What a difference a day makes.

BEFORE

Look at this sorry state of affairs. This is how our Lichen and Lace display looked the last day of our Summer Sale.

AFTER

This is how it looks now! Hooray!
So much gorgeous Lichen and Lace in 80/20 Sock Weight, in Worsted Merino, in Rustic Heather Sport, in Marsh Mohair and some 1-ply Fingering Merino too.
Quantities have been updated in the webshop.

I always take new photos when Lichen and Lace comes in to make sure we get an accurate depiction of the new batch. Be aware that I have not done that yet. Also, there are some colours not represented like Nutmeg, Gingersnap, and Rainy Day, so if you are in the neighbourhood stop by and see these lovelies in person.

Craftily yours
Kristin

Announcing The Knit Cafe Yarn Club 2019

We are so happy to be announcing another year of Yarn Club with The Knit Café. This is now our fourth year of creating patterns in collaboration with talented yarn producers and then sending them off to knitters near and far to be turned into gorgeous things.

Yarn Club is for you if you want to get to know new yarns and fibres and be introduced to yarn-artists from Canada and abroad that you are yet to discover. It is also for you if you would like to try new knitting techniques and delve into patterns that are different from your norm. Yarn Club will also be for you if you would like to have a little bit of formal structure built into your knitting pursuits. Yarn Club members receive 5 projects spread throughout the year to sustain a whole year of happy knitting times!

Knit Café Yarn Club projects have run the gamut from socks to shawls to mittens and hats and slippers and toys and on and on! In the past we have worked with talented artists such as Lichen and Lace and Hedgehog Fibre, Julie Asselin and Madelinetosh. What and Who will it be this year? Each project is a surprise, so you will have to wait and see.

This year Yarn Club memberships will include extra patterns and discounts beyond the 5 projects.

We hope we will have you join us this year!

Read all about it and join The Knit Café Yarn Club 2019 HERE.

The last project from our Yarn Club 2018 edition is Equinox

It’s a simple shawl pattern to show off this ↓ yarn.

Equinox was knit with this gorgeous yarn from Olann of Ireland. This custom colour was dyed just for us and our Yarn Club Members 2018. The colour is called “Hatchling”. The Knit Cafe has other gorgeous colours of Olann Sock Lite in our webshop now but they are moving out fast.

Craftily yours
Kristin

Yarn Indulgences Trunk Show October 27

You heard right – The Knit Café is hosting another trunk show featuring another terrific, local, hand dyer! It’s this Saturday!

Yarn Indulgences Trunk Show at The Knit Café
55 Roncesvalles Avenue
Please join us on Saturday October 27
11am-4pm

Yarn Indulgences is known for their beautiful, variegated, colour-ways dyed on luxury fibres such as merino and silk and cashmere – oh my! Some of these yarns are spun right here in Ontario. We featured such a yarn – called Zed Lux Worsted when we created our Branching Out Mitten Pattern. I can tell you from personal experience this blend of merino cashmere and nylon is a dream to work with.

We look forward to seeing all the goodies when Deborah from Yarn Indulgences arrives on Saturday. We hope you will come buy and say hello to this talented lady and give the yarn a squeeze.

We are so lucky to have such creative spirits in our midst!

Craftily yours
Kristin

Announcing Yarn Club 2018!

Hooray, it’s a new Yarn Club for a new year!

This will be The Knit Cafe’s third year of providing a whole year of knit-fun to knitters who join us on the wonderful journey we call Yarn Club.

Yarn Club members get their hands (and needles) on exclusive and exquisite yarns. Hand dyed beauties all, made with care by local and international artists. Some lucky yarn club members will receive limited editions colours designed just for The Knit Cafe Yarn Club. If you would like these rare commodities choose a “Make Mine Custom” subscription. If you would prefer a pallet of colours chosen to suit your personal tastes, we can make that happen too, choose a “Picked Just For Me” subscription.

The Knit Cafe Yarn Club is not only beautiful yarns, there is more! Each yarn club package is a complete knitting project with yarn and a pattern to match. The Knit Cafe uses all it’s crafty wiles to develop original knitting patterns designed to compliment each featured yarn.

The 2018 Yarn Club subscription will include 4 Gifties dispersed quarterly throughout the year. Two one-skein, quick knits and two more generously proportioned knit projects will be featured. The first will be ready for pick up or delivery mid-June.

If you would like to find out more about The Knit Cafe’s Yarn Club 2018 and become a member check it out right HERE

Craftily yours
Kristin

Updates for Lichen and Lace

With our recent shipment of Lichen and Lace now happily settled into the shop we have also updated our webshop with the new colours!

So many gorgeous skeins to choose from including some newly added colours to the Lichen and Lace line. Welcome colours Coral and Sugar Plum to The Knit Café. Nice to meet you!

Have you seen the latest edition of Amirisu Magazine? If you are like me you are smitten with the Lumens scarf pattern which features Lichen and Lace 80/20 in two colours which are now in stock at The Knit Café.

Soot and Silver Fox are the colours in question. Two beautiful neutrals.

Check out all the Lichen and Lace 80/20 colours right HERE

Craftily yours
Kristin

Gifts For The Knitter Who Has Everything

Let’s face it, some people are hard to shop for. Even folks who are really into their hobbies, they eventually have every gadget known to man,  but I bet your bottom dollar a knitter you know does not yet have some of these cute and useful knitter’s notions and tools.

1. Honeycomb stitch markers with bee row minder, package of 7, $8
2. Hedgehog Needle Gauge, hand made from sustainable bamboo, $18
3. Whale Needle Gauge, $18
4. Fox Needle Gauge, $18
5. Sheep Stitch Marker Set, a beautiful tin with 5 circular stitch markers and a darning needle, handmade in Canada, $23
6. Brass Cat Stitch Marker Set, with 8 stitch markers shaped like kitty cats, and a darning needle. Also comes in silver. $23
7. Wee scissors, flower shaped or stork shaped in all different colours, made in Canada $18
8. Pretty Bird Tin with 8 flower stitch markers, $23

These Needle Cases will hold straight, and double pointed needles and crochet hooks too. There is a pocket for all your other knit necessities. Available in grey denim with gingham lining, or blue denim with striped lining. These cases are beautifully hand sewn in Canada by Jesabelle B. $70 each

Lykke Needles are made in Norway from driftwood, need I say more?
The wood is polished and stitches slide beautifully, the cord is very pliable and the connections are very good. Needles come all organized in a beautiful case too!
We have two interchangeable sets. The small set comes with 9 short tips sized 3.25-6.5mm, with two 40cm, and one of each of 50cm, and 60cm cords. $155
The large set has twelve longer tips sized 3.5-12mm, with two 60cm, two 80cm and one 100cm cord.  $173
Both sets come connectors, keys and stoppers.

Shawl Pins by Jul

1. Classic Waves, Rosewood Shawl Pin $21
2. Alhambra Lace Pin, White Brass, $42
3. Mod Leather Shawl Pin, $34
4. Merino Ewe Shawl Stick, White Brass, $29

1. Aitken and Hyde, yarn bowls, hand made locally $45
2. Eucalan Wool Wash, no rinse! 100ml $5, 500ml $13
3. Woolens Pattern Book with patterns by Jared Flood from Brooklyn Tweed. This book has beautiful patterns for knit accessories made with Brooklyn Tweed Yarns which are also available at The Knit Café. The Woolens Book  is $39
4. Project Bags by Kate Austin Designs. These fabrics are designed by local artist Kate Austin, they are block-printed by hand on soft organic cotton. There are so many beautiful prints to choose from and many sizes to hold any size project. Shown here:
   Draw String Project Bag $20, Tote $45

If that wasn’t enough, there is always yarn. The Knit Café has a fabulous selection of hand dyed yarns right now. Most of it is created right here in Canada. Just this week we received these gorgeous skeins of bulky merino by Lichen and Lace from New Brunswick.
Top, left to right: Amber, Rosewood, Faded Rose, Orchid, Pressed Flowers
Bottom, left to right: Evergreen, Teal Tide, Pewter, Calm Water, Blue Lagoon, Wildflowers, $28 each

Also newly arrived are these lovely skeins from Zen Yarn Garden, a dyer from Sarnia Ontario. This sock weight yarn might be the softest I have ever worked with!
Top, left to right: Arabia, Botanical, Mermaid, Notebook, Carcross Summer 1989
Middle, left to right: Tiffany, Dish of Pears, Notting Hill, Annie, Amadeus
Bottom, left to right: Aladdin, Into The Woods, Camelot, Matrix, Ted, $24 each

Give the gift of MORE KNITTING with The Knit Cafe’s Yarn Club Holiday Edition. This is a subscription lasting six months with three packages. Each package contains an original Knit Café Pattern and beautiful yarn to match. $100 plus shipping.
Read all the details HERE

If none of that is quite right for the knitter in your life there are always

GIFT CERTIFICATES FROM THE KNIT CAFE

Call: 416 533 5648, or write us: theknitcafe@hotmail.com, and we can send a gift certificate through email!

Craftily yours
Kristin

Julie Asselin is back in stock!

The Knit Café is just busting with hand dyed yarn and today we received even more from Quebecois artist Julie Asselin.  It’s so interesting how every hand dyer has a recognizable style. I would say that Julie’s style is sophisticated, both in her choices of yarn bases and in her colour application.

We have two yarns from Julie Asselin in the shop. One is called Leizu DK. We’ve had this one before and just loved seeing what you made with it. Boy, does this yarn knit up great! It’s a blend of 90% superwash merino and 10% silk and a  tight spin with a little sheen from the silk. It’s the yarn featured in the popular Campside Shawl. It knit’s to a standard DK tension 20-24 stitches per 10cm.

We also have a brand new yarn in the shop. It is a sock weight yarn called Nomad. It’s comprised of 80% superwash merino and a healthy amount of nylon; 20% for strong sock knitting. Each skein has a generous 412m (450 yards), a little extra for long socks or shawl or sweater projects . Perhaps the best thing about Nomad is it’s pedigree. Nomad is produced  ethically from American sheep’s wool and spun in the USA too. This yarn is spun with extra loft for light skeins that trap air and become soft and subtle with blocking. Julie has worked hard to develop dye methods that are less toxic and produce less water waste. Maybe most importantly this yarn is lovely and will look even better once you’ve knit it up!

Craftily yours
Kristin

I’m Finding My Fade! How About You?

A certain kind of madness has hit the knitting community – it’s called “Find Your Fade”.  Why is this project so popular and what the heck is it?
It’s a gigantic shawl project, definitely a double or a triple neck wrapper, it is asymmetrical, with open eyelet sections broken up with garter stitch sections but most of all it is a huge colour explosion. I think the popularity of this project is due to the happy challenge of combining 7 different colours of yarn and imposing an order, but not just any order, a colour-fade.  In the “Find Your Fade shawl each colour is added to the next in the hopes that the eye will blend them and each colour will have a gentle transition. It is harder to do then one would think.

Iwona and I spend a lot of time trying to “find our fade” It is crazily addictive! Even though I have just finished my Find Your Fade shawl, I already want to start another one!

Here it is! (pre-blocking)
I used a combination of Lichen and Lace 80/20 and Hedgehog Fibre Sock, with a little bit of Koigu KPPM thrown in for good measure.

There is a one night workshop at The Knit Café this Thursday where we will be Findin Our Fade and how! So I decided to put together a few possible fade combinations for students. We have so many lovely hand dyed yarns in the shop to choose from. These combos are a mix of Yarn Indulgences, Lichen and Lace, Zen Yarn Garden, Koigu KPPM, and of course Hedgehog Fibre which is what the original “Find Your Fade” shawl was knit from.

Pretty nice eh?

Find Your Fade Knitted Shawl Workshop

Thursday September 28, 6:30-9pm

Register HERE

You can find the pattern for Find Your Fade by Andrea Mowry right HERE. Since the inception of this shawl Andrea has designed some wonderful spin-off patterns, check out So Faded and So Faded Pint Size, Free Your Fade and now a new mystery KAL What the Fade.

Craftily Yours
Kristin

New stock from your favourite hand dyers!

It’s a banner day! Brand new stock has arrived from both Lichen and Lace and Hedgehog Fibres! We can’t get enough of these beautiful works of art in skein form.

It’s a huge selection of Lichen and Lace! These↑ are all the colours of the 80/20 yarn, which is Lichen and Lace’s sock yarn. 80% superwash merino is blended with 20% nylon. It is lovely and soft; good for socks and any other light knits.

The shelves are also filled with a bounty of colours of worsted weight. Look at these beauties ↑

For the first time we have a few skeins of Hedgehog Fibre Aran Weight in stock. This will be just the ticket for those of you who have been eye-balling this beautiful yarn but are scared of fine-weight yarns. The Aran Weight is comprised of 100% superwash merino and has super squishability.

Of course we also have sock yarn from Hedgehog Fibre! What are we crazy? Hedgehog’s Sock Yarn is just what a knitter needs to punch up a light weight project, shawls and socks and even sweaters like “So Faded” by Andrea Mowry.

Bring your hankie, in case of drooling.
Craftily yours
Kristin

Mineville returns!

Mineville – economize on the price and not the pretty.
That is my amateur slogan for this terrifico yarn company who takes mill-ends and hand dyes them and sends them to us at a discount price which we get to pass on to you! Mineville 80%merino, 20% nylon sock weight yarn is only $16 a skein. Yay!

More fun for us… we get to name the colours!
This time we named the colours for this very special day – the 50th anniversary of the record album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Each colour is named after a song on this amazing album.

Come in this weekend and check out the Mineville and all our other beautiful Canadian made hand dyed fingering weight yarns like Lichen and Lace and Zen Yarn Garden. Come in too cause there will be a really cool Pop Up Shop sharing space with us on Saturday.

Craftily yours
Kristin