This is the last week of January, can you believe it?
Speaking personally, I feel like January has come and gone really quickly this year. I am still working on 2018 projects (some of which were intended for Christmas, additional requests were added over the season) and I would really like to complete some of the projects which have been on hold for a longer period of time.
One of our regulars at Knit Night was telling me about "Stash busters" groups on Ravelry. I love Ravelry, it is a great way to find new/different patterns (w/apologies to The Crafty Lady who cannot get all of her ideas down on paper as quickly as I would like), provides information for customers when they forget their pattern, information on older yarns and gauge. The help section is very comprehensive when you come across a new term, wording you do not understand or new skills.
My personal library at home is fairly extensive, but over the years has become disorganized (plus my size and tastes have changed over the years). I need to reduce/organize my pattern stash as much as I need to reduce my yarn stash. I also need to live a very long time to get everything done. The first two, I have some control over - the 3rd, well, we will see.
As we head into February we will be celebrating - all month long according to one rumor dropped during Knit Night.
On February 14, 2019 - The Crafty Lady will officially have been in business for 25 years.
I started shopping at The Crafty Lady during it's first year of operation, down in a basement. I am not the only one who comments on the changes and growth! And how much we all appreciate her hard work offering good quality yarn at reasonable prices - for 25 years.
Margaret and I have not been informed what, when or how much will be on sale - with one exception:
For the 14th ONLY everything in the store will be 25% off.
Moving from 25% sales, to our 75% off sale . . .
This is the last week week for our 75% Off sale for 4 weeks - as we celebrate!
Amplify Uptown Bulky
225 grams = 180 m.
100% Acrylic
Machine Washable
Regular Price: $19.00
Sale Price: $4.75
Written by Anne, very lucky TCL employee, who is thrilled to be part of the upcoming celebrations. P.S. follow us on Facebook - daily. A "Little Birdie" has hinted Lori will be posting her daily sales there. I hope I can trust the "Little Birdie". Drop in next month to find out 😉
From observing our customers over the years, I've decided that there are three loosely-defined "camps" into which yarn-crafters fall:
The "make it exactly as shown in the pattern" camp;
The "any colour as long as it's neutral (black or grey or off-white in particular)" camp; and
The "give me colour!" camp.
While The Crafty Lady aims to carry a wide selection of yarn weights, fibre types and colours (including neutrals), the trends in recent years definitely seem to favour the "colourful". From variegated to self-striping, self-patterning to gradients, kettle-dyed to hand-painted and splattered, our yarn suppliers continue to provide us with seemingly endless opportunities to create the items we want in the colours we want to use.
'Stranded knitting' is back in a big way this year -- meaning that knitters in particular are being treated to all manner of patterns featuring Fair Isle or Scandinavian motifs. Others are exploring mosaic knitting or brioche, techniques that work with more than one yarn to create intriguing designs and textures.
Another way to introduce colour into your work is by plying two yarns together to create what's called a "marl". There are some tutorials available -- like this one from Tin Can Knits -- and the range of patterns for garments using a marl you create yourself is growing.
Is there one month of the year we get and give a lot of advice?
Is January THAT month? We all hear the radio/TV ads for weight loss; RRSP season; down-sizing; stash-busting, taxes; and more weight loss controversy . . .
I am honoured be to be finishing my 2nd year working at The Crafty Lady. I am learning there is also a season when more people want to learn a new craft. Early in a new year seems to be the season. I just found this on the internet - and it also applies to crochet, cross-stitch - any creative repetitive craft.
This is a blatant exaggeration. If you can knit and purl - you can do anything with a little bit of help and encouragement. There are more stitches to learn for crochet, but if you are comfortable with a basic single crochet stitch, again - with some practice - you can do anything. From my limited experience - this is true for most skills.
Please note: the staff at The Crafty Lady have a lot of knowledge for a number of crafts. We do lessons (not classes). We ask you to book in advance to ensure we have two staff on, one to teach you and one to help the other customers. We charge $15/hour (in 20 minute increments) and anything you purchase for the lesson is 10% off. I was going to say we have a combined experience of over 75 years, but may be understating our combined years of crafting by about 50 years.
We do have one common goal - to help you to the point you get excited to read a pattern described as "heirloom" and have the confidence to actually complete it, and comfortable owing that you did it!
January and February are often the coldest months of the year, a great time for learning new skills, picking up a great book and or snuggling - either good yarn or loved ones.
Speaking of January, until the end of the month - Margaret (one of The Crafty Ladies) and her friend Mary have a display of art quilting on at the LMC. Please stop in and explore their work from a trip to Scotland in 2017.
And while we are snuggling on a cool/cold winter's evening, this week's 75% off special, will help you to keep to your budget while providing a great yarn for any number of projects (limited colours).
Sirdar
Snuggly DK
55% nylon/45% acrylic - 50g/165m
Reg. $6.50
75% OFF
$1.63
Written by Anne, who is learning every day at TCL, and warning you - we are celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the store opening - NEXT MONTH. Come in to see often as I have been led to believe the sales will be daily specials (not officially confirmed by the owner). Please help us honour a small, local, independent business.
We sold out of the Baby Pure before the end of Monday - therefore we are offering a new yarn at 75% off!
Many consider New Year's Eve the time to close out the "Old" year and start the "New", but The Crafty Lady does not always think inside the box (as most of you already know). So we decided to reverse the concept and start with the baby and move to the party. (Very bad pun!)
Party Time is a very fun yarn! It is 100% acrylic and classed as a chunky! It works up very quickly and has lots of bright colours so you can start your spring knitting and not "suffer the February Blues" . . .
Party Time
153 m / 100 g
6 mm/14 st = 4"
Reg. $9.00 75% Off $2.25
Posted by Anne, happy TCL employee who has almost finished her Christmas knitting!! 😁
A New Year's resolution is a promise a person makes for the new year. Regardless of the resolution you commit to, the goal is to improve your life in the coming year. Resolutions come in many forms. Some people make a promise to change a bad habit, such as quitting smoking, eating less junk food or reducing the clutter. Other people make a promise to develop a positive habit, such as starting an exercise program, volunteering or recycling more. The tradition of New Year's resolutions dates back to 153 B.C.. January is named after Janus, a mythical god of early Rome. Janus had two faces - one looking forward, on looking back. This allowed him to look back on the past, and then look forwards toward the future. On December 31, the Romans' imagined Janus looking backward to the old year and forward into the new year. This became a symbolic time for Romans to make resolutions for the new year and forgive enemies for troubles in the past. The Romans also believed Janus could forgive them for their wrongdoings in the previous year. The Romans would give gifts and make promises, believing Janus would see this and bless them in the year ahead. Thus the New Year's resolution was born! according to wonderopolis.org
Okay, I hear you, enough of the Rah! Rah!! But Honestly - how many times would you really like a "Do over"? Life would be so much better if we did not put our foot in our mouth, react in fear, or "zone out" and knit too many rows. How many times do you see some one at a stop sign look both ways, look again, then look again as if they do not believe the road is clear for them to proceed? I for one, do appreciate a New Year as a new book to try and be a better person, to have faith - in God, Buddha, Higher Power and in others. Do they disappoint me? Of Course. This is an opportunity to try again. New Year's is also a time for us to take stock - clear out the stash, throw out or pass along that project you have been dreading for 20 years, complete one that you really want to finish . . . The list is endless.This time of year is a fresh page and each day is a day to say "Thank You" and promise yourself to be happy, learn one new thing, complete one task. In a strange way, is this not the task we often assign to a baby? A new life, a new start and a 2nd chance for us to do better than . . . name your ghost. We have new yarns arriving almost every week, so please come and explore old and new favourites. This week's 75% off special is
Baby Pure
300 m. / 100 g
70% acrylic, 30% polymide
Reg. $10
75% OFF
$2.50
Come in to feel this really great baby yarn, machine washable - it can even go into the dryer on delicate or cool settings. We had a customer in last week, who said she really loved King Cole yarns as they knit up so beautifully and wear well. This is a King Cole yarn with a soft tonal effect which helps to create really unique and wearable items. On a different tangent, The Crafty Lady is celebrating 25 years in business next month, please plan on coming in sometime. As Margaret and I understand the preliminary plans, there will be ongoing sales all month long with the best on February 14, as this was the day the first store opened.
Written by Anne, happy crafter who feels very privileged to be allowed to help celebrate 25 years along with The Crafty Lady as I first shopped in The Crafty Lady in the first summer in she was in business. She helped me convince my daughter knitting a valuable skill. Thank you
December 31...time to bid 'adieu' to 2018. Maybe it's been a terrific year for you, filled with new friendships, new opportunities, new projects, a new location or achievement -- so perhaps you're sad to see it go.
Or...maybe you've been challenged with illness or loss or just all the trouble in the world -- so you're glad to be rid of 2018, in the hopes that 2019 will bring a fresh start all 'round.
Maybe it's time to pick up a new skill, such as knitting, crochet, beading or embroidery. Maybe it's time to refresh an old skill -- such as...well, you get my point! 😉
However you travel from 2018 to 2019, The Crafty Lady and her staff hope your journey will be smooth sailing -- blessed with health, perhaps a little wealth, and many, many blessings. We'll be here to help you with your yarn and/or needlework projects, to show you new colours and introduce new materials. We'll help you brush up rusty skills or learn new ones.
And we hope you'll join us in February as we celebrate 25 years in business in downtown Lacombe!
Meanwhile...please note the following IMPORTANT INFORMATION for this week!
So here's to our customers -- thanks for making 2018 a Very Good Year for The Crafty Lady! Have a Happy New Year's celebration -- and we'll see you in the shop!
In the Northern Hemisphere, the longest night and shortest day have passed and we look forward to the light staying longer in the sky -- even imperceptibly -- as we edge into a New Year and ever-so-slowly toward spring. Our friends South of the Equator, on the other hand, have turned a corner with their Summer Solstice, and now it's their turn to bemoan the ever-shortening days and diminishing light.
An Icelandic sheep (Wikipedia)
Merino sheep (Wikipedia)
Ah well. On both sides of the Equator there are "Yarn People" -- from the Hebrides, Shetlands and Orkney Islands of Scotland to the hardy Icelandic knitters and south to Fair Isle colour creators; to the Estonian, Latvian and Scandinavian traditions; to the fashionable knits on the runways of Paris, Milan, Rome and New York -- all drape and style; to the plain, simple, utilitarian knits of Maritime and Prairie provinces and states, and onward again south to the colours and natural dyes produced in the highlands of Peru, Chile and Uruguay...and from there across to Australia and New Zealand -- and the delicious merino that comes from their herds.
(And lest you wonder...the Japanese in recent years have come forward with developments in both quilting and knitting -- adapted in part from Western traditions, and blended with their own!)
At The Crafty Lady -- the only full-service yarn shop in the centre of Alberta, just off the Queen Elizabeth II Highway that runs between Calgary and Edmonton -- we're a bit of all of the above.
We carry cool cotton and cotton blends; and wool -- sturdy, soft and sometimes blended with acrylic or nylon for easy care. We carry camelids like alpaca and llama. We carry silk. And...we carry 100% acrylic fibre from suppliers in the U.K. whose mills have the remarkable ability to turn a quasi plastic substance -- a polymer -- into something soft, easy to knit or crochet and definitely easy to care for in the way of garments and blankets appreciated by busy parents everywhere.
There is room at the table for everyone
-- and that's what makes our work at TCL so rewarding.
This past year we've taught new knitters from ages 8 on up. We've helped others learn to turn heels, create thumb gussets for mittens, knit in the round with one (very short) circular needle or one longer circular needle (and a Magic Loop) -- or by juggling three double-pointed needles while they knit with a fourth.
We've given advice on various stitches in crochet. We've started others down that crochet road with the basics -- and at our weekly Knit Nights we've watched knitters learn to crochet and crocheters learn to knit!
We moved our location so we'd have a brighter space with better storage -- and so our customers had better access to parking.
In the New Year...there's more to come!
We've got some new cottons from Katia (including a wonderful stretchy sock yarn) to look forward to in the spring. We have more one-of-a-kind fingering yarns coming from Sweet Paprika and Zen Yarn Garden. We're plumping up our sock yarn collection altogether, while maintaining our supply of double-knit, worsted, chunky and bulky yarns. For those who love to felt -- whether it's wet felting or needle-felting or both -- we've found a new supplier for roving! AND there'll be some Shetland roving for those whose felting frenzy focuses on the currently popular 'dryer balls'.
And the Really Big Deal?!
For the entire month of February, The Crafty Lady will be celebrating 25 years in business
in downtown Lacombe!!
There'll be specials in the store the entire month!!
So...while during this short "Christmas Week" there's NO Super Special Sale (Awwwwwwww....😭), there's so much to look forward to, we thought we should just let you know that Lori (The Crafty Lady Herself), Anne and Margaret ALL wish you -- our dear readers and customers -- a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year -- full of family, fun, creativity, good food and good times.
May your yarn-crafting (or embroidery or beading) make special memories for those who receive the gifts from the work of your hands.
We leave you with this reminder. Whether it's yarn-crafting, or hand-stitching, or just gathering with friends and family, it's an opportunity to Lean in Toward the Light, because "...there's room at the table for every one". See you at Knit Night - Dec. 27 -- 6 p.m. onward. Merry Christmas! Joyeux Noel! Blessings to all!
