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We are getting very excited as the weekend gets closer – Brenda Dayne will be teaching this weekend in our shop!! Brenda is doing a Cast-On Tour 2012 and we are her only Canadian venue – we are very honoured. She is doing 2 classes and there are just a couple of spots left for Glove Design and Advanced Raglan.
As well she is doing her Memorable Yarn Event on the Saturday evening from 7-9. This sounds like a cool evening! Besides being with a group of knitters you will be listening to one of the best knitting story tellers around. I am presently listening to her audiobook A Knitters Manifesto as I drive back and forth to work. It will be interesting to see if Zena recognizes her voice from the car rides:) This is a FREE talk but you do have to register ahead to ensure space. Ignore the price for MYE on our registration page and in the newsletter. Tech guy is away on business and can’t do updates on the road.

We’re seeing spots – SUNSPOTS! Starting today and through the summer, we will post SUNSPOTS
on a few select items in the shop on random days, and those items will be available at 20% off for that day only, while supplies last. Follow @ShallWeKnit on Twitter to get the SPOT NEWS each morning to see if the sun is shining on anything that day. Think of it like a spot dance, but with yarn. (The fine print: discount applies to in-stock items only. Featured items are not eligible for layaway, but may be purchased over the phone and shipped to any destination. Featured items subject to change without notice.) Pretty soon, you’ll start seeing SPOTS.

Today, Friday May 4th being such a glorious summery day we are kicking off Sunspots with 20% off all 100% Cottons. Today only:)

Last weekend we packed up a couple of trucks and Lynne and I headed off to Toronto for the 2012 DKC Knitters Frolic. We love the Frolic – it’s that one time of the year that we get to see some amazing people – both other vendors and customers. We were right down the hall from one of our favourite people, Jacqueline from Soak and she was kind enough to personally deliver another order of Soak. So we are all stocked up again.

With the help of my two guys and the huge cart they built, we were unloaded in record time and then all we had to do was make the booth beautiful! The guys left and Lynne and I unpacked – it’s amazing what you can fit into a 10ft booth:) We brought ALL the Koigu and there is a lot!
The Willow Street Silk was shimmering on it’s wall and the Caper! It was a major hit.

We had a chance to chat with Franklin Habit for a bit over dinner on the Friday night as well as Kim & Ron from Indigodragonfly (we really wish they didn’t live so far away) and Kate Atherley brought along Norm (he really does exist). After all the work of packing and unpacking it was great to sit and just relax with friends.
Saturday is a blur – there were many times that Lynne and I stood outside of our booth because there was no room in the booth. And the Knitwear!!! It is so lovely to be able to see all the varieties of the same things. Colour Affection seemed to be everywhere this year. And people looking for the perfect colour for Kates new pattern from Knitty – Bigger on the Inside! Dr. Who fans are sooo in love with this pattern and teaming it with Kims Tardis colourway is making knit-geeks happy in so many ways.

We were honoured to host Kate Atherley with her book launch. This picture is Kate signing her first autograph. Very exciting!

And of course we couldn’t kick off Kate’s book without having the whole Knitty crew here. Amy Singer, Jillian Moreno and Kate all did classes on Saturday and then on Sunday we did a Knitty Roundtable.

If you’ve met Kim from Indigodragonfly then these pictures will make sense. If not – then go see here and then scroll down to March 21.

We do a lot of spinning classes with Tabi and are thrilled to be able to carry some of her hand-dyed rovings and yarns as well.

We seem to have had a slug infestation too:) Selina is a local knitter and designer and they are her pattern.

We also had to fit in a little Christmas knitting. One of my gifts this year were Incognitos from Knitty for my Grandson and my son. Fun pattern!

In October is the Woodstock Fleece Festival. We had Jen and Lise demonstrating on our new Schacht wheels.

We had Glenna C. come and teach and are looking forward to her coming back next weekend for a couple more classes. She is the master of the twisted stitches!

Spring is here and it looks like the blog is coming out of hibernation. That’s our story and we are going to stick to it. WOW! What a winter! Moving to the new location in Waterloo has definitely made us busier. We LOVE the new location! And our ability to have bigger classes has been amazing. I’m just going to post a few pics over the next little while to show some of the things we have been doing while the blog has been in hibernation.

We did a Yarntasting with some Bergere yarns to help with deciding on which we might like to carry in the shop.

Bergere Yarn Tasting

A few of us went to Rhinebeck Wool & Sheep Festival. An amazing time as always and a great place to meet up with Friends.

and of course there was some shopping, this is just one of the hauls…

Fall is a special time of year. It means that the KW Knitters Fair is here and we LOVE the Fair. This year was especially exciting because we had Anne Hanson of Knitspot joining us in our booth.

Anne is an amazing designer, knitter and just a really nice person. She brought a selection of her designs to show at the Fair and was available to chat with her fans and the lace-curious. It’s amazing to look at her patterns on her website or to see them in our binders in the shop but to actually see the pieces in person is thrilling.

The Fair was a great day and we were thrilled to show off our exclusive house-line silk – Willow Street Silk. The colours just glow in this silk and we are thrilled to have it. The three samples we have done in the shop are sooo pretty.

The navy shawl is Jarrod Flood’s Rock Island and the gold one is Aestlight Shawl. The Green one on the wall under the skeins of Willow Street is Amy Singer’s Tuscany.

Sunday Anne and I went over to the Aberfoyle Antique Market. This is an outdoor antique market that is open on Sundays during the summer. We had a lovely time and we found a few pieces for the shop. We did a little playing too. Anne really liked the vintage telephone stands.

We were also able to have Anne teach a couple of classes in the week following as well.

We miss Anne already but are already talking to her about when she is coming back next year and what classes we will have her do next. But in the meantime I get to look forward to seeing her at Rhinebeck in October – it’s my turn to go this year:)

Anne has written a lovely review of her time with us. So go on over to Knitspot and have a look and while you’re there you can ponder your next Anne Hanson design.

World Wide Knit in Public Day this year we had the fun of having Kim & Ron from Indigodragonfly join us. They brought a trunk show – which means they brought some of everything and then some samples as well. We got them very nicely set up on the front porch on the Saturday but on Friday night the porch was for Knit & Chat – weather was perfect.

At the end of the weekend we restocked some yarns which was a good thing – we were down to a single skein of sock. It was a very lonesome skein.

This year was a double-header! We had Jacqueline from Soak with us as well on Saturday. She did a couple of blocking demonstrations. And as you can see by the picture – we start our knitters young with proper blocking techniques.

It almost looks like Jacqueline was doing a little “Tom Sawyer fence painting”.

We had some lovely shade or you could sit in the sun.

I think I see a new monster there on the needles of Heather of Joeys House