shallweknit.com

We’re off this afternoon for a long awaited summer bike weekend.  We haven’t had much summer weather and I have to admit it may be my fault.  I’m really sorry everyone but it seems the good weather was waiting for my short holiday.  So enjoy the weekend – thanks to me:)

Anyways, we’re off for a couple of days with 2 other couples riding the back roads of Ontario between here and Collinwood and Gravenhurst and skirting Algonquin Park.  The weather forecast is lovely with a chance of rain on Sunday.  So we are all going to think positive that it won’t happen!  After all I don’t want to get my knitting wet – and I did pack enough knitting to be gone for 3 months but you never know.

We get home late Monday and then Tuesday a friend and I are driving to Detroit for the night to catch an early-o-dark flight to **drumroll please**  SOCK SUMMIT!!!  We’re staying a week and with all we have planned I may need a holiday when I get home.

But that holiday won’t happen cause the day after I get home is our Anniversary Sale and the Towns Sidewalk Sales culminating in Moparfest on the weekend.

So I have just a few (snork) things to do before I head out in 3 hours.  I’m packed for this weekend, have a list in my head for Sock Summit packing, left paycheques behind (have to keep sad Cari & Lynne appeased cause they can’t come).  Now I have to work on sale signs.

I will be posting along the road – oh the joys of technology (especially when Tom is with me and makes it all work).  Oh, and the newsletter…hmmm- how do I tweek that time continuum?

I know we haven’t had any summer yet but Fall is showing up in the shop.  The delivery guys are popping in regularly and Tom has done a few order pick ups for me as well.  Yesterday we got in Anne Hanson’s patterns and I want to start them all!  Have you seen her stuff?   Go to her website and take a look and the exciting thing is she will be the KW Guild adjudicated show judge next June.

We got in some new Knowknit bags and some really pretty stitch holder necklaces.  More Jojoland yarn – beautiful colours.

New yarns are coming in and new colours of our current yarns.  We’ve got so much stuff coming in that we are clearing a few lines – look for the newsletter coming out shortly.

We’ve got our Grand-kids visiting for the week and last night Poppa (Tom) had a bike practice – so we went to watch.  He is on a precision motorcycle team that does shows occasionally but also meet weekly to practice and hone their skills. 

The team is made up of 8 Honda Gold Wing Motorcycles – all riding at the same time – sort of like sychronized swimming.  It’s kind of scary to watch (well more than a little scary) but really cool.  And it has definitely made Tom a better rider.  Needless to say the kids had a few WOWS and there were a couple of sucked in breaths when the bikes came close.  They do interlinking circles and weaving in and out and …. crazy!

This seems like a wheels themed week.  We have quite a few spinners in the area and they are very supportive of each other and of new spinners.  Linda is one of our customers and she is a fanatical lace knitter.  Or maybe I should say obsessive!  Her daughter bought her a drop spindle this spring and Linda realized very shortly she was going to outgrow this quickly.  So Linda did a lot of research and talked to Tabi (an amazing spinner and teacher) and other spinners and decided that the wheel that would get her to where she wanted to be (spinning lace yarn) would be the Louet Julia.

Meet Julia – isn’t she pretty?  Right now she is so popular that is was over a month to get one.  Well, I know how to shop – so I ordered two.  Linda was to the shop in less than two hours from when I called to let her know her Baby had arrived.  I’ve seen a couple of her pictures on Ravelry and all I can say is WOW!  She is a natural. 

More wheel talk tomorrow

We three spent a good portion of the day haggling over classes today, and trying to pull a Fall schedule together. If there’s a subject you’re yearning for a class on, speak up in the comments, will ya?

(And you *do* know that in the summertime, classes are more “Self-serve”, right? If you want a class, just call the store, and we’ll set you up with a teacher at a time that works for you. Costs are pro-rated, depending on if you’re a solo student, or come with a friend or a few.)

Karen here : So last Saturday I planned on having a quiet morning at home before going down to the shop at noon.  Lynne is at the shop so everything is under control.  Right?  Well – Cari is over at the booth at the Market and she calls and says “guess who was just here?”  Now how am I supposed to guess?  And then she makes me guess – obviously I couldn’t so she told me “LUCY NEATBY WAS JUST HERE!!!”  How flippin’ cool is that?  I guess Lucy was visiting her daughter in the area and came to do the market thing.  And Cari being the major Shall We Knit? cheerleader that she is – says “well if you have time you HAVE to go out to the shop.” So, quick as a flash I’m out of my Saturday morning clothes and into work duds and I’m off to the shop – just in case.  And she actually came out!  The picture shows her with her Chicken purse and so of course we had to give her one of our Carried Away chicken bags.  And right away she transferred her sock into it – she loved it.  I even asked her to help me with my nasty SSK on the wedding sweater!

Wow!  I love my job!

Cari here: In this neck of the woods, we are spoiled by our exposure to knitting genius.  We have our local superstars:  Debbie New and Sally Melville.  (Okay – Sally isn’t quite local anymore, but she is still attached to this area by deep and abiding friendships, and she does come to visit.)  Members of the Kitchener Waterloo Knitters’ Guild enjoy guest speakers and workshop teachers, including a recent visit from Cat Bordhi.  Cat also spent some time at SWK in May, and many of us got to meet her up close and personal.

While all this exposure has us spoiled, we are not jaded.   On Saturday, I was sitting at the desk at the SWK St. Jacobs Market booth, and looked up to see none other than Lucy Neatby.  In our booth!  Lucy Neatby.  Owner of Tradewind Knitwear Designs Inc.  Lucy Neatby.  Author of Cool Socks Warm Feet.  Lucy Neatby.  Goddess of the A Knitter’s Companion DVD series (and new ones just about to be released!).  Lucy Neatby.  One of the judges of Knitter’s Magazine’s  Think Outside the Sox Contest.  (Check it out in Knitter’s Summer 2009 issue.)  Lucy Neatby.  Amazing teacher – look her up on YouTube.  Lucy Neatby.  Booked to teach at Sock Summit 2009.  Lucy Neatby.

Yup – her hair really is pink and purple, and she is as lovely and gracious in person as she is in her DVDs and on YouTube.  Even if you are a scary rabid fan and you jump all over the booth with excitement when she appears.  Lucy.  Neatby.  Wow.

What is better than a new baby?  Even a horsey baby – they are all lovely!  Our friends Fred & Maria own Sonview Farms and this is Mama Hazel with her 10 hour old Filly.  Welcome little one.

(Karen talking here – even though the computer wants to say it’s Cari.  Tech guy will be back to work on Monday and fix this.)

It’s funny (in an odd sort of way) – but here we sit waiting for Summer to make an appearance and we have finished doing most of our Fall ordering.  AND some of it is starting to show up!

Yesterday we received a part shipment of DellaQ bags.  These are knitting bags and needle cases – gorgeous and with a good cause behind it.  From the website “When you purchase a della Q product, a portion of your proceeds are donated to Vietnam Quilts, a
non-profit organization that trains low-income and rural Vietnamese women in the art of quilting, and provides them with a means to a steady income.”

You know how every once in a while we get going along and just take things for granted?  I have a great guy, I know it but I sometimes forget how great.  Now this is the man who pushed me off the fence and gave me the courage to open this yarn shop after talking about it for years (20 actually).  thats great!

And this is the guy who tolerates having knitting everywhere in the house.  I mean everywhere – I even have knitting books in the bathrooms.  I have knitting on most surfaces and – well you can picture it.

This is the guy who when I want to rearrange something (and I do often!) has gotten so used to it that sometimes he doesn’t notice unless I say something.  I just have to make sure his “Archie Bunker” chair is right distance from the wall and the remote is within arms reach. 

I have been known to switch rooms with each other.  He doesn’t batt an eye.

BUT – when he went to the big screen tv and the surround sound – well that kind of slowed me down.  I can’t move that by myself and its got a zillion wires and there are speakers attached to the walls that have to be in just the right spot.  So consider my wonderment yesterday as I was pondering outloud where I was going to move things in the living room and he says “we could move the tv”!  And then he helped!

you gotta love him

(added for clarification – this is really Karen writing even though the gremlins in blog land are trying to tell you it’s Cari)