Stones, Sticks, and Strings

When I was a kid I read a story called Stone Soup. In it a wanderer approaches a cottage. When he knocks on the door a woman answers. He begs her for some food and she tells him she can't give him any because she doesn't have any. So he tells her that he can show her how to make soup from a stone.

Which makes me start asking "if he can make soup from a stone why is he going around begging for food?"

She doesn't think this though because she's not internet savvy, so excited about the prospect of making soup from a rock which is free, she invites the stranger in. This was back in those much safer days when you let strangers into your home even if they were carrying weapons and there were no laws to protect the commoner and seeing people hanging from trees and heads on pikes was a perfectly normal thing.

They get a roaring fire going in the fireplace and they put a cauldron over it (hey first sign of a witch - a cauldron) and they put the wanderer's magic stone and some water into the cauldron. They boil it for awhile and then the wanderer says "you know, this soup would be better if we had some vegetables. Do  you have any?"

And so the woman goes to her cold room which is anywhere in the house that doesn't have a fire and she produces some potatoes, carrots and onions. They peel them and throw that into the pot and then the wanderer says "it's too bad that we don't have any meat."

So the lady says "I think I might be able to find something," She goes to her larder and finds the remains of the chicken that she ate the night before and they add that to the soup because back then it was perfectly safe to eat chicken that's been sitting out all night since salmonella hadn't been invented yet.

And then the wanderer says "I don't suppose you have any herbs, just to add a bit of flavor?" She goes out to her garden and she gathers up some herbs and they chop them up and throw them into the pot along with some incantations of blessings and good wishes because, you know, they have a cauldron.

Meanwhile as they wait for the stone to magically produce the soup, the wanderer entertains her with songs, tricks and games and they have a lovely chat by the fire. They exchange contact information and she tells him about the husband that died and the ungrateful children who no longer call on her and he tells her how he lost his entire family in a village fire set by the evil king's soldiers and now he wanders the countryside seeking revenge.

The fact that she is alone in her house with a tormented revenge seeker doesn't bother her at all.

When the soup is done he takes out his stone and pockets it and they have a lovely meal together. She gives him a bed by the fire for the night and he leaves the next day, rejuvenated and with a full tummy and she feels refreshed from the company and the new knowledge of making soup from a stone.

So what has this got to do with knitting?

Not long ago, necessity required knitting. Want a sweater? You knitted it. Want socks? You knitted it. Want a blanket? You knitted it. Knitting was not leisure time. It was work. Women walked around the house doing chores and knitting. Back then they were able to produce two extra arms to do this. They could knit, feed the baby, stir the laundry in the pot, and sweep the floor all at the same time. If you didn't have yarn you unraveled something to make something else. It was not considered fun times when you wanted a hobby to do. People who had to knit didn't have hobbies. They had work and sleep.

Now if you need something, you go to the store. You can pick up a ten pack of socks for like ninety-nine cents. You buy a sweater for under twenty. Whatever you want you can buy cheaply enough and still have money for lunch in the food court.

However to make a single pair of socks you pay about twenty dollars for a skein of yarn. It's not financially practical. Necessity has become the stone.

Instead we knit for pleasure. It's cheaper than a round of golf, more social than a night at the movies, definitely more fun than a barrel of monkeys. (Yes, seriously. Would you really want a barrel of monkeys in your home?) We knit for relaxation. We knit for connection. We knit to leave a bit of ourselves with others. We knit for style. We knit to wear unique items. We knit to prevent ourselves from eating or smoking or drinking. We knit to forget our problems or to solve our problems or to reach the state of zen where we can levitate ourselves above the crazy.

We don't knit for necessity, no matter how much we tell ourselves that we use that stone. We have filled our cauldrons with other ingredients for feeding ourselves and we make connections with other wanderers through life, with knitting.

Which brings us to today's sale. It's a lovely yarn, perfect for sweaters, scarves, cowls, hats, and mittens.

75% OFF SALE

DIAMOND SELECT STONEWASH

60% Acrylic, 25% Cotton, 15% Wool

165 m/100 g Chunky (5)

Regular Price: $8.00

Sale Price: $2:00

Posted by Anna Maria Junus (happy employee who has never eaten stone soup or been stoned).

The Best Taffy Pull Ever

Have you ever been to a taffy pull? No me neither. I've read about them in books. It involves greasing up your body so that you don't burn yourself on the hot taffy. Now doesn't that sound exciting? It's what people did for entertainment before television.

Now I'm not saying there's anything wrong with going to someone's house and pulling their taffy. Or holding a taffy pull of your own. Just make sure you have plenty of butter.

Did you know that salt water taffy has no salt water in it? It has salt and water but not salt water which really is something different because you can only get that by the sea or a lake in Utah. The legend goes that there was a man who was selling taffy by the ocean and the sea came up and soaked his taffy so he called it salt water taffy and the name stuck and that's why when you go to a coastal town there are salt water taffy stores all over the place. They may even have holidays to honor that guy and a god that they give offerings to. He's called Taffy Fae and he's very flexible and he shoots rope like strands of taffy out from his wrists. The only way to escape from his taffy ropes is to eat your way out of them.

So now you're wondering what this has to do with knitting. Take a look at our sale. It's our very own taffy pull. No butter required.

75% OFF

DIAMOND LUXURY COLLECTION TAFI

60% LLAMA 40% SILK

93 m/50 g Aran (4)

Regular Price: $13.00

Sale Price: $3.25

Posted by Anna Maria Junus (happy employee who likes mostly chocolate but finds taffy can be pretty addicting).

Something to Marvel At

We have something Marvelous coming up.

This weekend is the Lacombe Light Up the Night Festival. Starting on Wednesday Night when you can listen to Flat Iron Jazz for a small ticket price all the way to Sunday Night when you can enjoy a free Christmas Concert at Burman University after a day of a $5 brunch, hay rides and skating.  It's just Marvelous! If there was such a thing as a skate for your butt, then I could probably skate.

One of the high points, and starting years before the festival was created, is Moonlight Madness. On Thursday night after the parade, come shop at local merchants downtown and at the mall where you can take advantage of sales and enter for prizes. More Marvelous!

We are a part of that. Come into the store and shop our sales and scratch off our tickets that will give you a further discount at the till. Yep, it's Marvelous, especially if you score a 50% off ticket.

Plus we will have a special that we only do one night a year. We will be selling some of our model knit and crochet pieces. These have never been worn and have only been on display in the store. Once we no longer have the yarn or the pattern they are retired.

Lori has always been adamant that she doesn't want to be a clothing store so she refuses to sell them any other time of the year.

Be aware that not every model in our store is for sale. Just the ones that will be set aside for the sale. So come in early to take a look. Even your non-knitting friends can enjoy this sale.

And speaking of sales, we are still doing our 75% off sale this week. It's Marvelous!

75% OFF

Diamond Select Marvel

80% Polyester, 20% Wool

50 g/80 m Aran (4)

Regular Price: $3.50

Sale Price: 88¢

Yes that's right. Eighty eight cents for yarn! And it's really lovely yarn! We have it in a wide variety of colors. Think sweaters, scarves and hats. Great gifts and no on has to know how little you paid!
Now that's a marvel!

Posted by Anna Maria Junus (happy employee who is looking over the Light Up the Night booklet and making plans).

It's Coming! Are You Ready?

I know. You're still desperately trying to hang on to your summer tan. It was just days ago that you finally put the RV and boat away. You cleaned the summer cabin. You're still cooking hot dogs over an open fire.

You don't want to hear this.

Christmas is coming.

Which means that if you're the type of crafter who makes things as gifts, you really need to speed it up, otherwise you'll just be handing out pictures of the item with promises for Christmas.

When I was growing up, because of my Finnish father we celebrated Christmas on the Eve. Presents were opened then and we got our stockings the following morning. I was told at a young age that there was no Santa which was a disappointment for a kid with a huge imagination. It didn't stop me from wanting to sit on Santa's lap and tell him what I wanted for Christmas. One Christmas the Hudson's Bay in Victoria had a Santa Wonderland in the window (remember the time when windows were dressed for Christmas?). The lines to Santa wound around and beside the window  and my sisters and I stood in the long long line waving to our parents on the other side of the window.

We also had smorgasbord, a Swedish tradition (we were influenced by Sweden due to my father growing up partially in that country). On Christmas Eve we would lay out crackers and cheese, sliced meats and pickles, pickled herring (we called roly mops) and vegetables. On Christmas Day we

would have turkey or sometimes goose. I married a man who celebrated a more traditional Canadian Christmas. One present the night before and the rest Christmas morning. He loved the idea of the smorgasbord and so we combined our two traditions. Smorgasbord and one present Christmas Eve and the rest of the presents Christmas morning. He took over the smorg and added all kinds of goodies, such as chicken wings, egg rolls, and other things found in the frozen food section.

I turned the one Christmas present into pajamas. It's became a joke "I wonder what this is," they would say holding up the gift that said "open Christmas Eve". And I would say "I have no idea." And they would say, "I know it's pajamas." And I would say, "you don't know that." And of course it was always pajamas which they say now as adults, it wouldn't be Christmas without them.

My first married Christmas was hard. I couldn't wait. I camped out in the living room by the tree waiting for morning. It was agonizing.

I also began creating Christmas Eve concerts for the kids to perform for their father. Some years I wrote entire musicals, skits and songs, other years it would be the nativity with the latest baby playing Jesus, and some years it would be a series of well known songs I would get them to perform. They reached a point where they refused to do it, which disappoints my youngest daughter, the seventh child, who never got to participate and would have loved it.

When I became single again I decided that I wanted a different tree every year. Ornaments are cheap so I built up a lovely supply of different colors. That first year I did silver and blue. The following was red and gold. One year we did silver, gold and purple. This year is my last in Alberta so I'll be handing off my Christmas decorations (except for my handmade ones) to the kids. I can always buy new ones.

I now prefer presents Christmas morning. If I'm home the smorgasbord has gotten smaller. Or I'll visit my grown children in either Calgary or Edmonton happy that I'm not responsible for the entire Christmas and happier that they have continued the same traditions while incorporating their spouse's traditions. I have a daughter-in-law that makes everything for the smorg  from scratch. If they have egg rolls, she's actually made the egg rolls, not just taken them out of a box and heated them up. I really need to get to that family's Christmas but they're always too far away.

Moving away from my kids means that I'll have to start new traditions. But I've found that traditions change according to circumstances.

Anyway, there is a point to this related to knitting. Our sale!

Lots of lovely thick yarn that can quickly turn into scarves! You only need one ball. Quick to make holiday gifts. With arm knitting you can make a gift in under an hour. Even if you use needles this yarn will knit up quickly.

75% OFF SALE

Ice Yarns Marine

97% Australian Wool 3% Elastan

150 g/ 15 m Super Bulky

Regular Price: $25.00

Sale Price: $6.25

Red Heart Grande

78% Acrylic, 22% Wool

150 g/ 46 y/42 m Super Bulky

Free pattern on ball band. One ball.

Regular Price: $7.70

Sale Price: $1.93 

Ice Yarns Panpa

60% Acrylic, 40% Wool

100 g/49 y/45 m Super Bulky

Regular Price: $12.00

Sale Price: $3.00

If you need to learn how to arm knit, for a small fee Lori will give you lessons. Just call to set up an appointment.

Also, I would love to hear about your holiday traditions.


Oh, one last gift to consider....

Just what EVERYONE
wants for Christmas

Posted by Anna Maria Junus (happy employee who doesn't make Christmas gifts because she can't deal with the stress).

Roving Rants

I googled yarn roving and got several different explanations.

And that's the way it is in the knitting world. Because it's filled with creative people there aren't any

hard and fast rules. Which is great in the creative side of it - who wants to be restricted by rules? But it can also make the more practical aspect a little bit frustrating leading to ridiculously impossible statements like, "I'm giving up knitting for the rest of my life."

For instance, needle measurements. There's imperial. There's US. and there's metric. A size 4 mm is also a 6 US and an 8 imperial. This is important to know when you go digging out your patterns and it only mentions one size of needle either because the designer doesn't know that there are things outside of her stash, or the pattern is so old there wasn't anything else at the time. You need to find out what the weight of the yarn is and the gauge in order to figure out what they're talking about. Otherwise your baby sweater can turn into your husband's which is fine if it's a solid color cable, but might not go over well if it has intarsia duckies.

It's almost as bad as that screwdriver situation that men created. You can't have just one all purpose screwdriver with all screws being the same. Nope, you have to have a dozen screwdrivers and different screws all to do the EXACT SAME THING. Really, does it matter if it's a flat head or a star shape that does the job? Personally I wish they would just make all screws and drivers flat heads so you can use a butter knife or a coin.

But that's the practical side of me. It's also the side that says that they should just make uniform size yarns and to stop naming them stupid names - like calling a bulky yarn a sport or naming a worsted weight yarn a lace. It's like calling a mastiff Fifi or a chihuahua King Goliath Commander of Legions. It would be like insisting that the sky is red and grass is blue and the earth is flat and no one landed on the moon and American politics has no effect on us.

So back to roving. We have roving on sale. It's the kind you knit with not the kind you spin. You can also use it for felting which is great for bags or those 50 pairs of mitts you want to make for your entire family for Christmas because one grandchild asked for a pair, which means you have to make a pair for every grandchild and their parents, and make doggy sweaters because even though you had nothing to do with it, everyone insists that the dog calls you Grandma too.

I refuse to be called Grandma by a dog. I'm still struggling with the concept of being old enough to be a Grandma to people. And I've had ten years of practice.

Yes, if you were paying attention you will notice that I said the C word. Christmas is coming. If you are making things you need to get started now, otherwise you'll be wrapping up a picture, and a half finished project with a promise to finish it. Yes, I've done this. It doesn't have quite the same effect and then you spend Boxing Day trying to finish it which is really hard because you're still battling turkey sleep, which by the way, is way better than staying home from Christmas parties to finish a project. And yes, I've done that too.

So here's your sale.

75% OFF

Patons Classic Wool Roving

100% Pure New Wool

100 g/109 m/ 120 y  Chunky (5)

Regular Price: $9.00

Sale Price: $2.25

Posted by Anna Maria Junus (happy employee who is thinking of making up a petition to demand a uniform system for screws and their drivers)

Guid Gear Comes in Sma’ Bulk*

While looking for information about Scotland and knitting, I came across this...

From the book "Knit Your Own Scotland" by Jackie Holt and Ruth Bailey. For more information about the designers
you can go to Costume Designers Create Woolen Tributes to National Icons

Yes, folks, it's your very own knitted Loch Ness Monster. With a plaid crown. I think she's quite lovely actually.

Scotland and knitting go back to the days of cavemen. While he was out riding mammoths and jousting with pterodactyls, she was at home gathering up the fur the mammoth shed, spinning it by hand and then knitting it into cabled and fair isle sweaters for him. She designed these cables and fair isles by observing flowers and trees which she also used to decorate the cave, and make medicine, dyes, tea, and food.  She did this while knocking out saber tooth tigers that came to the door, which she then detoothed and turned those teeth into lovely knitting needles and crochet hooks. Of course she domesticated the tigers and bred them smaller and smaller so that she could have something to sit in her lap while she knit.

And that is how cats, knitting, and tea became synonymous.

Now of course, instead of mammoths, sheep populate Scotland and the Shetland Islands have become renowned for their knitted goods and yarns.

If you google Scotland and knitting you'll get several choices of knitting tours. One day I'll go on one and then write a novel about it. You'll all buy it and I'll make enough to pay for my trip.

One trip I found said that as part of the package you get a complimentary yarn kit. Well, no, that's part of the package you paid for. So it isn't really complimentary is it? Why not just say that the yarn kit is part of the package. But no, they make it sound like it's free. Did I just go off on a tangent? Okay, Anna, heid doon arse up**.

So what do I have for you for this week's sale. Could it be something Scottish?

Not really. But it does have a Scottish name. And it is what the title is all about.

75% OFF SALE

Katia Kilt

46% Wool 46% Acrylic 8% Polyamid

65 m/71 y/ 50 g  Bulky (6)

Vest pattern

Regular Price: $12.00

Sale Price: $3.00

Posted by Anna Maria Junus (happy employee who loves plaid and the occasional bagpipe playing).

*Translation: Good things come in small packages.
**Translation: Get on with it.

Read This. It's Important, Cool, and Way Better Than That Thing Happening Down South

Photo credit: Lacombe Express Editor - Kalisha Mendonsa

We are pleased to announce (sound of fanfare) our very own in house artist!

Margaret Blank is not only one of the Crafty Ladies, but she is a textile artist in her own right. And you can see her most important work at the Lacombe Memorial Centre.

Margaret has been working on her piece "Mark On the Body" for the past three years. It tells the story of her husband's struggle with Type 1 Diabetes which is very different from the more common Type 2.

Unlike her other art pieces which she sells in different venues, Mark on the Body is a statement piece and intended for education.

There's also a write up in the Lacombe Express with a very lovely picture of her. See that lovely picture above?

Her opening reception will be on Wednesday October 26 (that's this week) at 7.00 pm. She will be there to talk about her installation, her experience living with Type 1 Diabetes, and sell copies of her book "Mark on the Body: Honouring Those Who Live With Type 1 Diabetes". Proceeds from the sale of the book will be going to JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation) Canada and The Canadian Diabetes Association.

We will be there to support our girl!

Refreshments will be served because that's important.


This week, we have for sale Cutie Pie. Sure we could attribute that name to Margaret but she might protest.

She does have a red heart though and a red car named Cutie Pie. Now isn't that appropriate?

75% OFF SALE

Red Heart Cutie Pie

100% Polyester (chenille type yarn)

100 g/326 y/298 m dk weight (3)

Regular Price: $5.70

Sale Price: $1.42

Posted by Anna Maria Junus (happy employee who is honored to call Margaret "friend".)