The discount will be automatically applied at check-out and can not be combined with any other discounts, sales, or offers. Discount does not apply to special orders or pre-orders. The sale starts April 28th, 2023 at 12am and ends Sunday April 30th, 2023 at 11:59pm.
The discount will be automatically applied at check-out and can not be combined with any other discounts, sales, or offers. Discount does not apply to special orders or pre-orders. The sale starts April 28th, 2023 at 12am and ends Sunday April 30th, 2023 at 11:59pm.
Berroco Summer Sesame was so popular last year that we weren’t sure if you were done with it, so we’ve brought it back for a second season! The pictures below each have their own blog post, so all you have to do is click/tap on them (or the text associated) and you’ll be taken to a full description of the project with pictures, materials, links – there’s lots for you to explore!
Summer Sesame‘s bright, happy shades of colors ebb and flow to make this worsted weight yarn a perfect summer choice. This cotton blend yarn is light to the touch, easy to work with, self-striping, and is machine washable. Summer Sesame is great for tops & tees, tanks, sweaters, scarves, wraps, shawls, blankets, even socks!
I just wanted to drop you a quick line and thank everyone who contributed and came out for our first yarn swap that took place last Saturday! It was the first since COVID and it went so smoothly and was such a joy to host, I’m very, very grateful. Many thanks to my friends who helped me out before, during, and after the swap – it is MUCH appreciated. It went well enough, in fact, that I’m announcing the resumption of Sit ‘n Knit (see below).
We also repatriated a lot of yarn – I can’t keep track of what comes and goes among swap attendees, but afterwards we sent 5 large garbage bags of yarn to Street Knit, and another two bags (plus needles, books & magazines) are going to the textile arts students at Northern Secondary School. I’m pretty sure a decent amount also went to a new charity group who are knitting for the city’s women’s shelters.
Sit & Knit is a social knitting group. We gather and chat while we knit and/or crochet. Sit & Knit is FREE and you can just drop in and join us. You don’t have to bring anything other than yourself and your knitting/crochet (or you can purchase a project here).
If possible, we request anyone attending our social events please refrain from wearing perfume and bringing foods containing peanuts, as they are common allergens (there is currently no eating in the store).
When: Saturdays from 1pm to 4pm
MASKS: To ensure everyone’s health, all people in the store are expected to wear a medical mask at all times. If you don’t have one that’s fine, we have lots and are happy to give you one!
NOTE: Sit & Knit is strictly a social event, and instruction is not offered as part of the event. If you need help with your project please call us at 416-653-7849, we will assess your needs and make and make an appointment for you to come in for help or if it is more appropriate for a private lesson(or you can book online). You can read more about our free and paid services HERE.
We worked up this little top (Ranunculus) as an experiment to see how far we could stretch one skein of Berroco Remix Light – it turns out it can go the distance! Remix Light is a very popular little sprig and summer yarn that ticks a lot of boxes:
it’s very light and has double the yardage of an average cotton summer yarn (100g/400m)
it’s machine washable
it’s soft and comfortable to wear
it’s comfortable and easy to work with
it’s eco-friendly, and made from a blend of recycled fibres: Cotton, Linen, Silk, Acrylic, and Nylon.
it’s made in the first world (France), so no slave labour involved, just unionized, properly paid EU workers
it’s affordable and only costs $16.47/ball
We made the smallest size in the short sleeve and it only took ONE ball. Most of the sizes, long and short sleeved, use two balls … making it a VERY affordable project. The pattern has instructions for both a short and a long sleeve version, and it is knit from the top-down, so you can make your sleeves any length you want.
Size
We made the short-sleeved version in Size 1 on 5.5mm/US9 & 4.5mm/US7 needles, and the combination of the needle size and the unique qualities of the yarn’s fibres made ours come out smaller than the pattern. Our tension was 18 sts & 26 rows = 4″/10cm (un-stretched) – this is a big difference to the pattern, which is a gauge of 14 sts & 20 rows = 4″/10cm.
Our garment ended up smaller than the pattern specifications: it measures 18″ across the chest (36″ bust) and 16″ high from the back of the neck to the bottom ribbing … a big drop from the pattern’s 46″ bust circumference. That said, I’m extremely happy with the finished project! It’s am amazing little top, and the size is just right for someone who wears a size XS or S. The fit is cropped, and after trying it on I’d say it’s a roomy fitting size small, or oversized XS. The fabric is very stretchy, it has a lot of give and a surprising amount of memory! It is very light and doesn’t have a ton of drape. We used the majority of 1 skein of yarn, and only had about 3g left (we used approx. 375m, or 5m more than the pattern suggested).
If you choose to follow our lead and use the yarn & needle combo we did (and your tension is the same) you can probably estimate the size will come out 20% smaller than the pattern recommends (ours was 22% smaller), so multiply the finished size by 0.78 got get a good idea of where yours will end up (see the measurements in bold below, I did the math for you).
We used Berroco Remix Light, a very light and airy bend of recycled plant and synthetic fibres – perfect for warm weather! Because we used up a good amount of our yarn, I have factored that into the yardage suggestions below and leaned on the side of caution so you won’t run out.
The pattern is written to be knit in a variety of yarn weights, from Lace to Worsted. Ideally, you want a solid or semi-solid coloured yarn, or a yarn that knits up in a very long, gradual ombre colourway, so you can see the details in the lace and textured stitches. The thinner the yarn, the lacier the sweater will be (yarn thickness goes from the thinnest at lace weight, then fingering, then DK, then worsted).
Sophie is a simple shawl that’s knit horizontally, from tip-to-tip. It’s a quick, easy knit thats great for little projects …. perfect for travelling or patio season. It calls for a worsted eight yarn, but we tried it out with Berroco Vivo, a textured, DK weight, 100% cotton, just to play around and see what would happen. What happened was a really pretty, light little spring/summer wrap!
Size
We made a size medium and I feel like it turned out as more of a scarf than a wrap (I had an uncertain amount of yarn on hand and I wasn’t sure how far it would go). We only used 1.22 balls (or 330m) of Berroco Vivo, and I feel like it turned out a bit small as far as wraps go, so if I made another I’d go up to the largest size. If you are using Berroco Vivo you will likely not use as much yarn as is recommended in the pattern, it seems to have gone further than expected.
Our Finished Sample: Size Medium – 11″ (27.5cm) deep, 80″ (200cm) long
Pattern Size: S (M) L
Pattern Length from tip to tip: approx. 170 (210) 240 cm or 67 (82¾) 94½ inches
Easily Change the Size
Because the pattern is knit from side-to side, its really easy to just knit until you’ve used up half of your yarn, then start the decreases. Just be sure to weigh your yarn before you start, so you know how much is you half-way mark (I use an inexpensive digital kitchen scale from Amazon). If you want you can also make your shawl larger than the largest size, you just need to start your decreases later.
Just in case you happen to be vacationing in the southern hemisphere any time soon … if you want to make a fall/winter version or something with some fuzzy, my favourite options are
After a looooong hiatus for COVID …. it’s swap time again! Time to tidy up your yarn stash and purge the stuff you’re never going to use. That’s right, you can bring us your shame and leave your guilt in our yarn swap bins with the assurance that the yarn that didn’t work out for you will have a second (or third, or fourth) life in a new home. What do you do at a swap? Bring in the yarn and needles you don’t want and take home whatever you like from our swap bins.
Bring
Yarn (please bring in a ziplock bag)
Knitting Needles & Crochet Hooks
Knitting & Crochet Notions, Accessories, Books
NOTE: partial balls are fine, but please bag them up together in a ziplock bag.
Details
The leftovers are donated to charities, and don’t be embarrassed by the quality of the yarn you bring, whatever is left over is donated to charities like Street Knit, most of whom prefer acrylic! If you want to donate but can’t make the date please feel free to drop it by when we are open, sealed up in a plastic bag. The only yarn we can’t accept is anything that is strongly scented (cigarette smoke or perfume). We are also a drop-off point for Street Knitand Knitted Knockers of Canada.
If possible, we request anyone attending our events to please refrain from wearing perfume
COVID Protocols
To ensure the safety of staff and clients we are still masking and everyone in the store must wear a mask while inside. If you don’t have a mask don’t worry, we have lots and you can pick one up here.
Destash/Spring Cleaning System
So here’s a scenario …. you’re sorting through your stash (or your closet, or your bookcase, or anything else) , looking to purge, but you’re having a hard time parting with things that you know you aren’t using and haven’t touched in ages. Feelings are coming up, definitely some uncertainty – usually overwhelm creeps in for me and I end up keeping too many things – it happens, the subconscious is a busy place!
This weekend I was doing a little bit of spring purging and I came up with system that seems to have improved my output and brought me more neutrality. Based on Marie Kondo’s system, I pick up every object, and ask myself a question about the object: “Does this still serve my highest good?” Alternately, you can ask “Does this serve my greatest inner peace?”
I look for an answer of Yes, No, or some kind of equivocal/uncertain feeling:
YES: If the answer is a clear YES, then yay, keep the thing! It’s still working for you.
NO: If answer is a clear NO, then send it on its way out into the universe. Whatever that thing was in your life for, you’ve already learned those lessons, and its time to make room for fun new things to come into your life! Don’t worry about letting the NOs go, they block better things from coming in, so have faith that getting rid of them is really the best thing for you.
EQUIVOCAL/UNCERTAIN: If you feel equivocal, uncertain, overwhelmed, fuzzy, blank, avoidant, resistant, etc, then you’ve hit an opportunity to go deeper and clear out something you are already working on, something you’re getting ready to release. The object isn’t really what you’ve equivocal about, its a belief or idea that it is associated with. Here are some questions that you can ask that can help:
What have I been learning that this is a part of?
Am I holding on to something I can let go of? What am I holding on to?
Do I need to hold on to it? Am I still working on it, or am I done and I just need to let go?
Why am I holding on to it?
Is what I’m holding even mine, or does it belong to someone else? (other people’s beliefs frequently end up in our head …. )
LET GO: if you’re inclined to try and let go, try the following:
Try visualizing a big rose in front of you. Drop a magnet into the centre of the rose, and tell the rose its job is to suck up everything you’ve releasing. When the rose is done its work, send the it to the edge of the universe and blow it up!
Visualize a big gold sun above your head (make it at least 5 times your size) and fill it with all the good things you want for yourself right now …. (self-validation, amusement and neutrality are always suggested in addition to everything else). Poke a hole in the bottom of the sun and invite it to fill you up completely, down to the quantum level.
Revisit the object – do you still feel uncertain about it? If you do that’s ok, just file it away as ‘on the way out’ or ‘working on releasing’, and put it in a “Revisit this at the next purge” box. Chances are that the next time you do a clearing you’ll be ready to let it go and the attachment to it will be gone.
Yup, the weather is warm, the windows and doors are open, and the bugs are breeding again. My calendar just reminded me to change my moth traps, so I thought I’d send a gentle nudge that you need to make sure you have put all your woollens SAFELY away for the season. I’ve written a lot about this in the past, so instead of reinventing the wheel, I’m just going to refer you to read our past care and mainenance info .
Soak is a super easy, eco-friendly, no-rinse wash for hand or machine washing delicates, from lingerie to cashmere. Soak products are manufactured in Toronto Canada and are available in an assortment of fresh fragrances plus Scentless (for your sensitive side).
Eucalan
Eucalan is is a wonderful no-rinse delicate wash that you can use for your hand knits, lingerie, or anything you want to keep looking like new.
My good friend Jo made this throw for her granddaughter’s birthday (with my help, I devised the project) and it was such a lovely accomplishment that I’ve been wanting to share it for a while! The blanket itself worked out beautifully (I had no doubt otherwise) so that part of the sharing a was no-brainer, but this one felt like a larger subject. You see, Jo makes the coolest mistakes in her knitting, and one of the first pictures she sent me was of her mistakes. They are seriously funky, very tactile and sometimes look a bit like embroidery, or maybe an interesting scar?
Jo is also really good about accepting her mistakes … which led me to wonder what I was being shown? I thought maybe it was about self-acceptance , or maybe self-compassion, or the benefits of imperfection, or accepting what is. I got a little closer, speculating that it was connected with the simple abundance of taking a basic yarn and combining the colours in a simple sequence to make something that lights up. Yes, it can apply to all the above, but I feel like this blanket is also about GRATITUDE.
The Back-Story on Boo-boos
In order to get to gratitude I need to bring you into some back-story on Jo’s & my relationship with boo-boo’s, because she sort of re-defined ‘boo-boos’ for me. A few years ago she was knitting a very simple, very basic baby blanket in garter stitch. She brought it in to me with a big ‘boo-boo’ that was the size of a loonie (to non-Canadians that’s a coin about an inch/2.5cm in diameter). The boo-boo reminded me of the kind of scar people used to get from smallpox vaccinations; it was big, round, textured, and complex, and I have absolutely no idea how it was created. It was one of a kind, nobody was ever going to be able to recreate that stitchwork. She had already knitted well past it, and fixing it was going to require ripping back a very large chunk of work … the amount of ripping that makes you feel a lot of different uncomfortable feelings, all at once.
My assessment was she had two options: 1. We could rip out all her progress and make the mistake disappear, or 2. Leave it as it was and forge forward. To put it simply, there was no way in hell she was taking out all that work, and she asked me if there was something that could cover it up …. and I thought, no, don’t cover it up, keep it as it is. Sure there was a big, unexpected thing-a-ma-doodle in the middle of the blanket, but I knew that every time her family saw that thing they’d be reminded that she made that for them with all the love she has to give (and she has A LOT of love), and that that blanket is a symbol of the love she gives them, and a placeholder for her love when she’s not there to share it. That ‘boo-boo’ said “I hold you in my heart – ALWAYS”.
Accepting and embracing that imperfection created an opportunity to invest the project with greater meaning. If she ripped back the blanket and made it ‘normal’, it would have been fine, and it would have been well received, but it would just be a blanket. If she had kept the boo-boo but hidden it under a patch or some embroidery it would also have been fine too, but the opportunity would still have been lost. I’ve heard many times, from many sources that until you love and accept yourself unconditionally, you can’t love or accept others unconditionally – this is because unconditional love has to come from your overflow. Jo’s acceptance of that boo-boo was a very small manifestation of her unconditional love for herself, and it speaks to the Niagara-falls of spill-over that she’s able to share with her family and friends (the Canadian side of the falls, she really has an immense heart). In that spirit, I now see that a boo-boo can be more than one thing, it can also be a signature and an ‘I love you’.
Gratitude
When I look at this particular project, it’s about what comes after we accept … the gifts we receive once we are living in acceptance, one of which is an incredibly beautiful sense of unconditional gratitude. It isn’t the kind of gratitude for our things, it’s the gratitude for the stuff money can’t buy. Gratitude for life, gratitude for our loved ones, gratitude for love. I’ve also heard that when our acceptance and gratitude expand so does our compassion, which makes everything in life feel a bit lighter and brings in more ease.
I can’t say that accepting your knitting boo-boos exactly as they are is going to instantly open up a new level of emotional and spiritual awareness for you, but I will say that it might be the road less travelled, but a path worth exploring. If you find you’re given the opportunity, it could be a foot in the door to something much more substantial.
ProjectLogistics
Jo’s granddaughter requested a purple blanket for her bed. The kid in question is in the ‘tween age range and Jo wanted something with stylistic longevity that would suit a soon-to-be teen and an eventual young adult. The project also had to knit up fast on larger needles, be machine washable, and be pretty (that’s a given). The pattern had to be easy to follow and fairly simple in terms of execution (low on deep thought and paying close attention, high on ease, flow, and intuition).
We went with the Garter Squish blanket by Stephen West and made it into a simple ombre colour gradation. I devised a colour palette that ran from grapefruity-pinks to magenta-pinks to plum to purple and ending in dark grey.
Cast on 125 sts for an approximate twin-size width
OmbreColour Sequence
Knit with two strands of yarn held together. To finish a row you will need yarn that measures at least 3 times the length of the row (for example, if your work measures 50 cm across you will need at least 150cm of yarn to finish a row).
Always change colours at the edge for the work, it makes it easier to weave them in.
How adorable are these little chickens?! These hens knit up quickly with about 25m of worsted weight yarn (or two strands of a DK or Sport weight held together – about 50m) and are perfect for creating a cute and festive atmosphere. And when they hide a chocolate egg, it’s even more fun! Or use one to keep your soft-boiled eggies warm? Or just keep them around the house and invite them for a coffee clutch …
Yarn Options
I like the idea of rustic, tweedy-looking chickens using Drops Soft Tweed hold 2 strands together with 5mm/US8 needles).
