Thank you all so much for all of the wonderful well wishes we have received as we await the arrival of our first baby! The love and support has been so incredible!
I will be taking a short maternity leave to rest up and welcome our little girl from July 15th to August 6th. If there is anything you would like from the store please make sure to place your order before the 15th. Items will still be up in the shop for browsing but ordering will be disabled for that period of time.

I will be answering emails a few times a week during my maternity leave, but will not be shipping any orders.

Thank you all so much! I will be sure to let you know when out “little sweetie” arrives!

xo

Yay it’s our birthday! To celebrate our 143rd birthday we are having a 2 day sale!

Enjoy 10% off of any products in the shop for July 1st and 2nd with the coupon code: Canada

All and any of your favorite yarns and fibers! Orders will ship on Monday, I just might be taking a few days off to put my feet up and enjoy the weekend!

xo

Michelle

Take me to the sale!

Mara is Finished!!

Wow what a quick and LONG knit. I’m not sure why I take on garter stitch projects. I think I love the look of them and the simplicity of the knitting, but about 4 inches in I want to poke my eyes out. So, in order to save what’s left of my fragile sanity I started working the border a bit sooner than expected and I think she came out a good size for a shawlette!

Here she is blocking

Since I wanted to preserve the garter stitch pattern, but also wanted a bit more length and to open it up, I just lightly spritzed the yarn until it was damp. Typically I wet block everything. I love to soak and block all of my knit pieces, but Mara got a bit of special treatment.

And here she is in her finished glory!

My favorite little sheep is an (un) willing model for Mara.

Specs:

The Pattern: Mara by Madelinetosh- Free Pattern. Ravelry Link

The pattern was well written and easy to follow. I love the idea and concept of this pattern, but didn’t enjoy knitting it. The only thing that saved this shawl from ripping was the incredible yarn…it’s gorgeous and perfect for this pattern. I would knit this pattern again, but I would modify it as a stockinette stitch pattern so I can see more progress as I move along.

Mods: The only Mod I made to this pattern was to work only half of the fringe. I wanted to keep my shawl to a 3 ball limit and the garter stitch ate yardage.

The Yarn: You may hear this a lot, but I LOVED knitting with this yarn. The Oceanwind knits worsted was incredible to work with. The colours were amazing and I love how it doesn’t pool. For the most part I don’t mind pooling, but I don’t think it had a place in this pattern. Each skein moved seamlessly from one to the next without a noticeable difference.  I have previously knit a sweater with this yarn and found the consistancy in colour to be true there as well. This yarn is soft soft soft!

The Fabric: I knit this on a US 8 size 5 mm needle and loved how the fabric knit up, just enough drape and beautiful stitch definition

The only thing left to do is show you one last picture!

My second finished shawl of 2010!

next up for knitting through the shop is a little hat/bootie combo with some beautiful (PINK!) Dyed in the wool handmade!

Every baby needs a hand knit hat to come home in even if it is the middle of summer….right?

The talented Miss Glenna C has done it again with these gorgous Azalea mitts

The pattern includes instructions for both stunning fingerless gloves or convertable mitts with cropped fingers!

Either option will result in an incredible glove with twist and turns and cables and bobbles…what more could a knitter ask for! Maybe another gorgeous photo??

The Azalea mitt pattern uses 1 skein of Sweet Sheep Tight Twist in a semi solid. You can either purchase your yarn and pattern seperately or together in a kit!!

Patterns purchased alone (without yarn) will be sent via email with shipping refunded.

The only thing left to decide is which colour to knit your Azalea mitts with!!

Thank you all so much for sharing your wonderful and memorable birthday memories with me…I enjoyed reading them all! Chris and I had fantastic times on our birthdays and have much cake in the freezer from all of the parties our loved ones threw us! So far being 31 isn’t so bad!

The random number generator picked Amy V as our contest winner and she was awarded a $31 gift certificate to the shop…hope you enjoy it Amy!

Last week the mail lady was good to me and dropped off some beautiful Pigeonroof knits spinning tops in

Merino Silk

and luxurious Superwash Merino/Cashmere/Nylon

I can’t wait to try this new blend! I may have stolen a braid of Ghost Orchid (second one in) to “test” this new fiber…details to come!

On top of this beautiful update a big box of Funky Carolina Fibers arrived on my doorstep this morning…look for those later in the week!

I finished the blankie!! I really was concerned that I could finish growing a child before I would finish this blankie but luckily I was wrong.

The blankie was finished last week however, the sun has not made an appearance since so please excuse the dark photos, i could wait no longer to show you.

Here she is off the needles.

and directly into a SOAK bath…SOAK is essential around here for all dyeing, blocking and washing of wool. On a side note I will also admit that I used it last week to get grease out of Chris’ favorite ball cap…worked like a charm!

I always just lay my knitting on the top of the bath and let it sink in. I try not to handle it too much and just let the soak do the work.

Ta Da!! Here she is…just waiting to wrap up our sweet little baby girl. The sheep in the crib was a gift from my Aunt for the baby…I love it!

Specs:

The Pattern: Basketweave Blanket Rav link. I couldn’t find a non rav link but it is a classic elite pattern.

Mods: I cast on more stitches than the pattern called for (66) because I decided that if I was going to knit a blanket out of fingering weight yarn that I wanted it to last her for longer than the newborn phase!

The Yarn: This yarn is particularily special to me. I dyed the yarn when I first found out I was pregnant with a lot of love and excitement for the journey I was about to embark on. The base is the Sweet Sheep Tight Twist in a colourway that I created just for our little one called Candied Apricot. I do not have any of that colourway up in the shop yet, but if you would like some just drop me an email and I will happily dye it up! This blankie took 2 full skeins and about 1/4th of a third. The Sweet Sheep Tight Twist yarn is a bit heavier than an average fingering weight, but not as heavy as a sportweight. 375 yards goes pretty far.

The Fabric: I knit this on a US 4 size 3.5mm needle and loved how the fabric knit up. I might be completely biased (yes I am.) The yarn is custom milled for me and I love a good tight twist yarn because of the great stitch definition. This is one of several projects I have knit with the tight twist (including a shawl) and have always loved the soft drape at larger needle sizes.

In summary, I adore this blankie. I put many hours of love and hugs into this piece and hope that my little sweet pea will feel all of it when I wrap her in it!

At the age of 30 shouldn’t this “it’s almost my birthday” excitement wear off?

Well…it hasn’t. My birthday is coming up in May and as usual I get very excited…I don’t really know why, we don’t have huge celebrations or gifts, but I just love birthdays.

In Sweet Sheep tradition I usually hold a sale. However, we just finished a sale. So, I will be holding a contest for a $31 gift certificate to the store!

Leave me a comment here by May 14th (my birthday!) and let me know what one of your favorite birthday memories are and I will enter you into the random drawing for the gift certificate! The winner will be drawn on May 17th.

And because no post is complete without a picture, here is a basket of my recent dyes gettting ready to go up into the shop!

Happy Monday!

So sorry for the blog silence last week. On Monday my grandmother passed away at the age of 91. I am so thankful that she lived a long life and passed without sickness or pain…I don’t think we could ask for much more than that! As always it was difficult to say goodbye, but I know in my heart that she is where she wants to be.

Knitting and life pretty much stopped last week, but I’m happy to say that this week there has been much knitting. Soon to include my first “Knit Though The Shop”  project.

While packing up all of your orders for the Bye Bye Winter sale, I once again fell in love with the Oceanwind Knits worsted weight and STOLE 4 skeins of the rainforest to make myself a Mara Shawl!

I am totally in love with this yarn…it was so hard to pick just one colourway…they are all fantastic!

If you want some make sure to grab it by Friday before the sale is over!

I’m planning on casting this shawl on soon. I was hoping to finish up the baby blankie first but I have decided to make it a bit longer than I anticipated and I seem to have a very short knitting attention span lately. I work on the blankie almost every night but the last few weeks have left me exhausted and going to bed very early and leaving my “early to bed” husband up watching TV by himself! Such a strange turn of schedules for us. I’m hoping that after the baby arrives (and we get through the first months) I will be able to stay up at least until 10 and resume even a few of my night hawlk habits which included hours of uninterrupted knitting!!

I am excited to be vending again this year at the DKC knitter’s frolic!

If you are going or in the area come see me on May 8th…I will be there all day! My booth is upstairs from the main room.

Looking forward to it!

Despite being blessed with a short winter this year I am more than happy to say Bye Bye to Winter, Hello Spring!!
The return of the sun has been such an inspiration that I have decided to have a Bye Bye Winter Sale!

The sale will run from Today April 6th to the 23rd and includes discounts on the following fantastic yarns/kits:
Fleece Artist Thrummed Mitt and Sock Kits
Malabrigo Worsted Wool
Ocean Wind Knits Worsted
Shelridge Farms DK and Worsted Weight
Dream in Color Classy!

Stock up on these fantastic yarns as they won’t be back until the fall with new stock!
Welcome to Spring, I hope you are looking forward to this summer as much as I am. I have new Summer knits on the needles and am anticipating our own summer baby addition to the Sweet Sheep Family!

Bye Bye Winter, see you next year!
xo
Michelle

Free Shipping is still valid during the sale!!

I realized a while ago that I have not knit with every yarn in the shop…tisk tisk…so I have taken on the grand task of knitting my way through the shop. While I admit I may take years to accomplish this task, I still would like to attempt it!

I will knit a skein from each category in the shop…possibly not in order (I’m quite fickle) but it will all be knit! What type of criteria or information would you like to know about the yarns?

This is a knowledge growing experiment so I would love to hear any feedback you have on what you want to know about how the yarns knit up!

It might take me a while to organize myself, but I will be picking a first project soon…could it be this beautiful skein??? There are so many to choose from…this may be harder than I thought!

Chris has been hard at work getting a room ready for our little girl’s arrival. Since we already had a pink room in the house (my office) we picked out a pretty lilac colour which actually looks  periwinkle in the evening. I adore the colour, and am thrilled to now have 2 rooms in the house painted in my favorite colours!

Now begins the rest of the long and fun list of getting ready for baby! Tomorrow is my 6 month mark…I just can’t believe it.

As a knitter, this doesn’t leave me much time for my grand plans! I dyed some Sweet Sheep Tight Twist in the Candied apricot colourway months ago when we first found out the I was pregnant. I thought that any child of mine would have at least one hand knit blankie to welcome them into the world.

The colour is a bit light on this photo, it was a very bright day (yay sun!)

I worked on the blankie all weekend and am just finishing up my first ball. I fully expect to knit almost 3 balls worth in length. I would really like to have this blankie for longer than the newborn stages.

The pattern is available on ravelry…I wasn’t able to find a non rav source. Basketweave Blanket

I have an almost finished sweater for the wee one and many big plans! I would love to do a few more blankies, but am hoping some of my knitter friends and family are blankie knitting/crocheting too. I don’t think I will get done more than one before she arrives, but I know she will be well loved with hand made goods.

Hope you all have beautiful sunny skies today!

xo

Michelle

The spinning has gone well! Before and after the chaos of Ryker’s emergency I was able to spin up and ply the Forlorn fiber.

I love to see full bobbins! As I mentioned in the first spinning post I split the 4 oz into 2 equal parts and spun them on 2 bobbins…here they are hanging out on my lazy kate waiting to be plied…and I can never wait too long to ply! It’s like knowing you have a big chocolate cake in the fridge…you just have to eat it or it will taunt you!

So ply I did!

I have a big fun plying bobbin on my lendrum which I ply EVERYTHING….the regular bobbins are just too small. I spin quite tight yarns so I almost always ply on the lowest ratio. This is probably one of my more relaxed plied skeins.  If I am plying something much bulkier I will move up a ratio just so I don’t over ply, but to be honest I usually control my plying with my treadling speed.

So here she is..Forlorn all finished! She’s a worsted/bulky weight yarn with 186 yards. All washed, set and ready to knit! Now just to find a pattern.

In the comments Kate asked:
If you were to pre-draft the fiber after pulling off the long skinny pieces, then that would give you thinner yarn, right?

Yes, if you pull off long skinny pieces pre drafting would help you spin thinner, but thicker pieces would still be thicker..for me anyways. I know lots of people that can spin laceweight from a thick sliver!
When you are working on a thin yarn the most important part of spinning it it your finger control and how much fiber you draft out.

Happy Spinny Monday!!

ETA: I just updated the Yellow Brick Road Stocking kits and noticed the Wicked Kits are low…I will dye more this week and they will be re stocked next week! Thanks so much for loving the kits!

and then I will get back to knit/spin/shop info.

Our planned/canceled trip was not only a vacay of opportunity, but also one last hurrah as a three some. Around July 22nd The Sweet Sheep family is growing!!

Meet our little sweetie at 16 weeks!

We are so excited to be expecting our first child!! I promise this won’t become a baby blog….a baby knits blog possibly as there are just so many cute patterns.

I am just barely into my 23rd week starting tomorrow and things are going along very well. Our last ultrasound revealed that She’s a girl! Good thing because we all know there is no lack of pink around here! However I am keeping in mind that until her daddy was born he was supposed to be a girl too

Anyways, we are very excited and have recently decided that our first family trip will be to Rhinebeck…we have to raise this baby right…first fiber festival at 3 months…it’s a good start!

Almost as soon as it was announced out trip was canceled.

On friday night my dog got into the fridge and helped himself to almost a week’s worth of groceries. This might sound like a familiar story to many of you, however, Ryker is a bit different. He came to us last year at the age of 3 with some serious seperation anxiety. We have spent the past year working with him and managed to progress him from being in a crate when we would go out to having the freedom of roaming the house. He was doing amazingly well, but for some reason had a relapse on Friday. Most of the time you can just wait for all the food to pass, but Ryker being a deep chested large dog is at serious risk of bloat. Bloat in large dogs can happen when a dog gorges or eats and drinks too soon after exercise…the stomach will expand causing it to flip over and trap all the gasses inside killing the dog if left untreated…Bloat doesn’t go away on it’s own. Ryker ate a deadly combination of pancake in saran wrap and lots of margerine causing a plug in his stomach…the gasses started to expand his stomach and caused the incoming and outgoing valves to swell and close off. When I arrived home on friday night he was in serious trouble. His stomach had expanded to over 400% larger than it’s normal size. He was knocking on death’s door.

An extremely fast race to the nearest 2 am emergency hospital resulted in a major surgery. Trip canceled! We are SO VERY lucky to still have him with us. I am grateful for the hours of research we did on his breed which enabled me to identify his emergency within seconds of seeing him…it saved his life…as did my wonderful car with a heck of a lot of get up and go!

Anyways, he is now home and slowly recovering

Lots of love, snuggles, a new padlock on the fridge and we should all be ok!

All three of us were going on the trip together, but I would much rather we all stay home than be one less in Florida.