Linen Knitting Time

If you are planning your summer wardrobe look no further for the perfect knitting fibre – it is linen! Linen looks classic and clean and sophisticated when knit into garments. It is easy to care for – in fact linen gets softer the more it is washed and even likes the dryer! It’s true! Linen lets the wind breeze through the fibres making it a cool choice for the summer season.
The Knit Café just received a great shipment of organic linen yarn from Quince and Co. Both Sparrow and her bigger cousin Kestrel are in stock!

Look at these pretty Spring Colours of the Sparrow!
We have several new colours available including the melange colour called Rosa Mundi and also Sky and Viburnum. See the updated stock of the Sparrow HERE

 

The Quince and Co knitting pattern collection: Sparrow 2019 is now available

Quince and Co has lots of lovely patterns tailored to this sweet linen yarn and now they have added more! This pic above of a sweater pattern called Dekla is my personal favourite but you can see the whole collection HERE. 

Craftily yours
Kristin

Cannuk Yarn on this our Canada Day Weekend!

We will be open this HOT, HOT, HOT, Holiday Weekend!
Saturday 10am-7pm
Sunday 12-4:30pm
Monday – CLOSED

If you are about you should come in and see these new skeins from Riverside Studio Yarn. Kathryn from Riverside is one of Canada’s best and brightest hand dyers. She does beautifully polished work with lots of subtleties. These beauties are dyed on her Super Sock base. This is a fine yarn suitable for sock knitting and so much more besides. It is too hot for bulky projects but a summer sock project is great for beating the heat for those of us who must knit – and I mean all the time!

Amongst the goodies is Firefly! That’s The Knit Cafe’s custom colour from Riverside Studio. It’s only available here. This beautiful colour-way will make you think of an inky blue, night sky scattered with glowing fireflies when you knit it up. We love it! You can check it out in our webshop HERE

If you have been watching our Instagram then you know I just finished knitting this sweater↓

It’s Deschain by Leila Raabe

I must say it was a fun knit and quick too. Also, very easy for a sweater. Two rectangles sewn together and picked up sleeves is all there is to it.   The Kestrel Linen yarn by Quince and Co was so fun to work with too. Never, have I knit with such chunky linen and found it very pleasant indeed.
The Knit Café has a dozen colours of Quince and Co Kestrel in stock – you can check them out HERE

Craftily yours
Kristin

Quince and Co Linen is at The Knit Cafe

Oh happy day! Lets start planning our summer wardrobe. I can’t think of a better day than this with an April ice storm raging outside. I’ve got that summer feeling. How about you?

I have long admired this yarn from afar. It will be no surprise to you to hear then that I am exceedingly pleased that it has finally made it’s way to The Knit Café. Linen is my favourite plant fibre. It feels so cool next to the skin. It hangs beautifully and oh the gentle sheen! Linen somehow manages to be knit into garments that have both structure and drape. It turns out Flax is not just a superfood it is also a superfibre!
Quince and Co has two 100% linen yarns. Above is a pic of Sparrow. It’s the fingering weight linen.

This is Kestrel ↑ . It’s aran weight.  A thick linen yarn  is super-unusual. Quince and Co makes this work by constructing a yarn with a chainette/ribbon treatment. Now knitters who want to give linen a try but don’t like to knit with super fine yarns can give it a go.

One of the best things about Quince and Co is that they create gorgeous patterns for their yarn. I encourage you to check out their whole catalogue HERE
There are many lovely knittables for the Sparrow yarn. For example above is a pic of the Bolan pattern (left) and the Perkin’s Cove pattern (right).
Find more patterns for Sparrow HERE

Here are two designs for the Kestrel yarn. The one on the left is called Deschain and the one on the right is from Quince and Co’s  new pattern collection it is called Gully.
Find more patterns for Kestrel HERE

Some of your other favourite knitwear designers have made awesome things from Quince and Co linen. On the left is a pic of Linho by Joji Locatelli. On the left is the Ula Tee by Isabell Kraemer. It’s a new pattern from Making Magazine 5. Which is right now on it’s way to The Knit Café. Hooray!

Craftily yours
Kristin

PS. Did I mention the Quince and Co linen is organic? It is!

 

new from knitbot

Who says you can’t knit in the summer?
If I didn’t already have a million reasons to spend a summer’s day with busy needles, now I have a few more.

A new book by Hannah Fettig!
This one is devoted to knitting patterns that feature linen.  That suits me fine, since I love the stuff.  The ebook containing 5 pretty and versatile pieces is available for preorders from Quince and Co. You can get individual patterns from Hannah’s Ravelry Page

The patterns were knit with 100% linen in a gauge that matches exactly to Euroflax linen.

These are the colours currently in stock.
Top row: natural, crabapple, aqua
Next row: steel, cream, island moss
Next row: charcoal, red, navy
Bottom: pewter
246 m (270yds) is $26

Craftily yours
Kristin

leaping along

Leaping Lizards! – an extra day in February!
Given the choice most of us would pick another month to squeeze in an extra day. Maybe May or August would rank higher on the popularity meter. Still we are not the choosers and February it is. So far, my February 29th is a reminder that we do in fact still live in the Great White North where the weather is something to be reckoned with.  On my walk to work today with ice pellets assaulting my face I was glad that I was made with the sterner stuff of a born and bred. Also glad to be surrounded by several layers of wool.
It seems like we still need some warm things for a while.

Do you know about Quince and Co?
It seems as though I am being led back to this sight again and again.  They have beautiful patterns (like this amazing cabled scarf) and excellent photographs to show them off.  They are a company that is well branded, once you become aware of them you can tell a Quince and Co style from across a darkened room and around the corner. Have some fun looking over this site.  You will come away with lots of inspiration and maybe a pattern or two.

Craftily Yours
Kristin