Hello, dear readers!

After many months and more changes in my life Christmas market sales season is now in full swing. The only constant seems to be my drive to create in knitting and spinning. As in previous years my friend Manuela and I will be selling our designs. We chose the Shipyards Christmas Festival Artisan Market  which runs on Saturday, Nov 30th, 1 – 9 pm and on Sunday, Dec 1st, 10 am – 5 pm in the Pipe-shop at Shipbuilders Square one block East of Lonsdale Quay in North Vancouver.

But the start to all this happens months earlier when I start planning what to knit and what designs to use. This year my first purchase towards a year of knitting was early in January when I decided on cat and dog designs for a few of my hats. A beautifully soft possum-wool mix in a coral and brown colour caught my eye and was knit up into these two cosy hats. And a white Hikoo Abracadabra yarn, that changes colour to blue in sunlight, had to be tried as well and became a snowflake hat.

Possum fiber hats

Snowflakes hat

Three hats were not enough and more wool was needed. Shopping opportunities came along throughout the year. There was Fibres West in March, a wool and fibre festival in the Fraser Valley,  a long weekend visit at Cast on! Cast Off! in St Johns, Nfld, the Almonte Fibre festival, Ontario, in early September and Knit City Vancouver in October.

stash from Cast on! Cast off!in St. Johns, NFLD

Almonte Fibrefest

Knit City 2019

As much as I try to shop project-based only sometimes the beauty of a skein or some fiber catches my eye and finds it s way home with me to be marveled at in quiet times. My purchases from Cast on! Cast Off! are still waiting for their debut, but the fiber batts from Almonte have been spun up into a 2-ply yarn with a lot of colourful highlights. Four skeins from Knit City have been transformed into a children’s hat and 4 pairs of handwarmers (red and black ones).

Hat with cats (child size)

Cabled handwarmers

The past 4 weeks were the most productive and besides the handwarmers these three hats flew off my needles. The grey and purple ones were knit in a recycled merino yarn mix Borgo de’ Pazzi Amore 160 and the colourful one from 18 mini skeins of various sock yarns I was gifted by a lovely knitter at my Ottawa yarn group.

Three hats for the market

BC wool hand-spun gloves

Hat with hand-spun silk and wool

My sales line-up would not be complete with at least one or two accessories knit with my own hand-spun yarn. The brown-grey handwarmers consist of BC grown Romney mix wool combined with brown alpaca. The colourful hat to brighten up the darker winter days used up different hand-spun yarns with about 50% silk and 50% wool content.

If you are in the Lower Mainland I would be delighted if you stopped by our table and said hello.

Have a great fall and winter!

Mika