My weaving bug is back! Inspired in no small way by the fact that I am taking night classes in the 8-shaft loom, my rigid heddle is getting a good workout too :) A few folks have asked for the particulars, so here you go:

• Yarn: 2 skeins of Killarney Sock in “Copper Slate”
• Loom:24″ Rigid Heddle Ashford Knitters Loom
• Heddle – 10 dent
• Length – 8 feet

To use a gradient you’ve got to consider a few things; my piece had to be long enough that, on a 10 dent heddle, I would get to use up all of the gradient. If it’s a shorter piece, you might find yourself having to cut parts of the yarn out in order to see the entire progression, Secondly, when you are wefting, be aware that your weft will be shorter than your warp was, so again you will want to tweak things to get the entire gradient.

I started by warping on my dining table, which was luckily the right length. I knew the dark brown was where the copper and slate overlapped, so I made sure that was in the middle. If I was uncertain, I would have divided the yarn into two equal sized cakes, and started warping from the centre outwards using one cake at a time. This would ensure that the transitional parts of the yarn were intact.

When I was ready to start weaving I took my second skein, and I used my ball winder to divide it into 12 little cakes. I found 60 hand cranks on my ball winder gave me the right amount. This is because I prefer to use bobbins and a boat shuttle; for those of you using a stick shuttle you can get away with a little more.

Here’s the important part; when you load up your shuttle you need to wind from the outside of each cake. Starting in the bottom right, I wound each cake from the outside in; this ensures that when I start weaving each sequential part of the gradient will show up in the right order.

I eliminated the first 2 and the last three of the cakes to get a sequence that would get me from copper to slate without an excess of either colour. This is totally guesswork on my part; I’ve done enough shawls on my doing table that I have a rough idea how much yarn I need for my weft. On average, each foot of warp took one bobbin.

After a few inches of weaving, I hemstitch my ends. Here is my hemstitching tutorial for those of you who are unfamiliar :)

At the end I hemstitch again. I do love a good bit of hemstitching.

The result is a lovely long scarf where I see the full expression of the gradient both across the warp and the weft. And that’s all it takes :)
My latest warp (stay tuned for more pics!) is using 4 sock twin sets in Longbeach, Purple Rain, Feather and Berry Vanilla:

Greedy for an even longer piece, I extended my dining table by another 2 feet. A piece of plywood and two strong clamps; worked like a charm!

I was going to call this “Charcoal Plum” but really, is “Purple Rain” not perfect? Not only is is homage to the favourite musical artist of our resident wonder worker, but the words evoke the greys contrasted with bright hits of purple, which was the goal here.

I was also going to do something more October’y (we explored a harvest peaches option) but orange wasn’t calling to me this month. This month I wanted rich lipstick, cool rains, sweet plums, and something that reached back to my misguided youth as a little goth kid.

Source: Flower Basket, Hair Colour

Thus “Purple Rain” was born – transitioning  from a rich, plum purple through a bright pink band and deepening to purple again before hitting lilac and cooling off to grey. A complex blend, but totally worth it. Purple Rain will be available on our website for the first 36 hours of October, from 9am EST on Sunday the 1st to 9pm on the 2nd.

I feel like I need to address the elephant in the room here; Copper Slate took a long time to ship. I don’t want to come up here to make excuses, but please know that we did all we could to get it out faster. Paypal holding our funds, combined with the popularity of the colour resulted in a much longer fulfillment process than we would normally consider reasonable, and for that you have our sincere apologies!

 

 

We are so delighted to be adding a west coast retailer to our list at last, the wonderful Valley Yarns in Surrey, British Columbia. They will also be representing us at Knit City in Vancouver this fall! Why the gorgeous dotted rays shawl?? Because they’ll also be representing Stephen West – so of course we had to show off his patterns in our gradients :) Hope to see some of you there!

To see a full list of all our retailers, click here :)

Sammy’s results came back! They’re so outside of what I expected that Kali commented “They must’ve just thrown a dart at a bunch of dog breeds” and I think she might be onto something!

So here it is!

Here are Sammy’s thoughts:

Since we had to resort to a number generator here are the winners!

Instagram users: Marizasamara, sirsheila, bennycatgirl, yorkrealty and knittwitty – you’ve all won 20% off discount codes for our online store :) chemgeek83 – you’ve won a skein of yarn! Email me at hello@thebluebrick.ca so we can work it out :)

 

I have been using Paypal for years. I am an online business owner, and this is how I make my living. Reliable access to, and transfer of, funds is crucial to me, and my livelihood. Paypal apparently doesn’t give a hoot about it.

Last week I transferred a large sum from PayPal to my bank. A sum that would be responsible for payroll, for buying yarn, for paying my mortgage. The funds arrived in my bank, but also remained in my PayPal account. I called Paypal – they said it was a glitch, that they would call back, and in the meantime not to touch the funds in either my bank account, or my Paypal account.

It’s been 5 days, no contact, so I call Paypal back and asked to be elevated to a manager.

He basically throws his arms in the air and says:

“It’s not our responsibility. Must be your bank”.

I say:

“Ok, but shouldn’t someone from PayPal have contacted me about this? What if I tried to withdraw the funds again? What about recent transfers? What if I didn’t, on my own recognizance, contact you before I made this worse?”

He responds, like some horrible automaton:

“It’s not our responsibility. Must be your bank”.

The manager I requested to elevate this kept repeating that one sentence, basically hoping I’ll go away.

I think we can all rest assured that, had I done something dishonest, like pull the funds again, Paypal would have been knocking on my door with a good deal more efficiency. If my bank reverses the funds it will be catastrophic. If Paypal continues to not allow me access to my funds, including new, incoming purchases, it will be catastrophic.

I’m not sure what my alternatives are. Roughly 50% of our business comes through PayPal so it’s not as though I can ask my customers to charge their credit cards instead. Informing Paypal that I will take my business elsewhere elicited no response except “that’s your prerogative ma’am”. They are so confident in their monopoly that they don’t care if I stay or leave. It’s a horrible feeling from the agency that holds your livelihood.

A small business is feast and famine, and the consistent, reliable flow of funds is crucial. They have demonstrated that they don’t care one whit about this. I’m open to your thoughts, or even just commiseration at this point. I feel so powerless.

I hate using my beautiful blog as a rant space, and for that I apologize, I just had to get this off my chest!

Two more sleeps to the 25th Anniversary of the KW Knitters Fair – the oldest fiber festival in Canada if I have my facts right :) Here are a few notes to help you plan your day if you’re going to come visit us!

We will be located on the upper floor, in booth 101. It looks like we’re right by the entrance, so make sure you wave as you come in!

Sometimes a colour just stops singing to you, and that’s what happened with Mt. Fuji. Introducing its sister, Cape Spear. Cape Spear is in Newfoundland, and it’s the first place in North America to see the sun each day, being the easternmost point, which makes it a pretty special place. This photo was taken at sunrise, of course! Cape Spear will making its debut this weekend, and Mt. Fuji is being discontinued, the last of which will also be at our booth this weekend.

Above are a few one-of-a-kind skeins that will be available only this weekend. From left to right:

• A palindrome mint green that fades to blue at both ends, speckled with brown.
• A palindrome denim blue, darkening to navy at both ends, also speckled.
• A short run of the Copper Slate pop-up colour, in case you missed out.
• A bit of Coral Mint (not shown) will be there as well.

All of the above is in pretty short runs, 12>. So if they’re on your list you’ll want to visit us early!

Yarn Bowls will make an appearance as well! To help you prep, here is the pricing:

• Small bowls – $65
• Medium Bowls – $75
• Large Bowls – $85
• Bowls with resin components – $120

Of course there will also be all of our regular colours, gorgeous samples, Ombré Yarn books and our lovely selves! Hope to see you all this weekend :)

September! Cool temperatures, changing colours, the hazy dog days where you can sweat through the afternoon and need a sweater by sundown. Knitting, hot drinks, all things pumpkin. Even though it’s still technically summer for more than half the month, I know I’m not alone in wanting to jump the gun a bit where fall is concerned.

Introducing Copper Slate, a colour I love so much it will be seriously hard not to add it to our permanent line. Copper Slate will be available in our online store starting September 1st at 9am, until Sept 2nd at 9pm, Eastern Standard Time.

Eyeshadow link here, Door link here.

This month I went full autumn, it feels more like November than September, rustic and neutral, yet the colours remain quite warm overall. It feels like days when the snow hasn’t quite come yet, but the leaves are gone. It feels like fireplaces, apple cider and your favourite corner for reading.

A warm, rusty red, almost cayenne, blends into a neutral slate blue. Easy to wear, no matter your palette. Remember, it’s only up for 36 hours or so, in any base you like. Fall out!

I’ve been working on a collection of new patterns, sort of an addition to my Ombré Knits book, that focuses on small, easy one skein projects that take advantage of gradients, and the first of them is finally here! This is the Escarpment Cowl.

This cowl is the simplest of construction; you start with a garter stitch tab as though it’s a top down triangular shawl and then work as though you’re making a stockinette shawl until it’s wide enough to go around your neck; you then join in the round and keep working until you’re happy with the length. A garter stitch border prevents the curling and a modified kfb creates a nice neat centre line down the front.

Tiny details, big impact :) All you need is one skein of Escarpment DK. 3.5mm needles and three stitch markers. Enjoy! Ravelry Link here.

We have been toying with the idea of participating in stateside shows for a while; Vogue, Stitches West, TNNA etc. After much deliberation, we realized we’d rather team up with a store in the US to represent us than go through the process of importing ourselves.

So we are on the hunt! Do you have a favourite LYS that you think would be a good match for us? Are you a yarn store owner in the continental US who regularly participates in these shows? Do you enjoy bad Canadian stereotypes?

What we provide; gorgeous ombre yarn, inspiration images, print and social marketing support, POS support, pattern support and our lovely selves (we would travel to each show to hang out at your booth and tell bad jokes).

America; we already thought you were great, and we’d like to come hang out and get crafty. Email me at hello@thebluebrick.ca and let’s talk!

If you follow us on Instagram you’ve probably seen Tito’s lovely wood turning work by now :) He’s working hard on producing a lovely set of at least 12 bowls in time for Festival Twist, and another 12 in time for the Kitchener Waterloo Festival.  Hopefully more, but that’s the goal!

After asking around a bit we’ve chosen not to include the slot for the yarn to pull through, some people wanted the freedom to use the bowls for other purposes, and some  prefer a centre pull ball and didn’t feel the slot was needed. We may change our minds in the future, but for now we’re going without.

Each bowl is hand stained by Tito to match one of our ombré yarns. I think he’s done a lovely job! If you can’t make it out to Twist or KW, these bowls will be available in our online store, which we will probably update at least once a month.

Finished with a coat of beeswax after sanding they feel like heaven, with a rich, earthy smoothness. Hopefully you’ll able to see and touch these goodies in person!