Put a little sparkle in your life..

Put a little sparkle in your life - with Lumina, the lovely new DK weight yarn from renowned Australian designer Jo Sharp.

Jo Sharp's new glamorous slinky 'Lumina' yarn is a luxurious blend of cotton and viscose, with an explosion of lustrous sequins, like stars in the night, stranded into the yarn. It's perfect for bags, scarves, shawls or evening wear. Check the shade card!

We also have in stock Jo Sharp's magazine, "knit" Issue 4, which includes several designs for Lumina.

New: Bee's Knees Knits

We are pleased to now carry the children's line of Canadian knitting patterns "Bee's Knees Knits" by designer Holli Yeoh.

Her innovative designs combine the magic of self-striping sock yarns with solid colors to create distinctive knits for the little ones in your life. Visit her web site at http://www.beeskneesknits.ca/ and order the patterns from us!

This is a photo of the "Avery" pattern: this playful pullover has blocks of colour on the front that coordinate with the Fair Isls-like patterned sleeves. Corrugated ribbing ties it all together.

How do you like this "Elephant Foot"?

Is this knitting fun, or what?

Felting projects are still well "en vogue", and with so many beautiful wool around and creative knitters inventing new patterns and creations all the time, the possibilities seem endless.

We got a number of NONI patterns in and Inge tried out this "Dr. Seuss-ish Elephant Foot". These bags are worked in the round, in one piece, knitted from top down. It looked harmless at first, then turned out to be more of a sleeping bag, but in the end after felting the result was a well sized and eye catching shoulder bag!

A nice change in between baby projects...

Grandma -- HELP!

Over time we come across so many useful conversion tables, terms and abreviation lists, gadgets etc that we decided to put them all together in one handy Help/Support page. Try the link!

And if you have more or better tools than offered here, please let me know at support@needlenart.com. Thank You! Jurgen

Baby talk - Baby knit

Inge always has at least five knitting projects on the go. Lately, after learning that our oldest son and his wife will have a baby in August, she light heartedly and fully excited added a couple of baby projects on top. And - miracles happen, she will beat me for this - this little "Kids Color Block Cardigan" and Baby Hat (bottom on the photo) are finished and just wait for the baby (to be a year old).

Pam did the same pattern from the book "OneSkein - 30 quick projects to knit and crochet" by Leigh Radford. Pam used Schoeller + Stahl Wonderwool (51% wool and 49% acrylic) on 6 mm needles, whereas Inge used our Trendsetter Tonalita (52% wool and 48% acrylic) on 5 mm needles.

It started quite a hype here and more customers and friends started this easy and cute, colourful asymetric pattern.

Book ($19.95) and yarns (see shadecards Wonderwool and Tonalita) can be bought/ordered in our store.

just briefly

I don't want to bother you with too many new yarns and rather write about our in-store projects - which will follow today.

We just got in from Alpaca with a Twist: Punch!

Alison writes: Add some "Punch" to your knitting with this lovely new yarn. An alpaca/nylon blend, Punch works up to a sport weight and would work well in sweaters, scarves and accessories. It's exceptional softness makes it perfect for babies as well. Each 50g ball retails for $8.25 and boasts 127 yards. See the shade card here.

And - I nearly "forgot" these 2 exceptional sock yarns: On Your Toes 4-ply and On Your Toes Bamboo. The latter one is our only (soft!!!!) sock yarn from Bamboo and nylon. Click on the names for the shade cards.