MILLICENT’S NEWS

OCTOBER 2010

Millicent’s Yarns & More  -  27 N. Centre Street Cumberland, MD 21502

301-722-8100  *  www.millicentsyarns.com  * mel@millicentsyarns.com

Shop Hours: T – S 10 – 6:00, Sun 12 – 5   Open late on Wednesday until 7

(closed the last Sunday of each month)

 

6! 6! 6! 6! 6! 6! 6! 6! 6! 6! 6!

We are now open until 6 pm Tues, Thurs, Fri, and Sat!

(On Wed we continue to be open until 7 pm, and on Sun we are open 12 noon until 5 pm.  Please remember, we are closed every Mon and the last Sun of the month)

 

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.  Our October Hat of the Month Club meeting will be on Sunday, October 3, 1 – 3 pm and Wednesday, October 6 at 5 – 7 pm. 

Sorry friends, but I am making a unilateral decision to change the hat for this month, only because I am stretched to the limit and would need to teach myself a new skill for the scheduled Top Flappen Hat.  Instead, I’m moving the Triple-Pattern Watch Cap into October.  You will need 210 – 220 yds of two colors of light worsted weight yarn and a US 6 16” circular and US 6 double pointed needles. 

 

We never fail to be amazed at the number of knitters who have kept up with the Hat of the Month Club.  If you have lapsed, join us again this month – no questions asked, no judgement made.  Just come on back – it will be more fun anyhow with the weather getting cooler.  Let’s plan on bringing all our hats we’ve knit so far to our next November meeting for picture taking!

SUNDAY SOCIAL

Our next Sunday Social will meet on Sunday, October 10, 1:00 – 3:00 pm.   We will be knitting a cowl with a simple Fair Isle pattern with a jewel tone variegated yarn and a solid yarn that won’t compete in color or impact.  For the model I am using one skein of a new variegated yarn from Trendsetter called Vigna for my contrast color, and one skein of Peruvia heavy worsted weight for my solid color.  We will be using a US 10 16” circular.  And the pattern?  Oh – I am designing it!  We’ll have it for you on October 10.

Sunday Socials meet once a month and are a free activity at Millicent’s.  You will receive free instruction and a free pattern.  As teachers, our goal is to have you learn one new basic skill and use a yarn that is different from the usual yarns we so often turn to in the shop.  If you have basic knitting skills in place, please join us!  We have lots of fun.  And bring a snack to share if you are so moved – we love to eat!

OCTOBER CLASSES

It’s getting cold outside. Time to knit for warmth!  We’re planning lots of fun classes for October, making three different wraps for fall weather geared to different knitting skill levels, socks to keep you warm, a very professional looking cabled and felted briefcase or, in larger form, a gathered carpet bag, and a simple and fun fair isle pillow.  And we are offering Introduction to Knitting classes at three different times. Please read further on our Classes page.

JOLA  You’ve probably missed Jola these last six weeks or so at the shop.  Her mother passed away recently, and her father, who was very sick then, is now dying.  This is a very difficult time for her and we all send her many thoughts and prayers. 

NEW YARNS    

They keep coming in!  It’s a bit like Christmas around here just now . . .

(our illustrations are projects done with the new yarns)

Elsebeth LaVold has produced many beautiful yarns in her line, supported always by pattern books that are classics of our age.  One of our favorites is her Silky Wool in a DK weight.  Now we have Silky Wool XL, the same 80% wool, 20% raw silk in 3.75 – 4.5 stitches per inch on a US 7 to US 10.  I’ve no doubt that we’ll all come to love this as we love the original.

We also have a fun, glossy marled bulky yarn called Mist from Queensland, and a not so glossy marled bulky weight yarn called Sandstone from also from Queensland.  I brought these in for hat and scarf knitters who want quick projects in an interesting yarn (let the yarn do the visual work as your fingers do the knitting).

 

For other quick knits you can use Rodeo, a super kid mohair and wool blend that has slubs of color --knit this on a US 15!  And another yarn that looks terrific on a US 15 and a simple drop stitch pattern is Trendsetter Dune, a mohair metallic blend that we’ve re-introduced to the shop. 

 

Flying Saucer (or “Fliegende Untertasse” if you are German) by  Shoppel Wolle is still another sock yarn with a difference.  TWO strands of yarn at the same color point in the color pattern are wound around a spool.  Put a heavy piece of yarn through the spool and hang it from a chair back and you are ready to knit two socks at the same time.  OR, if you prefer to knit one sock at a time, you can wind them off and still be certain that your socks will match!  Another fun aspect of this sock yarn:  it stripes and then pools into a bull’s eye that, darn it all, looks just like a Fliegende Untertasse!

 

Since we’re talking sock yarn, you also have available to you at Millicent’s two new 6-ply sock yarns that knit at 5.5 or 5.75 stitches per inch, instead of the usual 7 or 8 stitches per inch for fingering weight sock yarn.  You’ll be working on larger needles (between a US 2 and a US 6 depending upon your tension) – hurrah! And your socks will be completed more quickly – another hurrah!   Zauberball (or Magic Ball) Starke 6 and  Step 6 with Aloe Vera and Jojoba Oil are high quality yarns that we’ve carried in fingering weight for several years now—they’re just bigger! 

 Cascade 128 is a superwash merino bulky weight wool from Cascade – so soft, you’ll want to put your baby in it, or yourself.  Our selection of yarn is disappearing before our eyes –  walking out of the shop by the bagful with a lot of knitters who are purchasing it for a quick bulky knit sweater.  We will be re-ordering soon and with more colors to keep up with your interest!

We have renewed out inventory of Baby Boom from Fiesta Yarns which was used for the Cross Drop-Stitch scarf in one of last winter’s Sunday Socials.  Baby Boom now comes in 440 yds skeins (rather than the 220 yds we had in last year), and can be knit on a US 2 at 8.5 spi for socks (it NOW has 10% reinforcing nylon blended in), or it can be knit on a US 4 at 6.5 spi for larger projects.  In terms of the cross stitch scarf, the greater yardage in Baby Boom now allows you to create a longer and wider scarf.

 

New patterns, new colors in Kureyon, Pangipulli, Cascade’s Rustic – we’re all set for your fall and winter knitting season!  More in our next newsletter.

OUR NEW WEBSITE

We are still working away, typing our little fingers to the bone.  I have hit the grand number of 1400 patterns that I’ve typed into our pattern database with all their pertinent information about sizes, yardage, needles and additional information plus photograhs.  Joanna is in a new groove with her yarn photo editing and is working like an energizer bunny, and Dick is doing his thing with putting all the yarn info into the yarn database (he figures he has about 900 examples of yarn – by type and then by color put in now).  We’re getting closer and closer!  It will still take several months to get all this in place before we launch, but we are getting very excited and will continue to give you updates. 

In the meantime, a fellow from our website host site visited us about reading site statistics :  seems that many many of you all are visiting us, looking at several pages during your visit, and coming back for re-visits.  We thank you very much for your interest.

 Now, here’s a quiz question:  when do you think we get the most visits from you during the day?  Evening, you say – Well, I would answer that way, figuring that people are at home.  But, no – the most visits we receive are between 2:00 and 4:00 in the afternoon.  Go figure. (Getting bored at work?  Needing a break?)   And someone out there is looking at our site at 1 in the morning – GO TO BED!

 

Get ready for the temperatures to fall and the air to get crisp!  Knitting season is upon us!      

Happy knitting from all of us at Millicent’s Yarns & More, Mel, Dick, Judith, Joanna, Jola, Geni

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