New cashmere yarn!

News on the luxury fiber front! Cascade has come out with a gorgeous 60% Royal Alpaca/ 20% Cashmere/ 20% Silk yarn called Epiphany. We have stocked it in 4 vibrant colors of white, red, gold and teal. This is a perfect gift yarn with enough yardage (273 yds in a DK weight) for a one skein project... think lace scarf/cowl, hat... cabled gloves? I am going to wind up a skein today in fact to start a pair of cabled and beaded gloves for a gift... now the only problem... which glorious color? :)

HOLIDAY OPEN HOUSE!

Ewetopia's Open House, November 19th from 3-8pm! We will have snacks, drinks (including some yummy punch), door prizes, BIG SALES, and some quick and simple project ideas for gifts! We have many kits as well for the knitters on your list or to make your project buying a breeze!

We hope to see you all this Friday!

Check out our new free patterns!

Our website is full of new patterns! We hope to get some more up soon as well so check back!
http://www.ewetopiafibershop.com/patterns.html

Glorious Borealis

Beautiful new yarn from Berroco, inspired by the aurora borealis, which is evident in the magical colorways! Chunky at 3.5 sts per inch and a soft and light weight blend of wool and acrylic.

May Cardigan

This is a new delightful design that you can get for free with the purchase of our hand dyed Prime Alpaca or on Ravelry!

Demeter Cardigan

It's finished! Check it out on Ravelry: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/demeter-cardigan

World Wide Knit in Public Day 2010

June 19th outside the shop. Be there! If it is a truly nasty rainy day we will reschedule for July 10th (not the official WWKIP day/week but any day is a good day for promoting fiber arts!)

The Demeter Cardigan

This has been a fun project so far, a hardcore cabled waistband and simple stockinette stitch skirt and bodice. Love it. Love the yarn. I am now addicted to working with hand dyed yarns. This is a kettle dyed worsted weight merino wool.

I'll keep you updated on the progress of the darts and cabled finishing touches that are dancing through my head!

Dye Studio

Ah it is sweet day to stay home and dye yarn, blend fibers to be carded and listen to NPR (although Stella prefers music and constantly changes the station until she finds something she can dance to!). My dye studio is as perfect as I had hoped for! I can watch the sheep grazing and playing in the pasture and draw inspirations from visual nature, versus the back room of the shop!

My are they getting big!

It's always amazing how fast those lambs grow! These little ones were born mid-March, and now we have another "crop" of lambs arriving any day now! Ah, the midnight walks to the barn commences.

Fun with fiber blending

Yummy spring colors! Thank you to Patty for lending me her wonderful Pat Green carder to play with. What a difference a full size drum carder makes versus my little Louet roving carder.
The weaving above was my idea for our little lap looms, it works great! All kinds of inspirations come to mind when I see those beautiful blended clouds!

My next adventure will be arriving in a couple weeks... I broke down and ordered the electric Crazy Monkey Creations triple skein winder. My wrist is very excited.

Knitting Truckers

Check this out! I love it!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704896104575139990857438962.html

Thank you Amanda for sending this great article!

Spring

Wendell Berry

When reading this poem I can remember vividly coming home not long ago to our first time mamma ewe Betsy and seeing her out in the middle of the field with twins. Berry's words just fills me with peace.

They are fighting again the war to end war,
And the ewe flock, bred in October, brings forth
in March. This so far remains, this pain
and renewal, whatever war is being fought.
We go through the annual passage of birth
and death, triumph and heartbreak, love
and exasperation, mud, milk, mucus, and blood.
Yet once more the young ewe stands with her lambs
in the dawnlight, the lambs well-suckled
and dry. There is no happiness like this.

The window again welcomes in the light
of lengthening days. The river in its old groove
passes again beneath opening leaves.
In their brevity, between cold and shade,
flowers again brighten the woods floor.

This then may be the prayer without ceasing,
this beauty and gratitude, this moment.

Wendell Berry: III
-from Given: Poems, Shoemaker & Hoard Publishers, 2005

Snow Flower Mittens

As winter and spring collide, I still want to wear mittens some mornings but flowers are at the forefront of my thoughts, hence the "Snow Flower" mitten design. These snazzy mittens even have a built in double cuff for extra warmth. I have designed them to be knit with our very own Ewetopia Farm Chocolate worsted and our hand dyed Stranded Merino & Mohair.

New Lambs

What would spring be without new lambs! We have 6 new lambs so far from 4 ewes. All has gone well, only one sorrowful experience (you can read more about that on our farm blog - http://www.ewetopiafarmfibercsa.blogspot.com) 11 more ewes to go.. hopefully not until May!

Hand Dyed Local Merino

Check out our new local hand dyed (and natural) merino/nylon blend. Super strong and vibrantly dyed, did I mention local?

New hues

As the Madison Knitters Guild Knit-in approaches we have many new colors emerging from the back room. Does anyone have a good name for this color way? I'd love some idea's! I swear that is the hardest part for me... naming....

Lateral Swing Sweater

It's finally done! This sweater has been my nemesis for the past 2 years! Not because it's a hard pattern, but because when I wrote the pattern I figured my gauge out wrong. This was devastating to me since the original sweater I had made for my mother for Christmas ended up being 3 sizes to big for her. I then preceded to knit up another size with the same pattern I had wrote for the first. Due to my (still unknown) gauge discrepancy, it did not turn our right, very small in fact. I then understood to my horror that I had the wrong gauge. This is the 3rd time I have made this sweater and it now works, but one st per inch was all it was between gauges to make or break a sweater pattern I found out.

We do have this lovely pattern at the shop and on Ravelry now for sale! Take a look! Its an easy and fun sweater to make, and it drapes beautifully!

New LOCAL merino yarn

We have finally received our shipment from Zeilinger Fiber Mill in Frankenmuth, MI of our very own merino sheep! We had it blended with 25% nylon in hopes of creating our own sock yarn. Unfortunately it is a bit thick for socks... worsted weight... But will make glorious strong slippers or a sweater! It is nicely spun and I have high hopes of it not pilling very much. I will give you an update on that once I have it knitted up! We have dyed it into many beautiful colors and also have a bunch of the natural cream! the put up is 3.5 oz skeins that are approx. 200 yards.

Living window display

Felted Pottery!

Hollow wet felted pottery! The Tuesday and Friday knitting groups were intrigued by this idea and looked to me to come up with a class. I was excited by a challenge and found a ball went right home to try my hand yet again at wet felting by hand. After about 10 minutes (probably not long enough) of soapy water and wet wool that was starting to felt but still not looking like much, I was getting bored and irritated by how messy it seemed so I tied it into a lingerie bag and threw it in with the next (small) load of laundry. It worked great! I let it go through the whole cycle and when i took it out I cut the top off, popped the ball out and this is what was left! Tonight I plan on trying it again to improve my technique and make it thicker and larger... 4-square ball here I come!

Dyes are in!

We have received our shipment of Greener Shades acid dyes! They are metal free and have wonderful vibrant colors and countless color combination's and variations! We hope to be able to start some dyeing classes in the spring/summer months in our new (still in progress) dyeing studio at Ewetopia Farm in La Farge. http://greenershades.stillrivermill.com/

Our Website is almost live for shopping!

Exciting news! Ewetopia's SHOP ONLINE button is almost finished! Again...
Stay updated!

Another project completed!

What beautiful hoarfrost we had last week! I just HAD to do a photo shoot outside on the rose bushes. This was especially fitting since this is Stella's "Snowflake" cardigan!

Stella is now warm!

It's finished! Stella's new twined alpaca coat! Watch for the pattern at Ewetopia or on Ravelry!

Join a Knitting Group!

Here at Ewetopia we love to socialize with our projects. We have 3 free to join groups that meet during the week:
Monday: 4-7pm
Tuesday: 1-3pm
Friday: 10-12pm

It's a great time to start a new project... or finish up that project you've had on the needles for years! We've all done that!

Frosty Twined Baby Jacket

This is my newest inspiration, born from a chilly child who is quickly out growing her little "Climbing Rose Cardigan" and seems to be sensitive to acrylics and nylons (go figure!). After being introduced to twined knitting I had a large ball of wool/alpaca Cuzco from Berroco left from a frogged project, plus some pure alpaca in a chunky weight (Cascade Baby Chunky Alpaca) thus I did a 2-color cast on and went to town! It's a bit tedious, but I have actually even considered making myself a sweater out of this yarn combo and technique! It is amazingly warm, soft and supple, yet still very sturdy and dense. Perfect for a baby coat. Stella will be quite stylish once I get this finished!

New Projects and Resolutions

Well Happy New Year! Most people have new year's resolutions, mine this year is to finish all (or a good chunk of) my projects that I have stashed just about everywhere! Here is one (literally) that I just finished last night! ... Of course now I need to make the other one...