The Blue Brick

The Northern Lights

November 25, 2015

There will be an update on The Blue Brick’s Etsy site on Friday November 27th at 11am, EST. In addition to our regular offerings, there will be Christmas kits available :) Christmas kits will be available for all bases except Point Pelee Lace, will cost $45 per kit, and will include the following:

1 Skein of yarn, in your choice of base and colour
1 Printed Knitting pattern, suited to your yarn (more on this soon!)
1 Framable 8×10 metallic print of the photo that inspired the yarn
3 Gold-plated stitch markers, handmade by us!

When adding things to your cart, simple choose either ‘Holiday Gift Pack’ or ‘Just the Yarn Please!’ from the drop down menu.

*If you want to make only 1 skein a gift pack, but you’re hoping to purchase multiple skeins, you will need to add them to your shopping cart separately.

No discussion of winter wonders could be complete for me without the northern lights. Tito and I have made a hobby out of dashing up north at the mere mention of good aurora conditions.

Nor could I narrow it down to only one photo, however hard I tried. Because sometimes the aurora are super bright…

And sometimes they are very faint, and you have to squint to see them, and turn the sensitivity on the camera way up…

But it is always a magical experience to be able to watch them sway and dance, eerily silent. Toronto is so far south that it’s not easy to catch them, but we’ve been known to drive to Sudbury, late on a work night, so we’ve given ourselves the best chances possible, given how unpredictable they are. Sometimes it even pans out ;)

Watch out for ‘Aurora’ and ‘Borealis’ at this Friday’s Etsy sale! Now, onto the patterns! If you happen to buy DK weight yarn at the sale, and you choose to make it a holiday gift pack, you will also receive a printed copy of my pattern ‘Sencilla’; a one-skein bandana cowl that totally rocks variegated yarns.

Senile covers that awkward gap in your jacket where a regular cowl just doesn’t cut it, with an adorable cable motif up the back of the neck that is super pretty and feminine:

You’ll learn a few new techniques, such as the ‘eastern purl’ and a modified kfb increase, but both are super simple and I’ve provided step-by-step photo tutorials for both.

Only 2 more colours to reveal before Friday, stay tuned!
Evergreen

November 24, 2015

There will be an update on The Blue Brick’s Etsy site on Friday November 27th at 11am, EST. In addition to our regular offerings, there will be Christmas kits available :) Christmas kits will be available for all bases except Point Pelee Lace, will cost $45 per kit, and will include the following:

1 Skein of yarn, in your choice of base and colour
1 Printed Knitting pattern, suited to your yarn (more on this soon!)
1 Framable 8×10 metallic print of the photo that inspired the yarn
3 Gold-plated stitch markers, handmade by us!

When adding things to your cart, simple choose either ‘Holiday Gift Pack’ or ‘Just the Yarn Please!’ from the drop down menu.

*If you want to make only 1 skein a gift pack, but you’re hoping to purchase multiple skeins, you will need to add them to your shopping cart separately.

Today’s colour comes from the woods of Tobermory, Ontario, where Tito and I love to go hiking in mid-winter. Rich olive greens, teal and grey/browns make for this super saturated yarn.

And now, what about these patterns that you’ll be getting as part of the Christmas kits? If you choose “Holiday Gift Pack” from the drop down menu during purchase, you’ll get a pattern suited to the yarn you purchased, which means there are different patterns based on whether you chose worsted, sock or DK weight (if you choose Manitoulin Merino, you’ll get the sock yarn pattern). Today, I’m featuring the sock yarn pattern, “I’d Rather Be Cruising”.

This pattern calls for either 1 or 2 skeins of sock yarn (you’ll get the pattern for both options) and is perfect for highlighting variegated yarns with its simple construction. There are 2 rows to remember for the body, and 2 rows to remember for the lace. Perfect TV knitting!

The 2-skein version (also included) is a generously sized wrap, super cuddly and surprisingly quick to knit.

Tomorrow I’ll show off the DK weight pattern :)
Frozen Niagara

November 23, 2015

There will be an update on The Blue Brick’s Etsy site on Friday November 27th at 11am, EST. In addition to our regular offerings, there will be Christmas kits available :) Christmas kits will be available for all bases except Point Pelee Lace and Manitoulin Merino, will cost $45 per kit, and will include the following:

1 Skein of yarn, in your choice of base and colour
1 Printed Knitting pattern, suited to your yarn (more on this soon!)
1 Framable 8×10 metallic print of the photo that inspired the yarn

When adding things to your cart, simple choose either ‘Holiday Gift Pack’ or ‘Just the Yarn Please!’ from the drop down menu.

We’re almost to sale day, and I still have new colourways to share! This one is called ‘Niagara’ and it’s based off a shot Tito and I took last year of the falls totally frozen over.

Speckle-dyed grey with hits of icy teal and turquoise throughout. The falls were very textural, with different kinds of ice, deep ice, snow-covered ice, shadowed ice, and I’ve tried to reflect as much of it as I could.

Almost there, and still more colours to reveal :)
Blue Hour Ice

November 22, 2015

There will be an update on The Blue Brick’s Etsy site on Friday November 27th at 11am, EST. In addition to our regular offerings, there will be Christmas kits available :) Christmas kits will be available for all bases except Point Pelee Lace and Manitoulin Merino, will cost $45 per kit, and will include the following:

1 Skein of yarn, in your choice of base and colour
1 Printed Knitting pattern, suited to your yarn (more on this soon!)
1 Framable 8×10 metallic print of the photo that inspired the yarn

When adding things to your cart, simple choose either ‘Holiday Gift Pack’ or ‘Just the Yarn Please!’ from the drop down menu.

Today’s new colour way also comes from the ice storm Toronto had a few years ago. It was a tough Christmas for some; there were a lot of homes without power and the weight of the ice had downed many trees across the GTA creating transit issues, damaged property and delays in public services.

The ice storm also brought out the Christmas spirit for people; folks who had power opened their homes to those without, holiday meals were shared with those who were not able to stay in their homes and people came together to help, both with the clean up, and each other.

This is not the first, or the last, colour way to come from the ice storm that year, but I definitely think they all qualify as holiday themes :)
The St. James Arch

November 20, 2015

There will be an update on The Blue Brick’s Etsy site on Friday November 27th at 11am, EST. In addition to our regular offerings, there will be Christmas kits available :) Christmas kits will be available for all bases except Point Pelee Lace and Manitoulin Merino, will cost $45 per kit, and will include the following:

1 Skein of yarn, in your choice of base and colour
1 Printed Knitting pattern, suited to your yarn (more on this soon!)
1 Framable 8×10 metallic print of the photo that inspired the yarn

When adding things to your cart, simple choose either ‘Holiday Gift Pack’ or ‘Just the Yarn Please!’ from the drop down menu.

Todays colour is definitely for the holidays; this is the beautiful St James Park in downtown Toronto:

For this yarn, speckle dyeing was the answer. This skeins are crazy, as cheesy as it sounds, I can honestly say that every stitch will be a surprise.

Deep blue for the base with colour explosions over top, to make me think of Christmas lights and bright decorations.

Look out for ‘St. James’ Arch’ in our Etsy update next Friday!
Etsy Update & Christmas Kits!

November 19, 2015

New yarn at last! There will be an update on The Blue Brick’s Etsy site on Friday November 27th at 11am, EST. In addition to our regular offerings, there will be Christmas kits available :) Christmas kits will be available for all bases except Point Pelee Lace and Manitoulin Merino, will cost $45 per kit, and will include the following:

1 Skein of yarn, in your choice of base and colour
1 Printed Knitting pattern, suited to your yarn (more on this soon!)
1 Framable 8×10 metallic print of the photo that inspired the yarn

When adding things to your cart, simple choose either ‘Holiday Gift Pack’ or ‘Just the Yarn Please!’ from the drop down menu.

Now, to the goodies!

Introducing the new addition to the family: ‘Frozen’.

Based off this photo, taken a few years ago during Toronto’s Christmas ice storm:

Moody and deep reddish/pink, with hits of white, black and brown throughout. This was my first time really playing with speckle dyeing, and I love it!

This is shown on my ‘Manitoulin Merino’ base, but will be available in all 5 of the Blue Brick’s current bases.

More goodies are in the offing, stay tuned!

There is no update on the studio, basically they’re working on it. We’re not letting it stop us though, and as much as it was initially demoralizing to bring all the yarn, dyes and tubs back home, it was quickly overshadowed by the joy of being back at doing what we love most; making beautiful yarn. Thank you to everyone for the encouraging words!
More Comedy, Less Error Please

November 17, 2015

///:: Warning: Rant Coming ::///

So, we got the Blue Brick a studio. Yep, a real space, dedicated to yarn dyeing, so we could stop dyeing out of our kitchen and I could stop rendering things that were meant for food, unsafe for food. We were pretty excited, what a giant step for our fledging business!

We get a tiny 12′ x 12′ room, concrete floors, high ceilings, no windows, but a sink. They’re humble beginnings, but we figure it will do the job. Then we notice there is no lock, or indeed a handle, on the door. For the first few days of our lease we have no keys (the landlord tells me ‘what? I left it open for you, just start moving your stuff in!) as if that’s a sound idea. Finally, after about a week, we get keys, move in our stuff and get ready to dye.

Day 1: My yarn supplier manages to forget all the worsted weight in my order. All of it. She’s making it right, and shipping it to me, but it ends up delaying production. As it happens, we had already pushed our schedule back three days because (surprise!) we were waiting on our worsted yarn base.

Day 2: We get the yarn to the studio (sans worsted) and discover that there is no hot water. Without heat, I cannot set the dye, or achieve the vibrant colours you’re all used to seeing. I try to make do by warming up water using the prehistoric microwave that was donated to us, but we get tepid at best. I end up with 16 ruined skeins of a seriously blasé yarn, give up, and go home.

Day 3: I spend this day trying unsuccessfully to get the attention of my landlord regarding the hot water. On their priority list I suspect I’m somewhere below the plants growing up through the pavement. We decide to invest in a water kettle and a new microwave for heat-setting. After a tiring run through a Walmart we arrive at the studio triumphant and ready to go again. I soak the yarn using the water kettle, dye it up, turn on the microwave and….

Everything goes black.

We open the door, the hallway is … black. Turns out the building was wired in such a way that not only did we have no access to the box, but our microwave blew our entire wing. The yarn is soaked, and I can’t do anything about it, so I had to leave it there.

My plan for day 1 was hitherto unheard of levels of productivity, punctuated by the frequent exclamation of ‘wow! This is so much better than working at home!’. This plan has failed to transpire, but at this point we’re trying to laugh about it so we can fondly remember when the Blue Brick was super tiny and managed to take out the power of an entire building while trying to heat-set yarn.

We will make this right. We will make the space work, and we will make beautiful yarns, hopefully extremely soon. I was hoping to have new colourways to show off by now, but it will be at least the weekend before the first batches are done. Wish me luck with the ongoing fiasco that is the Blue Brick’s new home ;)
Holidays with SweetGeorgia, Vol. 1

November 12, 2015

As a member of Sweet Georgia’s soundboard, I get sneak peeks at their upcoming patterns and collections, and this week I received the new Holidays with SweetGeorgia, vol. 1. Who doesn’t love a good bit of holiday knitting? This collection features gifts that span the gamut in terms of how long they take to make (I’d say from a week to a weekend) so there’s plenty of time to Christmas and something for everyone :)

I’d like to feature my fave patterns, all of which are on my personal gifting list this year!

Soft Twilight by Corrina Ferguson

I love, love, love the colours. This was the first one to catch my eye (no surprises there, right?) and judging from the pattern it looks complex but is actually quite simple to make, my favourite kind of knitting.

I’m a sucker for blue-greens and also for gradient sets, so this was a perfect hit for me. Not so much into the blue-greens? SweetGeorgia has other colour options available.

Next up, Tallin by Deborah Dar Woon. I confess, I need to make this just because I’m so curious about how it folds together.

This pattern goes from a hat to a cowl, and stays closed on its own when worn as a hat. I’m wildly curious to understand how it works, but it sounds brilliant!

Ok, my favourite for last: Peninsula by M K Nance.

How beautiful are these?

I suspect they will get made… but possibly not gifted. That’s a knitters prerogative, right?

I love everything about this, the cables, the twisted stitches, it’s texturally rich. Doesn’t look like TV knitting though, and it would be my first pair of toe up, so I might save this for cosy nights on the couch this winter :)

Be sure to check out the lookbook here, there’s something for everyone, and it’s early enough in the season that you can pick more than one!
The Lost Project

November 10, 2015

Somewhere in the shuffle of my wedding day I lost my knitting! I thought I had done a thorough check of the hotel, and our bags, and the car, but I have to conclude that it’s lost. I’m kinda bummed, because it had a lot of significance to me.

====EDIT====

The last known photo of the knitting was just sent to me by my Matron of Honour, thanks Kris!

It begins with a skein of my own Point Pelee Lace in ‘Bajan Pier’. Baja Pier was based on a photo taken where Tito proposed to me.

And then I cast on for Joji Locatelli‘s “A Day to Remember“. Of course.

It was a perfect pairing, really great for showing off my yarn colours. The project was with me when I met the Yarn Harlot at an airport…

And with me at my stagette, which involved much tea, boardgames and knitting (wild night)…

And finally, with me on my wedding day. I worked a few rows while waiting for my bridesmaids to be ready. The next day, for the life of me, I couldn’t find it.

More’s the pity, by that time I was more than halfway through a 1000 yard skein of lace weight, which takes some stamina. It was a beautiful, mindless project though, perfect for carrying through the pre-wedding madness.

Ah well, I hope whoever found it was a knitter! I don’t have the heart to cast on another right now, but I will definitely have to dye up some more Bajan Pier.
The Leaf Hunting Sock Head

November 9, 2015

This November has been unseasonably warm in Toronto (not that I’m complaining). Before the cold weather comes in, I took advantage of the weather to collect some leaves for a batch of resin jewellery (yes, we’re still making it!) and to get some FO shots of a hat that I actually finished some time ago, and promptly forgot about. The November evening light was magical.

The hat is the sockhead hat by Kelly McClure (Bohoknits). 8500 Ravelers can’t be wrong, right? This hat was an amazing, relaxing knit, totally mindless. It’s great for showing off beautiful yarns, I think I’ll need to work one up in ‘Kim’s Barn’ for myself.

It’s worked up in Madelinetosh sock yarn, in the colour ‘Whiskey Barrel’. It’s a perfect, tonal brown/grey with tiny hits of deep blue that are like treats when you come across one in your knitting.

The slouch is just right :)

For those of you who wondered whether resin jewellery had permanently taken a back seat to hand dyed yarn, we’ve definitely got plans for the winter. Plans that involve autumn leaves and sterling silver.

It is our hope to have both a batch of jewellery and a batch of handprinted yarns on our Etsy site soon enough that we can guarantee delivery before Christmas (to Canadian and US customers, at least).

Stay tuned for updates on both! We are also setting up our studio, and it’s just about ready to go. We’ve only been back in town a week, talk about hitting the ground running.

In all that craziness it’s nice to go for a walk on a leaf hunt. And just look at those colours! Inspiration is everywhere :)