Make it an epic march... Brand new for baby... “Awww…” - we couldn’t help but say it when we started to unpack this new yarn from Sirdar. Snuggly Baby Speckle (135m/50g) is a cotton (60%) and acrylic (40%) blend in a DK weight. Machine washable on a gentle cycle, you’ll love how soft the cotton feels. We have it in all eight mottled colours: denim, candy, lime, dune, sand, lilac, peachy and breezy along with cute, cute patterns. acrylic). At South, check out the Sirdar Smiley Stripes (same as Baby Bamboo but with variegated colours). Also from Sirdar, we’ve been restocking our shelves in both stores with Baby Bamboo (80% bamboo, 20% wool) and Snuggly DK (55% nylon, 45% It’s just the right time to make something cozy, cute and machine washable for the little people in your life. Sirdar Book 416 features new designs in Snuggly Baby Speckle Canadian Content We have replenished our bookshelves with some of our most popular Canadian knitwear designers. The inspirations in these designs will take you from fun Knitting New Mittens & Gloves by Robin and simple to classic and epic. Work your Melanson way through Robin Melanson’s Knitting New Mittens and Gloves and learn how to thrum, cable, change colours and add embellishments. Fiona Ellis will show you how to make classic designs for garments and accessories in gorgeous cables and fabulous fair isle (stranded colourwork) in her books, Inspired Cable Knits and Inspired Fair Isle Knits. Sally Melville has written a fantastic book on colour knitting, called simply Color in which she explains all the ways and techniques for incorporating colour into your knitted projects. Above: Inspired Cable Knits and Inspired Fair Isle Knits by Fiona Ellis She’ll show you how to knit timeless garments in Styles and teams up Below: Color, Styles and Mother-Daughter Knits by Sally Melville with daughter, Caddy to teach you how to shape garments for your perfect fit in MotherDaughter Knits. These books are available at both RCY locations. March 2012 Page 2 Epic Wristwarmers Each month, we’re putting a new project kit in our online store. Our feature project for March is the Epic Wristwarmer package. Knit in the round on double pointed needles, these wristwarmers will keep your hands cozy and warm and your fingers free… to knit, text, swipe; whatever your heart desires. We’ve combined RCY Epic yarn (100% wool) for warmth and Rowan Kidsilk Haze Stripe (70% super kid mohair, 30% silk) to make a super soft, colourful combo. Kidsilk Haze Stripe comes in a big ball (50g/420m) with self-striping colours picked by designer Kaffe Fassett. No two pairs will look exactly alike. The Epic Wristwarmers kit includes the pattern and one ball each of Epic and Kidsilk Haze Stripe. Our test knitters are able to get two pairs of wristwarmers from one kit; four pairs if you add one more ball of Epic to your kit package. Epic Wristwarmers: cozy, soft and fingerless. Available only at River City Yarns! You can purchase a kit online at www.rivercityyarns.com and have it mailed out or put aside for pick up at one of our RCY locations. Diamond Luxury Collection: Mulberry & Merino 50% Mulberry Silk and 50% Merino Wool. Sigh. It’s just the most beautiful yarn. Shiny, soft, warm and we now have it in 13 colours. Each beautiful skein has 90m/50g and knits up at a worsted gauge of 21sts over 10cm on 4.5mm needles. The Mulberry and Merino wrap has been a popular project pattern for this yarn, taking 3 skeins to do a ruffled scarf version and 7 skeins for the full shoulder wrap. Available at both the southside and downtown locations. We’ve got you covered. The Mulberry and Merino wrap (pictured right) takes 7 skeins. Make a scarf version with only 3. South: Big Bamboo North: Malabrigo Lace We have new colours in Sirdar’s Big Bamboo (50% bamboo sourced viscose, 30% acrylic, 20% wool) at our southside location. Big Bamboo is a super bulky yarn, achieving 9 sts over 10cm on 10.0mm needles. It’s super quick! Each fat ball has 40m/50g. We have it in charcoal (#200), paprika (#204), cream (#205), cinnamon (#207) and silver (#210). Pair up your Big Bamboo with Book #409 for “15 easy hand knits for women in fabulously soft & light Sirdar Big Bamboo”. Malabrigo Lace Baby Merino is 100% baby merino wool and it is soooo soft! We told you about this yarn in our last newsletter but we had to do a repeat, ‘cause… our back order came in! We now have #173 Stonechat, #24 Vermillion, #242 Intenso, #32 Jewel Blue, #56 Olive and #97 Cuarzo. One 50g skein has 430m and knits up Malabrigo Lace (top to 28sts over 10cm on bottom) in Intenso, 2.75mm needles. Jewel Blue and Cuarzo. Want to start simple? Try the scarf pattern printed on the back of the ball band. Big Bamboo Knits—15 designs for women Try it for a scarf (one skein) or a shawl (two skeins) and see how lovely it is to knit up in a lace pattern. It blocks beautifully! March 2012 Page 3 March and April Workshops and Events Learn to knit with beads in two different ways when you take workshop on “Mrs. Beeton’s Wristwarmers”. This fancy cuff keeps the pulse points warm and adds a touch of feminine class to your jackets and sweaters. We’re offering this workshop in March downtown and April at the southside. then you’re off to other dpn projects! Join us on Easter weekend for another KITR class—and make little Easter Bunny Egg Cozies. They are so cute! Once Easter is over, you can stuff them and turn them into little baby toys. Left, Right, Left! Get recruited into sock knitting. to try a pair on finer yarn and smaller neeThis month, we have Caldles. This workshop will be held at our gary artist, Jill Nuckles in downtown location in April. We have another knitting with beads the store to teach Needle We’re also running another session of the project workshop that you might like. Felting. You can see Jill’s This one is called the Canadian Cowichan Sweater (Design) work at the Alberta Craft Workshop. This is a fairly intensive Egyptian Beaded Gallery (10186—106 sweater design workshop. You’ll learn to Bracelet. You’ll add Street, Edmonton). Jill knit a traditional Cowichan sweater from makes monsters… cute, scratch (no pattern). We’ll be working on adorable ones. And she’ll a child size sweater to get practice at all Easter Bunny Egg teach you how to make the techniques. You can take what you them too. You’ll sculpt with Cozy learn and knit an adult size sweater next. beads to your wool and needles and This is a short sweater class (four lessons knitting as you go you’ll have so much fun! No over five weeks) so you need to and create a prerequisites—absolute beput time in your calendar to sparkly wristlet. ginners are absolutely welcomplete homework. Take this onecome. Jill will be teaching at session workshop both stores in the month of The Egyptian Beaded And, we’ll be doing another bein March at our Bracelet March. ginner lace Wisp workshop in southside store April. Wisp is a lovely, light & Learn to Crochet in a day! and in April at our downtown location. lacey scarf/shawl. Make holes on Take our Beginner Crochet purpose! Back by popular demand, we have another classes on Saturday, April 7. Thrummed Mitten class coming up in In the morning, you’ll learn Free! Join us on the first SunMarch. These “fleece lined” mittens are the basic steps in crochet day of each month for Drop in super warm. Learn to make and knit in and in the afternoon, you’ll Knitting Circle. This is your thrums of wool roving in this three-part get hooked on a few interme- Don’t miss the Needle opportunity to meet others and evening class. diate stitches. We’ve broken Felting workshop with get a little knittin’ done. This Jill Nuckles! this class up into two parts so event happens at both RCY locaLearn to knit in the round on double that you can sign up for as tions, every month. pointed needles (dpns) and make an adormuch as you think you need. able Baby Hat. No babies? No problem! For details on any of these workshops, We’ve used our “baby hats” as toppers for please visit our website at Another very popular class is back—Sock all kinds of things—your French press, Boot Camp. Learn to knit boot (thick) www.rivercityyarns.com and click on the cookie tins, small tea pots. The [double] socks during this two-part workshop. workshops link or call us at either store point is… learn to knit without seams and Make a couple of pairs and you’ll be ready (contact info on page 4). Block Busters! Get a copy of Nicky Epstein’s book, “Knitting Block by Block” from us (we’ve recently restocked) and then join us for these short (2hour) workshops to learn dozens of techniques. This month, we’re offering: Domino, Entrelac, Weave Knitting, Increases & Decreases, Beginner Lace, Fair Isle 1 and/or Fair Isle 2. We’re taking requests for April workshops. Send an email note, attn. Cynthia to south@rivercityyarns and let her know which block(s) inspire you. We thought you’d like to know... We have two locations! River City Yarns Downtown #107, 10106-111 Avenue Edmonton, AB T5G 0B4 Phone: (780) 477-9276 Email: [email protected] River City Yarns Southside 3438-99 Street Edmonton, AB T6E 5X5 Phone: (780) 450-9276 Email: [email protected] rivercityyarns.com Pass it on! If you enjoy reading our newsletter, pass it on! Your friends and family can subscribe by visiting our website and clicking on the Yarn Bird link. Rowan has recently put a collection of ten timeless designs from Kim Hargreaves, Sarah Hatton, Leah Sutton and Erika Knight up on their website and… they’re free! The designs are all made in Rowan Kid Classic and include a bold, chunky stripe sweater originally featured in Rowan Knitting Magazine 32, an elegant slash neck sweater from Rowan Knitting Magazine 30 and a cute, fairisle jumper dress taken from Rowan Studio Issue 14. Check them out at www.knitrowan.com and click on “online collections”. Brand New: Addi Lace Long Tips! addi has just released the addi Click Lace-Long Tips kits! The Lace-Long Tips kit features 8 pairs of addi Lace tips along with 3 pliable blue addi-Lifeline Cords to create 24”, 32” and 40” needles, 1 Click connector and a gold addi heart pin. The addi Click Lace-Long Tips are just over 5“ long and are housed in an eye-catching hot pink case. The addi-Lifeline Cords were created to allow knitters to work a lifeline in to their projects, quickly and easily. Each cord features two threadable eyelets on each end, near the tip connections, through which a waste yarn can be run. When not in use, the eyelets remain closed. Order yours today at a special intro price of $179.95. Churchmouse “at home” collection We just unpacked new patterns from Churchmouse Yarns and Tea… our favourite LYS on Bainbridge Island, Washinton. The "At Home" series includes beautiful wraps/afghans, comfy throws, a crocheted basket and two tea cozies. There are eight patterns in total in this series - come in and pick your favorites or you can purchase a complete set. You can view the new collection here: www.churchmouseyarns.com/collections/churchmouse-at-home-patterns We have most of the Churchmouse Yarns and Tea pattern collections: “At Home”, “Classics” and “Wee Ones” in stock at any given time. Come in and check out the whole line. We’ve knit/crocheted a lot of them too, so we can help you select materials, interpret instructions and admire your finished projects!