Romni Wools

The next stop on our tour of knitting shops on Queen Street (moving west to East) is Romni Wools. On walking into the shop, the first words that come to mind no doubt include "wow!", "vast", "huge", "extensive", "ohmygod!". This is a cavernous yarn store.

As far I know, Romni don't host a knit night but what they do have is one helluva lot of yarn. The whole store is stuffed with yarn from floor to ceiling. 

Literally.

They have the largest selection of books and patterns that I've ever seen under one roof, covering the gamut of knitting, crochet, weaving, spinning etc 

Then there's the basement

where you'll find spinning accoutrements and yarn by the cone

and the sale room

with aisles of shelves and baskets overflowing with yarn at discount prices.

I recall my first few visits to Romni being daunting. In time, I learnt this is not a place one goes in search of inspiration - indeed the dizzying array of possibilities left me more confused than inspired - but where one goes with a well formulated plan. A plan which would of course include "plan B" (and C) so that on the off chance your "plan A" falls through, you won't walk out empty handed. I confess to being among the ranks of knitters who have (on more than one occasion) walked in, spent time looking for "the right yarn" for a project, felt overwhelmed and walked out again without buying so much as a pin. 

Take this as fair warning! Have a plan when you walk through those doors. Or choose to lose yourself in this world of yarn for hours. 

Tuesday night @ the knit cafe

There's only one right way to spend a Tuesday night in Toronto and that's knitting at The Knit Cafe. Of course I spent (my) last Tuesday in Toronto there. 

Here's what a typical evening is like:

{looking in}

{There were baby cuddles all around.
I couldn't get enough of this 4 week old guy!}

{Heather taking a break from it all}

{Jennifer knitting away on her lace scarf}

{and here's Kim working on even more hexipuffs!}

{this little owl is how Kim nudges recruits to join in the Beekeeper's Quilt
Knit-along. Robbie with hexi-owl and Jana in the background :)}

{Ellen working on her next owl, you can just about see the first in the picture}

{Carol making strides on her crochet blankie}

{and then Bobby arrived!}

{and because she did such a good job on it, here's Edie in a dress she made;
how cute is she/it?! LOVE IT!}

{I also met Ayumi and her leather-soled house slipper}

{I was hit by a bad case of the wanties when I laid eyes on Jana's woven
scarf using DIC starry in Strange Harvest + DIC everlasting in Gilt}

{and my fave picture of the night: Iwona, hexi-owl and Robbie}

Words cannot express how uplifting an evening with these folks can be. I love seeing what everyone's working on; what modifications they've made and how they sometimes go off-script. It's humbling to see all the wacky and wonderfully creative stuff that truly talented minds can conceive. 

I also love that knit night is a safe place to spill our guts, get great (solicited) advice, bitch, have a moan, curse, rage and just let it all hang loose. I'm constantly surprised by how much more open I am here but that's alright cos it's my safe place. And there's no judgement here, just friends. And knitting. And tea. And every good thing.

The warm, artistic atmosphere is something every knitter visiting Toronto should experience at least once. 

I highly recommend it.

{hexi-owl}

p.s. have you caught the hexi-puff craze yet? I'm sitting this one out but will make a handful of puffs for my friends at home. They are each making the bee-keeper's quilt and will be swapping hexagons sometime in the distant future. Yeah, it's all about the swap for me.

This is the first of a "series" of posts about knitting stores on Toronto's Queen Street. It will be a mini adventure :)

felted soap

At last week's knit night, it was decided that the girls were desperately in need of a craft night; yes we were knitting but 'felt' the need for something different. We needed something "quick and dirty"; with readily available materials; that wouldn't cost much and would, of course, be pretty: soap felting it was!

So last Friday, we met for dinner and a chinwag at Sweet Lulu, an old favourite of ours

then we all headed over to LadyFin's where she'd laid out yummy snacks. The thing about crafters in a crafter's home is that they'll always sniff out the craft supplies of which LadyFin had plenty in the paper crafts department! I'm afraid we got a bit very distracted and made embossed cards, book marks, gift tags and other cute things out of paper! 

Eventually, we got to felting our bars of soap

And below is what the first batch looked like

{bars of felted soap}

such a simple, soothing exercise. 

Felted wool is naturally anti-fungal, so one can comfortably lather up a storm (my soap lathers like a dream!) and as a bonus the felt exfoliates nicely too. The felt layer makes soap handling easier and soap less of a slipping hazard while being anti-fungal means I can use the felt pockets over and again. Though to be honest, it requires such little felt (and effort) that it'd be just as easy to felt every bar! Ooooh, this would be perfect for my handmade soaps - once I learn to make soap. This could be my Christmas presents sorted. Ace. 

One reason I've held off on soap-making for so long is because I am primarily interested in making marbled soap. With wet felting I can have my handmade soap as marbled as I want! My next thing will be to try needle felting the hand felted bars. We would have done so last Friday had we not forgotten the felting needles! As it happens this was just as well cos I didn't get to my bed until almost 2a.m.! that's hard core crafting for you. 

My thanks to Yen, Carol, Edie, Robbie for a very special ;) evening/night/morning and special thanks to Iwona for teaching us all to wet felt.

remind myself of the many reasons

I took time out the past few days to "play tourist" and remind myself of the many reasons why i LOVE this city. Heads up, this is the picture heavy post you knew was coming :)

{Gasworks Park...}

{...where we chatted with this lady and her pet.}

{I spotted yarnbombing in Bellevue - a business district}

{S and I went up the tallest building in the Pacific Northwest}

{and saw the views (that's Mt. Rainier in the distance)}

{i had treats}

{and treats - unfortunately they've discontinued white chocolate ice cream :(}

{early morning walks around the lake in our old neighbourhood}

{and the Rose Garden, of course}

{I reacquainted myself with the Pacific Ocean}

{went to the library downtown which, incidentally, was Jared's inspiration for Koolhaas}

{dropped in on an old friend}

{visited a lake in "lakewedgie" (a residential neighbourhood)}

{went to market}

{and Uwajimaya}

{bade Seattle (and Rainier) farewell}

then it was "Hello Ladies!"

{Edie, Iwona and Robbie playing rock paper scissors for their (7) Muji pens. Iwona got 3}

So, I'm into the second half of my holiday now. I really wanted to surprise the girls and so kept this secret all to myself. If you know me you'll know how hard that was, but their reactions were totally worth keeping the secret for. The whole evening felt somewhat surreal and we kept hugging each other (but mainly me) all night! 

And Tuesday night at the Knit Cafe felt just like old times, the one difference being that even though it was 29 centigrade outside, the cafe was packed! Women and men knitting together in such hot weather, albeit in an air conditioned cafe of deliciousness, is plain awesome! 

I am so happy!

dyeing & weaving

A week ago (gosh! has it been THAT long?!?), I had a major craft date with Elle. On Friday evening, I made my way over to her office and met her tying up loose ends so I whipped out and worked on my shawl while I waited. 

We got to her home, I made dinner, we ate, chatted and hit the sack. Fine!, there may or may not have been an incident involving: "a slug", one of us (there were 3) and a screen door that unfortunately didn't survive the night :(

Moving on swiftly, early the next morning we each picked a ball of undyed yarn from Elle's extensive stash, she measured out some fibre

and with both yarn and fibre 

we made our way outside where we'd prepped a table for dyeing

then began the rather enjoyable task of hand painting yarn and fibre.

Once painted, we left the yarns and fibres on the steamer (to set the colour) and moved on to the next item on the docket: weaving.

We began by winding the warp

{Noro silk garden sock 245}

At this point, we stepped away from crafting while I got ready for my "photo shoot" with Elle and her husband who's a professional photographer.

After taking pictures in their garden, we returned to crafting and Elle "sleyed the reed" (hope I got that right),

and started me off on her rigid heddle loom

What you're seeing is the foot and a half of my 6' scarf (that's 6 foot folks) which I managed before getting distracted by yarn that was done cooking

and was hung up to dry

We ran out of time so I left Elle to finish things off. 

Six days later, we met for dinner and the drop off (this is the ta-da! moment)

first up we have yarn

{yummy berries or as Elle put it, "screen door purple"}

this 223 yard skein of Patons classic worsted merino will be turned into a hat and a neck warmer - I'll be toasty this winter, I tell you, toasty (and very berry)!

Finally folks (and so worth the wait), I present my first ever woven scarf

{woven scarf in silk garden sock}

I daresay it won't be my last.

From the moment Elle offered to teach me to weave I had Noro on the brain. But I had no idea how it'd look and worried about how scratchy Noro is. Thankfully, I had flickr to show me the possibilities and extremely well priced silk garden sock to eliminate the scratch factor. 

Making things in Elle's creative space was awesome! 

There was gorgeous, natural light; tonnes of reference/craft books, room to manoeuvre; every tool & gadget one could need and music the best entertainment system I've seen in a while. 

Just before I left her wonderful home, Elle introduced me to her latest 'workwork' project - Kinect. I got to try out dance central (cool) and a table tennis/ ping pong game (which I lost). Now, I'm no gamer but that was loads of fun and a brilliant way to end a pretty spectacular day, thanks Elle!

Project details

pattern: 1' x 6'

yarn: Noro Silk Garden Sock (245 for warp and 269 for weft)

quantity: all of 245 for warp (length of scarf) and about 0.65(?) of 269 for weft (width of scarf).