news

With a Canada Post strike looming, I'm making alternate shipping arrangements. Shop update and new shipping policies coming soon!

If you're waiting for a package from me, don't worry, I got everything in the mail before the cutoff dates. :)

 I'm going to cast on for a (second) Playground Shawl this Wednesday. Will you join me? 

I'd like to keep it fund and casual with a few prizes thrown in for good measure. The knit-along (KAL) will run June 15 - July 31. All the details are in our (new!) Ravelry group. Current WIPs are welcome; using caterpillargreen yarn is smiled upon but not required. 

Even if you decide not to cast on with us, you can cheer us on by checking out the #playgroundshawl tag on social media. As a bonus, if you look back to the first images on instagram with that tag, you can watch Justyna working through her original prototype for the design. 

Our next shop update will be this Wednesday, March 9 at 10 am PST.  (Click here to convert to your time zone.)

Introducing phi, a collaboration with Laura Nelkin.

This yarn and pattern? They go together like "rama lama lama ka dinga da dinga dong". I believe Aristotle said that.

Maybe not Aristotle. Freud? Einstein? Travolta?  Anyway, the point is that this shawl and yarn were literally made for each other.

Laura designed Phi For You as a top-down, half-pi shawl with crescent shaping and a gorgeous beaded lace border. She then sent me a spreadsheet to work from and, inspired by the pi construction, I used the golden ratio, phi, to determine the widths of the stripes. 

To knit the pattern exactly as shown, you will need one regular (115 g) skein of self-striping shawl yarn, and 40 g of beads (which you can find in Laura Nelkin's Etsy shop). 

After Wednesday, phi will join our regular rotation of colourways and will be available in future updates. 

Laura also knitted up a sample of Phi For You in Olive Branch and it turned out so beautifully that we decided to include some of that colourway in this week's shop update as well. 

Chang chang changitty chang sha-bop, that's the way it should be. 

I hope 2016 is treating you well so far! We have lots of plans for the new year, including trying something new with this week's update.

Rather than announcing the update in advance, we quietly added a big batch of in-stock, ready-to-ship yarn to our shop. Stock is low already (we gave our newsletter subscribers first notice) but please do head on over and see if there's anything that catches your eye!

This isn't how we will be doing every update from now on, just something we are trying out in order to avoid the rush of our past few updates and allow for a more relaxed shopping experience. 

We will start shipping out orders first thing next week, but please keep in mind it may take up to 2 weeks for us to process all orders.

The other change you will notice is that we've updated our prices for 2016. As a Canadian shop, it is important to us to keep our prices in CAD, despite the sinking exchange rate with the USD. We think our new prices are fair and reasonable for the high quality of the yarn we make and hope that you agree.

Also note that our shop has a currency selector at the very top (or bottom if you're on your phone) so you can view prices in the currency of your choice. However, all transactions are processed in CAD, so the price at checkout will be the Canadian dollar equivalent of the prices displayed throughout the shop.

Finally, let's end by ogling some yarn, shall we? Aren't those fun socks? We've had many requests for this colourway ever since a similar pair got a nice mention here. (Thanks, Stephanie!) That pair of socks requires a single skein and provides the perfect solution to Second Sock Syndrome: two First Socks!

Wishing you all the best in 2016,

-catherine

Our next shop update will be this Friday, December 18 at 10 am PST. (Click here to convert to your time zone.)

Have you seen our new classic/sock yarns yet? We've dyed them so that each hank is more like a mini-skein kit, with two complementary half-skeins. One half is a gradient (in either blue, yellow or black) and the other is self-striping. So many possibilities! 
Here are two options to get you started: pictured above is a Brioche for Beginners cowl (free pattern by Emma Knits!) worked in the Blue Light colourway, and below is a pair of mis-matched socks in the Yellow Light colourway. We've also got some grey-on-grey colourways for those of you who prefer something a little more subtle. 

All yarn will be dyed-to-order and will ship within 6-8 weeks.  Please note that we are only able to accept a limited number of orders. 
All our colourways will be available in this update.  We will be dyeing shawl yarns in our luxurious merino/cashmere yarn, and sock yarns in our durable (but soft!) Merino Twist.

I had this blog post written up and ready to go before our November 5 shop update, but had some, um, "scheduling issues" and didn't publish it in time. So. Better Late Than Never, right? And so, without further ado, may I present our new colourways?

...

We are excited to introduce twelve (!) new colourways. We are trying a few new things with this collection of greys and brights (mis-matched socks! gradient-stripes!) so be sure to click through to the product pages to take a look at the samples we have knit up. 

And what better way to celebrate new colourways than with a beautiful new pattern? May I present Get Happy by Kate Atherley. As Kate says, "it's inspired by a traditional Hap shawl, but entirely modern and utterly wearable. This is an easy and fun knit, suitable for even the newest lace knitters." (Shown here in our Fade to Blue colourway.)

Kate has taken some liberties with the colourway - taking the pop of colour from the "bottom" of the skein and using at the "top" to great effect. 

Finally, a bit of shop news: you may notice that we are in the process of updating our website. One improvement is that we now have a currency selector at the top of the page that will convert all dollar values to your selected currency. We are also working to improve our patterns page with a gallery of finished samples...coming soon!

Even though our website has been quiet lately, it has been a busy fall and we have lots to tell you about!

• The way we will update the shop will be to hide all the products in the hour or so before 2 pm, update inventory levels, and make everything visible again at exactly 2 pm. If the shop looks empty, wait a minute and refresh your browser. 
• Unlike our recent pre-orders, shawl and classic/sock yarns will be listed as separate products. 
• Our shop uses industry-standard best practices for managing shopping carts and checkout. Unfortunately this means your cart is not "protected" and you may find items are unavailable once you reach the checkout. This is awkward, but totally out of our control. 
• We are happy to combine shipping and refund any extra charges, so if you find something you like, you can buy it right away and then come back for more leisurely browsing after.
• We accept credit cards but not paypal. We are in Canada, so make sure your card will allow you to make purchases outside the US. 
• We will have hundreds of skeins available and will be stocking sock and shawl yarn in most of our existing colourways (including shawl yarn in Concrete and Tulips, Peacock and Olive Branch). However, we won't be publishing a full inventory ahead of time and obviously can't guarantee how long any particular colourway will last.
• Finally, we hope to get back to having more frequent updates. So if the timing of this update is bad for you, no worries, we will have more yarn again soon!