Millicent’s News

Millicent’s News  --  MAY 2010

Millicent’s Yarns & More

27 N. Centre Street Cumberland, MD 21502

301-722-8100      millicentsyarns.com

Shop Hours:  T - Sat, 10 - 5, Sun 12 - 5

Wed, open late until 7

 

MILLICENT’S  STAFF MEETINGS: The upcoming staff meeting is Friday, April 16.  Beware! We will open at noon that day.  Plan in advance:  We will open at noon on June 11, July 23, August 13.

LOOK FORWARD TO SUMMER CLASSES!

In May we’ll offer only a few classes because of people’s busy May schedules – please see our May list of classes for details.  What a great time to finish projects, and feel free to come in for help.   But be ready for June, July, August and September!

June will be a SKILL BUILDER MONTH.  Classes will be a single session only and will cover Changing  Shapes, Casting On and Binding Off (yes, there are more than one way for each!), Joining Pieces of Knitting Together, Duplicate Stitch, and Lace Basics. Each of these single-session classes will be offered one time during a weekday and a second time on a weekend or evening.

In late July through September, we’ll be offering single session classes that will help you START YOUR HOLIDAY KNITTING (yes, Virginia, in July! – otherwise you’ll be asking Santa to help you out . . .).  These classes are a repeat of the 13 Sunday Social projects we’ve done over the last 13 months.  So if you missed them when first offered or want to try them again, here is your chance.  We can guarantee that each of these projects are great fun to knit and within grasp of even beginner knitters.  Each of these single-session classes will also be offered one time during weekday and a second time on a weekend or evening.

HAT OF THE MONTH CLUB Our Hat of the Month Club is based on the book Hats On!  31 Warm and Winsome Caps for Knitters by Charlene Schurch and is geared toward adventurous knitters.

In May we will be knitting the Turkish-Patterned Hat on pp. 58–59.   You’ll need two colors of a worsted weight yarn.  The pattern recommends knitting the hat on 16” circular and double pointed needles  US 4.  I tried mine on a US 6 (the US 4 and worsted weight yarns are really hard on my hands), and I made a size medium which turned out to have the circumference of a large hat but is very tall, so we’ve turned into a kind of tam.  Time to try again!

Please wait until our meeting to learn the two-strand, two-color cast on and the twined herringbone edge.  We will do that together. Think about your dominant and non-dominant hands (the first produces looser stitches and a more prominent color scheme, the second just the opposite).

We will meet Sunday, May 2 from 1 – 4 and Wednesday, May 5 from 2 – 4 and again from 5 – 7.  Please choose a time that is convenient for your schedule and feel free to come to as many meetings as you’d like.  The Hat of the Month Club is a free activity at Millicent’s.  We ask only that you purchase your book, yarn, and needles at our shop. 

CHANGE IN HAT OF THE MONTH CLUB SELECTIONS After a fair amount of discussion and a vote by the group of 13 knitters who came to the April Sunday meeting, we came to the conclusion that we want to knit stranded color hats for the remainder of the hat year.  So – here is a re-vamped schedule.  Please note that the changes from the original schedule are for June, July and September only.

June/Andean Cap, pp 68 – 79,   July/Komi Cap, pp 44- 45,        

Aug/All over Two Colored Patterned Watch Cap, pp 32-33, Sept/Danish Earflap Cap, pp. 72-73

Oct/Topflappen Hat, pp.80-81, Nov/Tasseled Fez, pp. 56-57, Dec/Ullared Cap, pp.48-49

Jan/Triple Patterned Watch Cap, pp. 34-35, Feb/Lusekofte Cap, pp. 51-53

SUNDAY SOCIAL, April 18, 1- 4pm  We will be exploring shadow or illusion knitting, which is magical and very cool!  You’ll need a US 6 needle (straight or circular) and two colors of worsted weight cotton yarn.

SUNDAY SOCIAL,  May 16, 1 – 4pm (Please note that the Sunday Social will meet on the third Sunday of each month through Spring and Summer – except in June).  Sunday Socials at Millicent’s Yarns & More is available for beginner through advanced knitters.  Our goal is to teach a new skill and explore a new yarn every month while introducing a small project that can be completed in a few days.  And we have a lot of fun.  Patterns and lessons are free.  We ask that you purchase all supplies at Millicent’s.

Our May Sunday Social will introduce the yarn Fixation from Cascade to you. Fixation has 1.7% elastic, which makes it stretch to many sizes without your having to worry too much about guage!  We will be making Flip Flop Socks that will protect your feet from those rubbing areas that flip flops always have.   You can find the free pattern in Ravelry under Arizona Flip Flop Socks by Catherine J. Hall .  Please help us out by printing this free pattern out if you have an account with Ravelry; otherwise, we will have some hard copies ready for you.

OUR NEW SUMMER YARNS ARE SIMPLY SCRUMPTIOUS!  Most of our summer yarns have arrived.  At the moment we are cooing over Ruca Multy, a 100% sugarcane yarn that is silky, soft and supple and comes in light summer colors.  We also have added to our selection of Schaefer cotton yarns with Susan, that knits at 6 stitches per inch (and don’t miss the terrific new colors we added to our Schaefer cotton Laurel).  Sublime Bamboo and Pearls is a smooth yarn that creates handknits with the most fabulously elegant drape and incredible stitch definition.  We even have a small pattern book written just for Bamboo and Pearls with exciting summer wear.  Eco Baby from Debbie Bliss is 100% organic and fair trade cotton, and also has a pattern book for it with eleven adorable patterns for babies.  Haze is 60% corn viscose, 40% cotton which knits on a US 6 needle and is a variegated yarn that would look great in summer tops or wraps.

Noro came out with some really exciting summer yarns and I couldn’t resist bringing them to you.  Sekku, with wonderful rich colors,  is a lace-weight yarn that can also be used for lacey socks. Think about summer wraps with this yarn!  Shirakaba is a silk, cotton and wool blend on a US 5 to 7.  This is an ombre yarn that shades from one intensity of color to another.  Aya, also cotton, silk, and just a touch of wool, is available in the typical Noro colors.  Chirimen, mostly cotton with some silk and wool, is a worsted weight yarn. And finally Taiyo, is Jola’s favorite because the colors are so vibrant. It is a cotton, silk, wool, and nylon blend and is a worsted weight yarn.  We have several new pattern books from Noro that use all of these yarns and have some sophisticated summer wear in them.  Look for models soon – we are knitting our little fingers off to get them to you.

KNITTED LACE OF ESTONIA  Several customers have asked that we bring in this book by Nancy Bush.  We now have two copies ready for you to take home.

CLASS/CLUB MEETING TIMES  Please note that class, Hat of the Month and Sunday Socials times are designated not only to fit your schedules but ours as well (You won’t believe how much work we do in between classes to get Millicent’s looking as nice as it is.).  We ask that early arrivals wait for class/function time to begin, so take the extra time you may have to look at models and new yarns, examine books, or check out the New Patterns notebook.  Thanks for understanding.

HAITI COLLECTIONS We were overwhelmed and touched by the response from our customers for the two collections we sponsored for the victims of the Haitian earthquake.  We collected $100 from customers, which we then doubled to $200, and sent on to Knitting Fever Yarns, who doubled the donation to $400 and sent it to the Red Cross.  Knitting Fever Yarns is located in New York and has many Haitian-born folk who are working for them; as a consequence they felt compelled to make a generous response to the earthquake.  Hurrah for knitters!  Last week we sent a huge box and a giant plastic bag full of donated yarn to a middle school in Farmington, PA to help those school children knit blankets for the children of Haiti.  Hurrah for knitters again!  We also need to give a big thank you to Judith and Robbie Robertson who volunteered to drive the yarn up to the school on a beautiful spring day.  Thank You!

SOME INFO ABOUT ADDI TURBO LACE NEEDLES These wonderful needles have sharper tips, something that knitters have been telling manufacturers that they need for many years now. Why the sharper tips?  Lace knitting requires a lot of detailed manipulation of stitches using fine yarn.  A sharp-tipped needle helps you navigate easily through knitting multiple stitches together, passing stitches over one another, knitting through the backs of multiple stitches, etc. By the same token, these tips aren’t so sharp that you’ll need a box of bandaids in your knitting bag! But these needles have much more going for them than sharp tips.

The Addi Turbo Lace Needles, made from hollow brass, are coated with a fine resin to seal the brass and provide an extremely discreet hint of drag to the needle surface.  This helps you keep control over all those fine lace stitches. The resin seal remains unscratched even with multiple stitch markers running up and down them.

The Addi Turbo Lace Needle also is lighter and has a much warmer feel than the nickel-plated Addi Turbo originals.  They quickly warm up to your hands.  The coating dulls the usual “clang” noise of metal needles (they make more of a “tink” noise!)  The pinkish transparent nylon cord is thinner and more supple than the standard Addi cord.  And the join between the needle and the cable is perfectly smooth.  Moreover, the cord is imprinted with the needle size in US and metric, and cable length in inches and cm, as well as the manufacturer and country of origin. 

Finally, did you know that Addi will make custom-length circulars for you?  The cost is twice that of  a standard pair, and you’ll have to wait about six weeks.  But imagine having your very own pair of size 1 circulars with a 10-foot cord.  Strangely tempting, isn’t it?  (from Knitter’s Review).  We are building our stock of Addi Turbo Lace needles.  If we don’t have what you want, we will be happy to order them for you.

ADDI CLICKS If you purchased Addi Clicks from us last year that were packaged in a box format, we can order the soft leatherette (and smaller) case for you.  We are also able to order additional sets of needles or cables.  Addi is also coming out soon with an Addi Lace Interchangeable Set that has the capability to create16” and 20” length needles, as well as 24”, 32”, and 40”, and is housed in a brown case to differentiate it from the original Click set.

Please note: The original Click set cannot create 16” length needles because the tips combined with the  smaller cords will not allow for proper knitting.  

The 3/50 PROJECT – helping out the little guy in our economy

Little did Cinda Baxter know that her blog post on March 11, 2009 would blossom into a movement designed to stimulate local economies, better known as the 3/50 Project.  Baxter, a Retail Consultant and professional speaker, was prompted to write her blog after viewing a number of media programs, including the Oprah Show, CBS News, the Today Show, and Meet the Press.  The over all message of the 3/50 Project grew out of this motivation and is simple – we all have the power to assist in the salvation of our local economy during these tight times.

These are the project’s rules as noted by Cinda:

1)      Choose three independently owned businesses that you would miss if they went out of business.

2)       Spend $50 per month at each of the stores.

That’s it!  it’s that simple.  Cinda also notes that “If just half the employed U.S. population spent $50 each month in independently owned businesses, their purchases would generate more than $42.6 billion in revenue.”  Full details can be found at www.the 350 project.net

 Happy Knitting from Mel, Dick, Geni, Joanna, Jola, and Judith

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Millicent's Knits and Yarns • 49 North Centre Street • Cumberland, Maryland 21502
phone 301-722-8100 • mel@millicentsyarns.com