New: Two from Crystal Palace

We just put on the shelf two new (for us) yarns from Crystal Palace: Cotton Chenille and Party Ribbon. We love mixing ribbon with mohair for quick & elegant scarves & shawls, and Party is one of the most beautiful ribbons I've seen. We have it in solids and multis. The Cotton Chenille has been requested by several customers as the ideal "wash cloth" yarn. Yep, you too can knit a wash cloth! We have twelve colors in stock. Stop in and check them out!

Class Schedule Online

I just posted the new class schedule for Jan/Feb 2006. The link to the class schedule is on the Marin Fiber Arts home page here. I hope I didn't make any typos with the dates. Please let me know if you spot anything that doesn't make sense.

Class Schedule Is Here

Sale Yarns

We now have a 'sale table' near the rear of the store, filled with fun yarns ideal for making last-minute holiday gifts. Yarns such as Malizia, Flurry, Carioca, Fabulash, and others are discounted 20% off the regular price.

Yarn Spotlight: Linea Rossa

Recently I had the opportunity to tour the warehouse of Unicorn Books & Crafts, a major distributor of knitting & craft books (which happens to be located a mere 15 miles from my home). Unicorn also happens to be the exclusive U.S. distributor of Lana Grossa yarns. Since I was not previously familiar with Lana Grossa, I was excited about the prospect of learning about a "new" yarn company.

Apparently Lana Grossa is a major German yarn company which has only been available in the U.S. for approximately three years. They offer a wide range of yarns running from basics to foo-foo novelties. Lana Grossa also publishes a large number of pattern books per year, including a Kids issue and a Men's issue.

Lana Grossa this fall introduced a new line of yarns called 'Linea Rossa'. It's a premium line of three luxury yarns consisting of all natural fibers. Extra-fine Merino wool is used as the base fiber, which they blend with silk, baby alpaca, and cashmere to yield three splendid yarns.

I have added each of these yarns to the inventory in beautiful shades such as chocolate brown, baby blue, natural, wine, hot pink, and a rich deep aqua. In upcoming posts I will be writing more about each yarn as I swatch them up.

You can read a little more about Linea Rossa here.

Things are going well...

Just a quick note 'cuz I haven't posted in a long while. Things are going well. The Marin Independent Journal (the local newspaper) printed a great little article about the store several weeks ago, ostensibly to publicize the Knit For Her Cure event that we held on the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend. The article ran on the front page (bottom) of the Home & Garden section. The phone started ringing at 9:50 am the day that the article ran. 'Where are you located? What are your hours? Etc." The previous trickle of new customers turned into a steady stream once the article ran, and it has yet to let up! Sure, we've had a slow day here and there (like last Thursday during our first big rain storm of the season), but in general sales are getting better and better as time goes on. Many, many people are very interested in classes; I am almost finished planning the class schedule for Jan/Feb. It will feature beginning knitting, crochet, socks, lace, finishing techniques, and a 'my first sweater (vest)' class taught by the lovely and talented Barbara B.

Tomorrow I'll try to take pictures of the store... quite a bit of yarn has come in during the past few weeks.

From here on in I plan on talking a lot about the yarns we have and the projects we are working on.

More to come...