New Local Yarn Shops

I recently visited two new yarn shops that opened in my area.  They are both lovely shops and filled with some lovely yarns – some of which aren’t carried by the local yarn shop that has been the only shop in the city for a number of years. Each shop offers a different variety of yarns than the other, so I am hoping that both of them can be successful.  We certainly have a growing number of knitters in our community, so having new yarn shops is quite appealing.

ImagiKnit Yarn Shop is located in the Bel-Air Plaza at 120th and West Center Road, Suite 602, Omaha, NE. This shop does not have a website, but does have a Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/ImagiKnit-Yarn-Shop/263171999129. The owner of this shop moved her business to Omaha from Hastings, NE.

Wooly Mammoth Yarn Shop is located in Rockbrook Shopping Center at 108th and West Center Rd, Omaha, NE. This shop also does not have a website, but does have a Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Wooly-Mammoth-Yarn-Shop/150211221662670. The owners of this shop recently moved from Kearney, NE.

I’m sure the knitters in Hastings and Kearney miss having the shops in their towns, because they are both wonderful yarn shops and we are very lucky to have them here in Omaha.

Appealing, as well, are the yarns I purchased from both shops. (I couldn’t resist).

From Imagiknit, I purchased a skein of Smooshy fingering weight yarn from Dream in Color. The colorway is 2014 September and it just spoke to me of autumn.  It has this delightful mix of fall colors: reds, purples, golds, greens in various shades. See the swatch below

.Swatch with yarns

I also bought a skein of Fabjous Fibers Cheshire Cat in the colorway Off with Her Red – which blends perfectly with the Smooshy colors. I am using these yarns to knit a shawl using the Merlot pattern, which I purchased at Ravelry. This will be the topic of another post.

From Wooly Mammouth, I purchased 4 skeins of Addiction yarn by Claudia Hand Painted Yarns – also fingering weight yarn. I bought 2 skeins in the colorway Teal and 2 skeins in the colorway Prussian Soldiers. I plan to knit another two color shawl using these yarns, but I haven’t decided on a pattern yet. I like the Merlot pattern, so I may choose to do that again – but there are so, so many lovely shawl patterns in my queue…

If you are in Omaha: check out our new local yarn shops.  🙂

Related Post

FO: Basic Anklets — Cuff DownFO: Basic Anklets — Cuff Down

After doing two pairs of the “Fancy Feet” Anklets, I came to the following conclusions:
1) I really, really do not like to knit socks of any type toe-up. (I know that may shock those of you that swear toe-up is the only way to go — but there it is. I just don’t like to knit ’em that way.
2) I don’t like the repeating short rows that make the heel on this pattern. I don’t care for it’s depth or it’s shape.
3) I prefer using the German Short Row method over the “Wrap and Turn” method.

As knitters, we do have the right to our preferences. These are some of mine.

That said, I got out my needles and some leftover sock yarn and started working on a basic anklet pattern, cuff down. I have now finished my first pair and my notes are a bit sketchy — so I will need to knit a couple more pairs before I put out my basic pattern. But here a couple of pictures of the completed anklets:

Details:
Yarn: Leftover Serendipity yarn in colorway Amethyst
Needles: US 2 (2.50 mm) circulars, 48″
Magic Loop method. Pattern has a basic rib cuff and a short-row heel. Knit in stockinette stitch.

You will note the pooling on this yarn. I wrote about how this variegated yarn pools depending on the size of needles and the number of stitches back in 2010. If you’re interested here’s the link: A Study of Pooling in a Variegated Sock Yarn

Updating Blog & WebsiteUpdating Blog & Website

Just finished importing my previous blog posts from Blogger.  As part of my updating my website, I decided to switch to using WordPress via my hosting site, rather than have my readers go to the Blogger site to read my blog.  WordPress provides me with more functions and features to better manage my blog.

I hope you like the new look for the blog and the updates to the website.  The website will always be a work in progress — much like my knitting projects.  Just spent quite a bit of time choosing a new color scheme and I am still figuring out how to modify my blog to match, so look for the color scheme to change.

One of the ongoing maintenance items for any website is the task of keeping links current.  Links, particularly to individual knitting websites and blogs, seem to change frequently.  It is always sad to discover that a site that I really liked and recommended on my website is no longer available.  I found that I had several “dead” links when I went to check them.  In some cases, I was able to find the updated link — in others, there is nothing to link to anymore.

The latter is the case with the Knit.with.us site.  This site was really very nice when it was up and running.  However, the owners of this site are no longer focusing on knitting and have moved into a completely different direction.  Thus — no more Knit.with.us.  I wish the owners well in their new endeavors — I will miss the content they offered.

If anyone reading this has suggestions for knitting related blogs that I can include in my links, please comment to this post and include the link.  Thanks!

First PostFirst Post

Just set up this blog. I am new to blogging. I have read about blogs, read blogs — but never blogged myself. Decided it was time to give this a try.

I plan to use this blog to recreate the website I had several years ago. The website was “Lindy’s Knits and Laces” and I took it down because we bought a new house and in the process of moving from one house to the other — we changed internet providers. I just never seemed to have time to work through setting the website up with the new provider. So while I have wanted to re-establish the website, I didn’t get to it and about 3 years have past since I took it down. In the meantime — blogs came into being and with the typical speed of internet innovations — really took hold.

As I thought about re-establishing my website, I began to realize that I needed to look into this “blog” thing. It seems that this is a “must” if you want to be connected through the web. So — I have now made my preliminary move into the blogosphere.

I’d appreciate constructive feedback as I work on getting this blog established.