Free Knitting Patterns and Tutorials!

Just in case that not everybody has found out yet: www.knittingpatterncentral.com is an uncredible source of FREE information for knitters.

It contains a well structured directory of Free Knitting Patterns, sorted by projects, then sub-projects and finally access to hundreds of other directories where the free patterns are from. It is easy!

Secondly, there is a separate directory for Knitting Instructions and Illustrated Tutorials. More: Tips & Tricks and a Featured Pattern of the Week.

Go check it out - buy your yarn in our Needle & Arts Centre - and HAPPY KNITTING!

PS: have you checked out our own web site yet at www.needlenart.com?

Join our Mailing List!

If you want to join the Mailing List of the Needle & Arts Centre, please go to the bottom of the Contact Us page of our Needle & Arts Web site: http://www.needlenart.com/id2.html - and you will get a welcome coupon, our newsletters and special offers. See you over there!

Free Summer Pattern!

Forget the Easter weather, think Summer!
This Children's Sommer Sweater for ages 2 - 14 is a free Garnstudio pattern. I can email it to you in a handy Word format, please contact me at jkettler@earthlink.net.

Jurgen

Welcome Spring!

I am feeling a bit "blog rusty" after focussing on our new web site www.needlenart.com for several weeks. The site has been widely expanded after my first announcement. Can you imagine that we now carry more than 170 different yarns in our yarn department?! We ourselves were totally stunned. Thanks to Pam for getting the complete list together which you find in our web site's yarn page. As I mentioned before: next will be our online e-commerce yarn shop for selected yarns.


With Spring and sunshine came new yarn. Our last shipment from Estelle brought lots of new Baby Yarn (King Cole , Sprinkles, Sapphire), the colourful Pelican yarn (see photo), the fancy Whisper yarn, and more shades of the soft Watercolour yarn (see sample). And much more... You got to feel it!

Easy Knit Baby Blankets

We borrowed this cute baby photo and added our own patterns to it. Ask for a free pattern! Come in and see our big Selection of Yarns for Babies and Children!

New Web Site; online yarn shop coming up

Haven't bothered you for quite a while...

I was pretty quietly working on a new web site and got it running: check out our store site www.needlenart.com . In a couple of days our online yarn shop will be starting and after that more and more products will be added to it. This is good news for our more remote customers who were urging us to offer them online shopping! More than that, we'll also open up a yarn shop on eBay for special yarns. I'll keep you informed!

Our yarn blog www.needlenarts.blogspot.com will furtheron be the way to share news and ideas with you. You will always find a link to this blog from the new web site. Check the last postings.

Cast on this Shrug!

Spring starts officially in a couple of days and we all hope for sunnier and warmer days. Doesn't this photo already give us a glance of summer? Many new patterns are coming in now, after most of the new spring and summer colours are already in. Keep on knitting!

The pattern for this shrug comes in two versions: for women or for girls. They are free for our Blog readers! Please let me know at jkettler@earthlink.net which one you'd like (or both) and I email them to you in a Word format.

Happy Spring and Happy Knitting!

Freebee for our Blog Readers!

You may pick it up in our store or drop me an email that you want it as a word file: you get a free pattern for the West Coast Thrum Mittens, see photo.
Pam assembled this mitten pattern and knitted a pair for Inge and myself for Christmas. We LOVE them! She can help you any time because the thrums are a bit tricky.

The natural fleece inside the mittens felts on exposure to water and wear and provides the warmest mittens imaginable - great for our west coast climate and for skiing!

Welcome to our store!

Hard to get all the beautiful yarns, the accessories, the scent of tea and candles, and the Knit Cafe on one photo. Take this snapshot, come in, relax, read our blog postings, give us your feedback!
Take this advice: please go through all the archived postings and see for example which own patterns we have to offer!

Our contact information:

• Needle & Arts Centre, 910 Island Highway, Campbell River, BC, Canada V9W 2C3
• phone and fax: 250-286-9717 or toll-free 1-888-588-7834
• email: jkettler@earthlink.net

WOW - New Spring and Summer Colours!

This only a small portion of the piles of new yarn coming in daily. This is Merino, Cotton, Baby Double Knit and Microfibre on thye table. Want to see the colour trends for Spring and Summer? Come to the store. Still some SALE yarn left, too!

Sewing & Needle Art Show in Campbell River

Did you know that we have a LARGE Sewing & Needle Arts Show coming up in Campbell River on Saturday February 25 in our Community Centre? It is run every year around this time and has grown into a large show (open 9:00 am - 5:00 pm, free admission) and seminar event (23 sessions 10:00 am - 5:00 at $10 each).
The exhibits and seminars on Saturday are all around fibres: quilting, beading, fabric painting, bear making, crochet and knitting, Bargello, Brazilian Embroidery, sewing, machine embroidery, colour value workshop...
Our Yarn Department will have a booth there, too, presenting many finished projects and new yarns!

If you live here, want the program and like to sign up for seminars: check in at the Community Centre! If you want us to fax the program to you, call 287-8898.

Hand Spun Yarn from Urugay is in!

From all yarn shipments which we got these days, we like the 100% Wool and Merino Wool from Uruguay best. It is worsted weight, hand spun and hand dyed. This "RIO DE LA PLATA Yarn" comes in beautiful shades and mixes of coulors for a real good price of $16.95 (new wool) and $18.95 (merino) per 100g skein!

Our Mission Statement

Our knitting and crochet yarns and patterns are perfect for creating beautiful, handmade treasures. We know that every piece that you knit or crochet is special, so we provide only the finest patterns, needles, yarns and accessories. First class customer consulting is included!

New: Fiber Trends Patterns are in!

Check our beautiful new Fiber Trends kids patterns and the many new patterns for felted items: baby shoes, slippers, hilarious purses...

Check This Out: Thousands of FREE Patterns!!

Good reason to get excited!

We carry most of their yarns in our store: Garnstudio is a Norwegian yarn manufacturer, their yarn lines are called Drops Design, our Canadian supplier is most professional and we usually get within 2-3 days what we don't have in stock.

As professional is Garnstudio's Web site and their beautiful patterns. Any of their patterns which were ever published in books and pattern sheets are now available for free on their web site http://www.garnstudio.com/lang/en. You may select patterns by yarn type or by theme (ladies, men, crochet, baby, children, ponchos, accessories, felted...), print them out and see our store to feel the yarn, purchase it and get assistance!

This is Garnstudio's message:

You find:

• yarn alternatives given in the patterns
• color cards for all yarns, to select your colours at home
• Knitting alternatives (for expl sweater on cable needle or back and front separately)
• a knitting diagram for each pattern (don't forget to print this separately)
• new patterns of the last 10, 20, 30 days; so you don't have to go through the whole collection all over

Inge and I selected these pattern photos to make you even more excited! They are for a children's sweater in Italian Velvet, a children's sweater in Alaska with stripes, a pullover in Eskimo, a pullover in Silke-Tweed and a cardigan in Vivaldi with hood.

Some more hints:

Don't get caught in the Norwegian part of the web site. Some messages might come up in Norwegian, but it's easy to get the essentials and you will feel all comfortable in the English site. Some patterns differ for Britain and for North America.

Pam says: "This is the best yarn Web site I came across"

Try it out right away and if you bring in your printed pattern between now and the end of January, you'll get a discount of 15% on your yarn purchase for this pattern!!

Ribs, purls and beer at men's knitting night

NEW YORK (REUTERS)
Hi all, comments welcome, which guy joins me in knitting?

If you're stuck for entertainment in New York on a Friday night, and as long as you're man enough, try learning to rib at "Boyz Nite" at a Greenwich Village venue from 9 until late.

That's rib as in knitting the cuff of your sweater...

Knit New York, a wool and craft store in Lower Manhattan, is fighting the stereotype that knitting is the province of women. "Are you strong enough to knit and man enough to purl?" says an advertisement for Boz Nite on the shop's Web site.

The store draws dozens of men to its weekly men's night where beginners and experts gather to exchange tips over beer and hot dogs.

"Believe me, we love women," said store manager Josh Bennett. "But it's like when guys get together to watch a football game, they have all that in common so there is that sense of excitement. After a long week, you can come and work on your project have a couple of beers and hang out." story goes on.

What do you think? Would your husband like this idea? Should I start a knitter's group? Cheers, Jurgen - I knit!

A New Era in our Customer Relationship!

Dear customers and friends of the Needle & Arts Centre!

I just started our Yarn Blog on this beautiful Sunday. How exciting. May all our upcoming postings be well received and well commented by you, our customers. Feel free to ask and comment - online or in the store.

For the start:
1. Inge and Pam had some sales reps in last week and ordered new yarns. Shipments will arrive soon and we also plan a "Surprise Sale" of selected items very soon. Check often in our store what's new!
They ordered:

• Baby Yarn "Darling" from S.A.Kertzer in new trend colours and with new patterns
• New colours and a new book for "Lopi"
• Baby Yarn "Marble" from S.A.Kertzer with interesting variegated colours and new patterns. Very good price of $6.00 for 100g
• New "Mano" Yarns from Uruguay, hand spun and hand dyed Merino for a very affordable price!
• New Spring colours for many of our Nowegian yarn lines

2. I downloaded several pictures of store projects of the past months. To all of them we have patterns and yarns available. They are free with the purchase of yarn. More patterns are available in the store and all new ones will be posted in this Blog!

3. We are now members of the "West Coast Knitters Guild". Pick up a membership application form and become a member, too! We also signed up to be a "Knitters Guild Friendly Store". All Guild members get 10% discount. Get this: If you are a senior and a member, you get 10% + 10% discount on Mondays!

See you soon in our store! Jurgen (seen above with a store knitted sweater and toque)

Discovery Felted Purse

This is only one of MANY patterns and samples of felted purses in our store. Is this beautiful or what? This is a knit and felted purse with a flap, finished size about 8" x 8". Felted purses and totes are good projects for beginners!

Check out the other patterns, too:

• Ripple Rock Felted Purse
• Storries Beach Tote Bag
• Tiny Totes (an ideal kid's knitting project!)

Tyee Rolled Brim Hat

This hat is versatile and can be knitted in various yarns for various sized heads. The decreases form a neat-looking spiral on top. You can add a "top knot", pom-pom, tassel, stripes, etc. You are only limited by your imagination!

Check out our Quadra Cap pattern as well.

Pier Street Poncho

This is our friend and neighbour Jessica proudly wearing Inge's first Poncho. As our knitting expert Jurgen tends to say: it is easy knit, just a bunch of scarves which are crocheted together. The biggest pain are the fringes... Check out other colour combinations!