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YARNMARKET.COM NEWS ISSUE #10
In This Issue:
Sweaters -- Must-Haves for Winter 2005 | Special Gift Ideas Just Arrived!!! | Still Time for Holiday Projects! Projects! Projects! | Beautiful New Yarns and Exciting New Books Available Now | Yarnmarket Supports International Charity | Knitting “Purls” of Wisdom | Congratulations to Our Talented Customer for December | Gift Wrapping & Customer Service
OK, we confess – we need a little break from the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, so we’re looking ahead to the major fashion trends for Winter 2005. Yes, ponchos will still be popular and knitted bags and glitter as we foretold back in the August and the September newsletters. But the key trend for the upcoming season is the resurgence of the sweater in all its many and various reincarnations. From the couture runways of Paris and Milan to the shopping aisles of Lord & Taylor, J.C. Penney and yes, even Wal-Mart, you’ll find a wide range of sweaters tempting you. Also the Sweaters section of our Project Ideas department has the most design recommendations. But how do you know which ones are really the most fashionable? Which style will best suit you or the intended wearer of the magnificent gift you plan to create? According to the fashion mavens at style.com in their “Top Ten Looks,” the Sweater Set in all its various permutations is hot, hot, hot! From the beading-adorned, rolled neck and V-neck pullovers of Oscar de la Renta and Dolce & Gabbana to the vintage cardigans, both long and short, featured in the collections of Chloe, MaxMara and Prada, a plentiful sweater collection is the must-have this winter. Having just the right assortment for work, for play and for those special evenings entertaining will be the challenge. Haute couture trends can be a strong influence, but what we choose has to be flattering, so we’ve checked out the advice of Woman’s World as to which sweater styles work best for which figure and facial types. First off, a knitted sweater or jacket that’s cropped above the hips and nipped in right before the waist (called a “fitted peplum”) works well to make your waist look smaller and draw attention upward. An easy way to get this “nipped-waist” look is by knitting the Lara Wrap Jacket designed by Debbie Bliss for her wonderfully soft Alpaca Silk.
A sweater with a V-neck is a great choice to make a round face look slimmer or to soften a square jawline as in the Virginia V Neck from the designers at Rowan. Then add a tie at the bottom of the V or some other embellishment to add inches to a small chest as needed. Or keep the V-neckline with no enhancements and choose a softly wrapping sweater design with a side tie to accent a large chest tastefully. Any sweater, poncho or jacket style with a V-shaped bottom, whether symmetrical or asymmetrical, will slenderize large hips. Wearing the V centered right down the middle is the most slimming style because it will draw the eye away from the hips and even out the body’s proportions top to bottom. Try the Openwork Prism Poncho or the Fringe Offset Shell from Cherry Tree Hill for the slimming effect. And remember those sweater sets in matching solid colors! A clingy shell or turtleneck/cowl neck pullover under a looser fitting cardigan or knitted jacket gives you the best of both styles: The monochromatic color coordination combined with the sleek, vertical line of the cardigan takes the pounds off. For your own sweater set, knit the Classic Sleeveless Sweater, the Polo Neck Top or the Sleeveless Cowl Necked Top, and team any of them with a solid-colored cardigan such as the tailored Knitted Jacket or the traditional Purple Haze Cardigan, both from Rowan, or the feminine Carole Glace & Chinchilla Cardigan from Berroco. One last word from the fashion gurus at fashion-era.com – the must-have colors for all these sweaters? Jewel tones will stay the most popular, especially green and pink in all their many shades and hues, and bright is better than muted. As we’ve come to expect from the designers at Lana Grossa, these two colors are prevalent in their new yarns. Just take a look at the strikingly pinky purple of the Fumo Fringed Coat & Scarf and the luscious shade of green in the Shawl Collar Cable Pullover. But as always, select your knitting and crocheting projects based on what is best for the wearer!
We have some fantastic holiday gift ideas just in time for the holidays, and they’re ideal for those crafty folks in your life, for those you want to inspire to learn to knit or crochet, or even for your own gift wish list because you know we’ll get your order shipped out promptly. Two of our personal favorites are the calendars we’ve just gotten in. First of all, check out the Knitting Pattern-a-Day: 2005 Calendar, the boxed set of 365 different projects ranging from cozy scarves and sweaters to trendy bags and hats. You even get a sturdy box designed to fold around as a convenient stand and storage unit.
Another perfect idea for the knitters in your life or to go on your personal wish list is one of the sets of note cards we’ve just gotten in. You’ll love the Yarn Girls’ Kid Knits Pattern Note Cards! Included are 4 different children’s patterns – for a poncho, a V-neck sweater, a hat and a baby blanket – with space on the back side for writing a note to a fellow knitter. Or go back in time to the Renaissance with the Knitting Note Cards. These 4 beautifully rendered designs look as if they were painted by a Dutch master and then printed on card stock ready for writing notes to friends. To pass on your passion for knitting to your family and circle of friends, choose the new Complete Knitting Set from Reader’s Digest to give those you want to inspire. The kit includes two terrific instructional guides – one on basic and intermediate techniques and the other with 19 projects for all ages to enjoy. The third printed item is a set of stitch cards profiling over 60 different stitch designs. Also you get all the tools and materials your protégée will need to knit up a cute, little cabled bag.
Speaking of gifts, you still have time to create several quick-knit gifts for your family and friends. Just check out the Quick & Easy Gifts section of the Projects Ideas department. Since the 21st-Century Matinee Set is knit with chunky yarn and large needles, you can knit it up fast for that special new baby in your life. Make any or all of the 6 pieces in the set including a V-neck sweater, leggings, baby blanket, hat with earflaps, thumbless mittens, and socks. Another fast, fun project to give the children in your life is to make a toy like the Clown Fish. Modeled after a popular animated character, this colorful new friend will surely be a hit with the younger set.
Anyone on your list will enjoy snuggling in the Charlene Chinchilla & Glace Throw. With terrific softness and velvety silkiness, this 38” by 50” blanket will be a real winner and not just for couch potatoes! Another great idea is the Nordic Handbag knit up on large needles with chunky Nordic yarn from Katia. Any woman on your gift list, whether youthful or mature, will enjoy sporting this roomy purse. Or consider something a little different than the usual, quick-to-knit, eyelash scarf as a gift. Try instead the Peggy Sue Scarf combining Candy FX and Chinchilla from Berroco in trendy pink. Or for the men in your life, create the Hot & Now Scarf, specifically designed for Karabella’s Aurora 8. Also be sure to check out all the great project ideas for yourself (like figure-flattering sweaters you now must have????). This is especially important when you’re planning what to take along to keep you occupied during your upcoming holiday travels. You don’t want to get bored on the plane or in the car, now do you? Beautiful New Yarns and Exciting New Books Available Now
With 8 new yarns added to the store since the last newsletter, you have even more choices than ever before. One of our personal favorites is Transitions from Noro, a unique, lovely yarn that changes or “transitions” from not just one color to the next but also from one texture to the next! This chunky wool blend works up beautifully in sweaters, coats, hats, jackets and scarves of all sizes and varieties. Another yarn we loved as soon as we saw and touched it is Katia’s innovative, narrow ribbon yarn Tango. This Spanish nylon blend has the traditional ribbon ladder but with a single strand of soft fleecy fiber peeking through the open ladder weave. The result of all this design innovation? Wonderful texture, superb softness and gorgeous color combos for your creations. Two new designer yarns from Stacy Charles will also make an impression on you and are being featured in the latest Stacy Charles magazine. Ritratto is an ultra-feminine, ultra-lightweight, classic mohair blend but with the modern touch of a thin metallic thread woven throughout. Also the chunky boucle Sabrina will give you gorgeous colors and multi-textures especially in shawls, wraps and sweaters. Another addition to the Noro offerings is Yoroi. With its traditional wool blend base and bright colors peeking through, we’re experimenting with it in all sizes and designs of sweaters, hats and scarves.
Last but never least in the Yarn department is the latest development from Debbie Bliss – SoHo, a variegated, 100% wool design. With great pattern support in her Book Seven collection and a lovely thick & thin texture, you’ll quickly find that SoHo will be an excellent choice for your next sweater, coat, jacket or scarf project. Last month we promised you new and exciting books, and we’ve definitely delivered. Just to name a few, check out Top Down for Toddlers and Sweaters for Everyone to learn more about “seamless” knitting and little to no finishing work for your handmade creations. (We couldn’t resist getting two adorable projects up right away using the seamless technique, so take a look at the Florabel Sweater and the matching Florabel Hat for a precious outfit.) We bet you’ll also love the cute infant and toddler fashions in Candi Jensen’s new release Candy Babies and the stylish, European-inspired, latest magazines from Gedifra, Lana Grossa, Filatura Di Crosa, Rowan and GGH, all featuring many of their newest yarns. Yarnmarket Supports International Charity As we mentioned in last month’s newsletter, Yarnmarket is supporting the efforts of the charitable organization Afghans for Afghans by providing $50 gift certificates for their drawing every other month. For the November drawing, we sent certificates to Jean Eiler, Sally Irvin and Ann Ritchie, and thank them for their good works and donations of handmade items to the displaced women, men and children of Afghanistan. You too can get involved in this worthy international effort, so check out afghansforafghans.org for more information on this “humanitarian and educational people-to-people project.”
So why is texture so important??? Our description of the texture is another way for you to experience the yarn for yourself – the next best thing to touching and seeing it for yourself. Along with the yarn color images and the detailed strand views we’re adding to each yarn page, the texture description completes our overview of the yarn for you. Also use it when you’re figuring out a substitute yarn because you’ll come closest to the pattern designer’s original intent if you try to use the same yarn texture along with matching the gauge. You have numerous choices for texture on our Yarn Finder, but we use twelve of the terms primarily and of those twelve, six are the most common for today’s available yarns. We’ll emphasize the main six and then do a quick overview of the other six for you. For our yarn collection and in the lines of most yarn companies, there’s no real debate that the two most common textures today are “plied” for the traditional yarns and “eyelash” for many of the new funky offerings. “Plied” just means that several strands of the same basic yarn have been spun or twisted together. You’ve probably heard the related terms “2-ply,” 3-ply” and “4-ply” used to describe yarns and designating how many strands were spun together, but as outlined last month, the issue of the weight or thickness of the finished strand is really the more important aspect because modern production techniques have made the issue of ply much less of a gauge/quality factor. Typical plied yarns from Yarnmarket are Sirdar’s Snuggly DK, Rowan’s Big Wool, Silk Garden from Noro, Gossamer by Karabella, and K1C2’s Temptation, just to name a very few.
A third common reference to texture is “ribbon,” and even though the term was coined because of the yarn’s similarity to fabric or satin ribbon, as you’d expect, all yarn ribbon textures aren’t the same. You have silky ribbon yarns like India from Lana Grossa and Katia’s Sevilla, matte-finish ribbons such as Berroco’s Glace or Deco Ribbon from Crystal Palace, ladder- or railroad-track style ribbons including Berroco’s Mosaic FX and Crystal Palace’s Choo-Choo, even fringed or feathery ribbons like Cherry Tree Hill’s Fringe and Glitter Fringe, and the list goes on and on! Some of the texture names are literally just as the term sounds. The “metallic” texture is our attempt to let you know the yarn has a dominant metallic feature as found in Gedifra’s Byzanz, Gatsby and Gatsby Lux from Katia, Berroco’s Glitz and Lurex Shimmer from Rowan. “Fuzzy” is also self-explanatory because a soft fuzziness is the yarn’s dominant feature like you see in Amelie and Vamos from GGH, Brushed Alpaca from Karabella, Gedifra’s Distrato, Katia’s Inguena, and Pep Blocco, Pep Print and Fumo from Lana Grossa. And “woven” means that the strands of yarn have been woven or braided together in the finished product as with Rowan’s Cork, Lotus from Noro, Roses by Karabella, and Katia’s Cindy.
On the other hand, “boucle” refers to loops in the base yarn strand ranging from large loops (think Gedifra’s Sheela and Jumbo Loop Mohair from Cherry Tree Hill) to smaller loops (Ananas from Filatura Di Crosa) to smaller yet (Cherry Tree Hill’s Baby Loop Mohair and Melange from K1C2) to even sporadic loops as in Tahki’s Pansy yarn. If you see the term “single,” then there’s just a single base strand, which sounds simple enough but can get complicated when you realize the differences between such single-stranded yarns as Gedifra’s Tagliato and Gigante compared to Polar from Rowan. But sometimes the divisions between the categories can overlap, and we have to analyze carefully what is really dominant. For example, New Marabu from Muench is listed as an eyelash yarn, but it also has metallic and fuzzy features. Then Giardino from Filatura Di Crosa is a ribbon yarn that has interesting, periodic slubs looking like little flowers, and Berroco’s Softy is categorized as an eyelash yarn but also has random chenille-like poufs! So what do we do when there are so many things going on in one yarn we can’t decide what’s dominant? Then you’ll see the term “novelty” used most often as with some of our absolute favorite yarns – Sirdar’s Fizz, Labirinth by Karabella, Noro’s Kujaku, Coco from GGH, Rowan’s Ribbon Twist, and Optik from Berroco. However, for yarns with several types of materials alternating through the hank, we use the term “various” to describe the texture as we do with our entire Prism line – Impressions, Light Stuff, Cool Stuff and Wild Stuff.
As we’ve come to expect, we have another talented customer for our “Showcase Your Talent” column. Our congratulations for December go to Barb Holmgren of Kansas City, MO. Barb describes herself as “a felted purse-aholic,” so it’s no surprise that we selected her because of the fun, innovative handbags she’s created. She shared several felted bag photos with us, and we chose the two she made for her daughter’s friends’ birthday presents (the friends are twins). Barb modestly explains, “I made up the simple pattern myself knitting on circular needles, seaming the bottom and adding an I-cord shoulder handle before felting.” From Yarnmarket, she used Crystal Palace’s Whisper along with a 100% wool yarn. Now for several months you’ve been reading about other people’s successes and learning how they got a $30 gift certificate in recognition of their efforts. So isn’t it time for you to join in and tell us about your projects? It’s definitely easy to share your ideas: Just send an e-mail to photos@yarnmarket.com with the details of what yarn, pattern, etc. from Yarnmarket you used along with a digital photo of the finished project. Gift Wrapping, Gift Certificates & Customer Service
Need a quick and easy last-minute gift idea? Or do you have friends and loved ones who like to pick out their own gifts? Yarnmarket also offers Instant Gift Certificates that you can choose to print out or have emailed to the recipient. This is just another way at www.yarnmarket.com we pride ourselves on our customer service. Each order is packed with pride by Alma, Susan, Christine or Phyllis – and we’re happy to say that although we have the occasional glitch, we have an almost 99% accuracy rate. If something does go wrong, we’ll do everything we can to make it right for you . . . right away! Just send us an e-mail at orders@yarnmarket.com or call us at 1-888-996-9276, and we’ll take care of the problem. Our customer service hours are 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday.
Thanks for reading and Happy Holidays to you and your family and friends. Your Yarnmarket Knitting Store Staff Click Here to Visit yarnmarket.com |
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