Enjoy the warm streak while it lasts…fall and winter are on their way! We’ve had a busy September stocking new fall yarns in the store as well as putting together our Fall class listings. Here are some immediate ones that it’s not too late to sign up for:

LEARN TO KNIT - Monday, October 1st - 7:00pm-9:00pm
BEGINNER’S KNITTED SOCKS! - Tuesday, October 2nd & 23rd, 7:00pm-9:00pm
NEEDLE FELTED PUMPKINS! - Wednesday, October 3rd, 7:00pm-9:00pm
BEAD KNITTING WITH A CHART - Tuesday, October 9th, 7:00pm-9:00pm

In new yarn news, we’ve just gotten some great aran weight yarn from Debbie Bliss - Donegal Luxury Aran! It has a gorgeous speckle twisted in and comes in many classy colors. The yarn as well as the book Luxury Collection that contains patterns for it is available in our online store as well. We’ll be adding more kits from this book, which you will find here as soon as we can post them.

Also new is Kaffe Fasset’s line of Regia sock yarns!

Kaffe applies his knack for color to these self-striping and variegated sock yarns and we have them in store and soon they, too will be online! Stay Tuned! They are now in the online store - check ‘em out!

We are getting new fall yarns in every day! So, we are extending our summer sale - come in to see what lovely yarns we have available for 30% off! Just to name a few…

Jo Sharp Desert Garden, Soho Summer

Rowan/RYC Calmer, Soft Tweed, Cotton Jeans, Bamboo Tape, Cotton Braid, Holiday, Biggy Print, Cotton Rope, Big Wool Tuft & more!

ALL Jaeger yarns

Noro Daria, Blossom

Debbie Bliss Cotton DK, Merino DK, Cotton Cashmere, Merino Aran

ALL Lily Chin yarns

GGH Tara

Berroco Monet, Love It, Bling Bling

Artful Yarns Cartoon, Olympic, Marine

Classic Elite Summer Set, Sundance

Reynolds Cabana, Blossom

…and there are many, many more! Sale applies only to in-stock items and many of these are discontinued yarns, so get ‘em while it lasts!

Be safe this weekend and we’ll see you on Tuesday!

Ok, linen might not sound like the most desirable fiber to work with, but you haven’t seen (or felt) what has been done with it!

Louet is the most famous for its Euroflax 100% linen. This yarn is machine washable AND dryable and is produced in Louet’s special wet spun method. It is not only double-boiled, but also steamed for maximum softness. The fabric that is produced from Euroflax gets softer and softer with every wash and helps you stay cool on these hot steamy summer days! Euroflax comes in Sport (6 sts per inch), Worsted (4.5-5.5 sts per inch) and Chunky (3.5-4 sts per inch) weights in a wide range of colors that you can view at the links just provided. Here are just a small assortment of available patterns for Euroflax:

If you’re looking for linen with a little warmth for a chilly summer evening, Louet has a “magical” new yarn called Mer-Lin - a blend of 70% merino wool and 30% wet spun linen. Mer-Lin is also machine washable and dryable for easy care! Mer-Lin comes in both Sport and Worsted weight.

We’ve blogged about it before, but another lovely linen yarn is GGH’s Linova. I’ve personally started using this yarn to make the Evening Star Top from the Summer ‘06 Interweave Knits and the fabric being made is drapey without losing its shape and shows cables beautifully! Linova comes in MANY colors, any of which may be ordered if we don’t have your desired shade in stock:

Click the photo above for the enlarged view!

A fairly new yarn from Rowan’s RYC collection, Natural Silk Aran has a secret…it ALSO has linen content! Made from 15% silk, 12% linen and 73% viscose, you will LOVE the soft hand and the silky feel. It comes in beautiful tweedy shades which you just have to see to appreciate the subtleties of!

You’ll find some beautiful patterns for this yarn in RYC Classic Beach and Classic Coach!

Lastly, I’ll mention Jaeger Celeste which is a ribbon yarn that is about a quarter of an inch wide. Being that is it 20% Linen, 50% Viscose and 30% polyamide, it is great for summer knitting. Since this yarn is discontinued, we have limited colors left, so come quickly if you want it!

Well, yeah, the Superbowl also…but I’m talking about The Yarn Barn’s annual Superbowl Sale!!!

It is this Sunday, February 4th from 1pm to 4pm. You will find many great deals on yarn that is normally “never” on sale, additional discounts on clearance yarns (up to 50%!), and when you pick a football from our helmet, you can win up to 30% off yarn that isn’t already on sale! Books and kits will be on sale as well - and don’t forget to sign up to win our door prize!

And naturally, you’ve got plenty of time to get home for the big game. Or to avoid it. Whichever (although I’ll be watching!)!

See you on Sunday!

Yep - we’ve got it! Here is our current selection (although we can order any colorway you like!):

Check out all the colorways here…

The yarn is JUST delicious - five plies that are held together for a worsted weight yarn. We’re running a class on making the one-skein Cashmere Scarflet, if you need an excuse and all - Wednesday, February 7th, 7:00pm-9:00pm.

Makes for a lovely January Spring day, though! The weathermen say this might be the last week of El Nino warmth, so enjoy it while you can! Soon we can actually wear our handknits on a regular basis again…which brings me to this:

If you’re into making the new Calorimetry pattern from Knitty.com - we have the yarn in MANY colors, as shown above. It only takes one skein, so you can afford to make one for a friend too. Or just have one in a different color for yourself. *wink*

Well, we’ve started posting new classes on our site, including some of these new ones:

Learn to Lizard Ridge (Learning Short Rows)! - $40 (plus materials)
Been wanting to make the hottest afghan pattern to hit the web in 2006? The pattern is free at Knitty.com, you just pick out the yarn at our store and you will learn how to do short rows while you make your first block, a pillow cover or even a scarf!

Monday, January 29th, 7:00pm-9:00pm

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Urban Adventure Bag by Noni - Cost $45 (plus materials)
A cool bag with a new shape from Noni! Learn how to put all the pieces together and finish your felted bag when you are done. We’ll be making the medium sized bag in this two-part class.

Thursday, February 1st & Tuesday, February 20th, 7:00pm-9:00pm

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Cashmere Scarflette - Cost $40 (plus materials)
Using Artyarns’ luxurious new Cashmere 5 yarn, learn more advanced knitting skills such as short rows and keeping track of stitch patterns.

Wednesday, February 7th, 7:00pm-9:00pm

And, while it wasn’t taken on a Saturday, we leave you with a beautiful evening sky we had on Wednesday for a semi-Saturday Sky photo…

As we come to the end of the year, we’re also coming to the end of our latest cycle of knitting and crocheting classes…so here’s a question for the readers:

• What kind of classes are you interested in taking?
• Is there a specific skill you want to learn?
• Is there a specific pattern you want to knitalong in a class to help you on the way?
• Is there a class we’ve offered in the past that you missed and would like to take again?

Please comment to this entry and let us know! We can’t promise to offer them all, but this will give us an idea of what our customers are into at the moment!

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Oh, and guess what showed up today in the mail? Those Knit Lite needles! We have them in the three sizes shown in the photo…

If you are wondering about holiday hours, we’ll be open regular hours the rest of this week . Next week we are closed on Monday and Tuesday, December 25th & 26th and then we resume regular hours.

So, Happy Holidays to all, no matter what you celebrate and we’ll leave you with a little Tilli Tomas silky eye candy…

We’ve been having the pleasure of displaying a bunch of samples for various Vivian Hoxbro kits, many of which use shadow knitting techniques. All the kits are made with New England Knitters Shetland yarns unless otherwise noted. You really have to see these in person, but here’s a sneak peek to lure you in:

Cables is a one-size swingy sweater with deep slits on the sides and multi-textural elements (as you can see in the artsy closeup).

Using modular knitting techniques, this one-color vest called Ida uses texture and open areas to create visual interest. This kit uses a 50/50 silk/wool blend and comes in three sizes.

Knitter’s Angles is uniquely constructed and wraps around easily for any size.

One of our favorites, the Rainbow Jacket is a comfortably boxy jacket that comes in two sizes: S/M: 49″ or L/XL: 56″ (finished measurements).

Want more shadow-knitting-action? The Shadows Jacket is perfect. Comes in two sizes, 39½” & 42½” (finished). I would wear this with a shawl pin to really show off the shadowing in the front!

I can say from personal experience how well the Wing Shawl III keeps you warm without falling off your shoulders (after wearing this to dash out and bring in the sign one evening).

And lastly (for the samples, at least…we have more kit types than samples!), the Zig Zag Vest, knitted modularly with just a touch of color.

All of the above will be added to the online store shortly, or else come and visit us to try them on yourself!

It’s almost Thanksgiving (really snuck up on us this year, didn’t it?) and the weather has really chilled up. Which is bearable especially because we can wear all our warm and cozy handknits again! Yay!

In looking through our Noro stock, we found that there is definitely some neglected stock that needed some spotlighting. So, we went through some Noro volumes and put together a few kits, ready to go from the store! One has made it onto the online store - a really cozy turtleneck made from Kochoran. We’ve packaged this with color #40:

In store (and soon to be on the store, if they don’t sell before we get a chance!), there’s two Aurora kits with which you can make either a lacy shawl or a lacy tank from Noro Volume 18. We’ve packaged it with colors #3 (shown in picture) and #2 (the color used for the tank top)…I think #3 will be especially striking for the wrap!

We have the last of our Noro Yoroi as well — just enough of the neutral-toned #3 for the first size of the cowled turtleneck in Volume 17. There’s also a kit for any of the sizes put together with color #5. After that I think we’ve got just enough for another sweater out of color #5 as well…then that’s it! Get ‘em while they last!

Well, I suppose that is our contribution to “Noro-vember”, lol…Happy a very happy, safe Thanksgiving, everyone!

And so, the store spinning wheel is geared up and ready to go for the class on Wednesday. Had a slight problem in that the tension knob has gone missing, so we jerry-rigged one using a dowel and two staples, lol. Heh. Well…it works!

We’ve got some neat new arrivals…Nashua Handknits Wooly Stripes is one of them…

Soft and stripey…gotta love it. We also got a bunch of different Nashua pattern books as well.

We also got this bit of lovely from Lantern Moon:

Now that’s a stocking stuffer, eh? This little confection is a 72 yard ball of 100% silk ribbon in shimmery colors. It is made of cut strips of silk taffeta and hand-tied every 2 yards into a continuous strip. This yarn is a result of a collaboration with designer Leigh Bradford and we have a nice, simple scarf pattern to use with just the one ball. There are also patterns for a small clutch, a silk pillow, lamp shade and a lapel pin! Even the names are yummy - blueberry, bittersweet, butterscotch, raspberry, melon and blue ice!

And speaking of the holidays…we’ve got some fun Regia sock yarn for just that reason.

Yeah, we know they’re Nation Stripes, but they totally work as Christmas or Candy Cane socks also! For fun we also got in some of the black and yellow for any bumblebee lovers out there!

Stay dry out there — looks like we’ve got a weekload of rain to look forward to this week!