! It matches my house!

When it arrived, I once again went through the fondling and petting stage of having all this wonderful yarn in my shop and stash. 

Dreamy boucle yarn!

This week, in between wacky weather that promises to warm to 62 by the weekend, I am going to begin a project with this yarn! stop in and say hi to me in either the bead shop or the yarn shop and I'll show you what I am up to! xo, Lois

Around the Shop

The spring yellow lobby display!

The wall of color and inspiration.

New Interlacements yarns.

The back room with lots of baby projects & yarn! 

I love the business of owning a yarn shop. I get excited and happy when I think of all the color, texture and feel of yarn. I plan on what yarn needs a swatch for the shop or what yarn I want to make something from. New yarn is the best and maybe I won't have time to do a big, complicated project but I can make a simple scarf or shawl or cowl and in doing that, I get to play with the newest of new yarns!

A few happenings around Diva today. I think I am doing more knitting for the shop that I ever have before and I like it!

A customer in the shop today with a lovely felted bag.

Hamster alert!

Those cool wool pet kits, where our little
hamster came from!

Cozette - a new yarn of silk, cotton and polyamide. I knitted a swatch.

Crochet Stories

Today is March 6th and I just realized it is National Crochet month so I am going to finish one crochet project, an afghan, and begin another. I learned to crochet from a Hasbro children's toy kit when I was about 10. No one in my family did any kind of handwork so I am totally self taught and have always thought of my crochet work as " Lois' way. " I was never entirely certain that I was doing it " right " but since I liked the end results, I was happy.

When I left a bunch of good girlfriends in Virginia and moved back home to Port Townsend, I made each one of them a crocheted afghan figuring that every time they used it, they would be wrapped in memories of our friendship and love. That was over 25 years ago and I still think of the hours I spent pouring love into those afghans. Now, I have more girlfriends in my life and I spend way more time knitting, but I am revisiting the story of those afghans and thinking that this month, I will begin making more love stories.

Today in the yarn shop several things happened that made it a crazy day and a wonderful day. The credit card machine was invaded by trouble when the processing company experienced a system wide series of failures. That's a lot of words to say that the swipe machine would not process a credit card. Seventy five minutes later, we had a machine that was sort of fixed. After stomping my feet in a little snit of balled up anger ( get it? yarn balls? ball of anger? ) it managed to spring to life and work! Ta da!

Rebekah has officially joined the staff and will be taking Amy's position while she returns to full time family life with the new baby she is expecting anytime after tomorrow. Wonderful!

I also wound yarn into a ball to begin a new crocheting project while on the phone for those 75 minutes! It calmed me and inspired me all at once.

Finally, I have begun the sample made from The Wooly Lady, wool felt kits we have in the shop. This is the first evening of adding the edging to the floral shapes. I am rather liking this hand work!