Have a Yarn is the official blog of AmericanYarns.com.au.  We sell a range of American-branded knitting yarns, needles, pattern books, crochet supplies, spinning wheels, weaving looms and equipment.  We have a store based in Brisbane – 3/265 Blaker Road, Grovely, 4054.

Come on in and see us for all your yarn and fibre needs!  We are open – Wednesday to Friday – 9am to 4pm and Saturday – 9am to 1pm.  EFTPOS available and plenty of free parking.

This is the first FREE pattern in my vintage baby knitting series.

This pattern was taken from a vintage Australian Home Journal magazine:  Baby Book Number 3, published in the 1940s.

This kind of pattern is ideal for our Australian climate, and particularly my Queensland one – where babies often run around in just a singlet and nappy in the hotter months.

This is a versatile pattern – knit it in the recommended 2 ply wool for winter warmth and heirloom quality, or try it in 2 ply baby acrylic for washability.  It would do equally well in 4 ply sock yarn or plain wool and would also be fabulous in a 4 ply cotton or cotton/wool blend for warmer months.  Make the pattern stretch into the later years by knitting it in a soft cotton/wool blend 8 ply yarn.

Vintage FREE Pattern - knitted lacy baby vest in 2 ply (laceweight) wool or similar

Materials Required:

25 – 50g of wool, acrylic, cotton etc…

Straight needles, 9 inch, in a size to suit the yarn weight.

2 ply (laceweight) – 1.75 to 2mm (0-3 months)

4 ply (fingering) – 2.5 to 2.75mm (6-9 months

8 ply (DK weight) – 3.75mm to 4mm (12-18 months)

Abbreviations:

s = slip

k = knit

p = purl

st/s = stitch/es

p.s.s.o – pass slipped stitch over

w.f – wool forward

DIRECTIONS:

Make 2 pieces (front and back)

FRONT:

Cast on 56 sts and work in stocking st for 60 rows, increasing to 59 sts in the last row.

Repeat the 12-row pattern below, twice. (24 rows of pattern):

Row 1:  K 6, * s. 1, k 1, p.s.s.o, k 5, wf, k 1, wf, k 1, wf, k 1, wf, k 5, k 2 tog, k 2.  Repeat to last 4 sts, k 4.

Row 2 and alternate rows:  K 6, * s. 1, p 1, p.s.s.o, p 15, p 2 tog, k 2.  Repeat from * to last 4 sts, k 4.

Row 3:  k 6, * s. 1, k 1, p.s.s.o, k 4, wf, k1, wf, k 3, wf, k 1, wf, k 4, k 2 tog, k 2.  Repeat from * to last 4 sts, K 4.

Row 4:  repeat row 2

Row 5:  K 6, * s. 1, k 1, p.s.s.o, k 3, wf, k 1, wf, k 5, wf, k 1, wf, k 3, k 2 tog, k 2.  Repeat from * to last 4 sts, K 4.

Row 6:  repeat row 2

Row 7:  K 6, * s. 1, k 1, p.s.s.o, k 2, wf, k 1, wf, k 7, wf, k 1, wf, k 2, k 2 tog, k 2.  Repeat from * to last 4 sts, K 4.

Row 8:  Repeat row 2

Row 9:  K 6, * s. 1, k 1, p.s.s.o, k 1, wf, k1 wf, k 9, wf, k1, wf, k 1, k 2 tog, k 2.  repeat fom * to last 4 sts, k 4.

Row 10:  repeat row 2

Row 11:  K 6, * s. 1, k 1, p.s.s.o, wf, k 1, wf, k 11, wf, k 1, wf, k 2 tog, k 2.  Repeat from * to last 4 sts, k 4.

Row 12:  repeat row 2

Neckline:

Now K 1, P 1 over 16 sts, cast off 27 sts loosely, then K 1, P 1 over remaining 16 sts.

Work on one side of 16 shoulder sts for 2.5 inches.  cast off ribwise.

Repeat for the other 16 shoulder sts.

BACK: work exactly the same as FRONT

Making Up:

Press carefully, sew up shoulder and side seams.  Crochet a beading/edging around neck and edging around armholes (see below).  Crochet the same edging around lower edge.

Crochet Edging:

* 3 chain, 1 treble (U.S. – DC) into edge, 1 DC (U.S. – SC) 1/4 inch further along the edge.  Repeat from * all around.

Feel free to print this pattern for your use and may be freely distributed.  Pictures of the finished product are welcome.  please e-mail:  info (at) americanyarns (dot) com (dot) au.

Happy Knitting!

Gabrielle

This year and into 2011, American Yarns is participating in Kollage Yarns’s “Feed Your Creativity” program.

It is a series of 10 Knit-a-Longs over 10 months, starting with the Cabled Hat in ‘Glisten’ – a luxe yarn in alpaca and silk with a silver ‘estilina’ thread running through it:

Cabled Beanie and Cowl on display in the shop along with the kits

Closeup of the Cabled Beanie

The kits are $45 and include 2 skeins of Glisten and the pattern for the Cabled Beanie and Cowl, packaged in a cute plastic, zippered satchel which you can use and re-use to store your project whilst knitting and then for other projects in the future.

The August kits are on sale now – we have a selection of colours in stock and until the middle of September, we are running the KAL every Thursday morning  – come into the store, grab a kit and let us help you cast on and get started.

This month’s kit – the Cabled Beanie – is suitable for intermediate knitters.  Knowledge of how to do cables is required.

Click here to see what other great projects in the Feed Your Creativity program are coming up!

Here is another customer project I thought I’d share with you:

It’s a knitted scarflette/mini shawl done in Silk Garden Lite – pretty isn’t it?

Finally got around to uploading the pics taken from our Great Charity Knit-in 2010, held on the 7th August:

We all had a fab time – it was a long day for me though!  We eventually finished at 10.30pm that night.  All up, there were 19 hats knitted and crocheted and two scarves.  It was a great opportunity for the lovely ladies of KFBN to get together and for me to finally put names to faces!  I have been a member of KFBN for a couple of years but it’s only since I’ve had the shop that I have started to become more involved.  We had lots of lovely food – a big shout-out to dear hubby who kindly made lots of tasty sandwiches and babysat the kids for 12 hours on his own!

Congrats also to Courtney who won the lucky door prize of a Denise Interchangeable needle set! yay!!  Congrats also to Diane who won a Namaste bag for being the lady who crocheted the most items on the night.

I now host a Knit and Natter for KFBN – the third Saturday of every month from 10am to 1pm.  Anyone is welcome to come along, share a cuppa and a chat and get involved in knitting or crocheting for this wonderful charity!

I have quite a few customers interested in doing the Bernat Mystery Crochet-Along 2010.  This fun project crochets a sampler afghan by giving new clues every Wednesday, starting on September 22nd.

The featured Bernat yarn is Bernat Softee Chunky – a 12 ply acrylic.  American Yarns is the only Australian supplier of Bernat, so if you’d like to be involved and need to order some yarn, please send me an e-mail:  info (at) americanyarns (dot) com (dot) au.  The price is $4.00 per 100g ball.

For more details on the Bernat Mystery Crochet-Along, go here and to follow the progress of the project and gather clues each week, go to Bernat’s Blog.

If I have time, I might join in as well!  Have fun everyone!

Delicious Crystal Palace Mini Mochi, Panda Cotton and Panda Silk are now listed on my site and available for pre-order.  Our order is going out in mid-September.

Here is a quick summary of each yarn.

Mini Mochi:

I have already raved about this one on my blog, but it really is wonderfully soft and so pretty to look at!  It is a fingering weight (4 ply) 80% wool, 20% nylon, slow self-striping yarn.  Mini Mochi is fab for socks but also great for baby items, scarves, shawls, accessories and fine garments.  There is also a Mochi Plus (worsted weight) and a Chunky Mochi listing on my website soon.

Panda Cotton:

Panda Cotton is also a fingering weight yarn (4 ply) – a blend of 59% bamboo – 25% cotton – 16% elastic nylon.

It is great for socks for the hot Aussie climate and also great for those allergic to or who dislike wool.  Vegans love it too!

Panda Silk:

Another fingering weight yarn – great for socks – the silk gives a lovely sheen and the bamboo lends lovely softness.  Also fab for baby layettes or baby items, oh and shawls!

52% bamboo
43% machine washable Merino wool
5% combed silk
204 yds/50 gr.  7-8 sts/inch

This is what you can look forward to next month:

Machine-knitted panel in Mini Mochi from Crystal Palace. Mmmmm!!! Self-striping goodness!

As you may or may not be aware, American Yarns is very proud to be the first Australian stockist of Crystal Palace yarns!  Crystal Palace make some gorgeous yarns, but they are perhaps most famous for their Mini Mochi – 80% wool, 20% nylon, slow-striping fingering weight yarn.  They also make a Mochi Plus (10 ply) and Chunky Mochi (12 ply).  This yarn is soooooo soft!  And it just glides through my knitting machine!  I knitted this on my old Empisal KH680L and it just glided through the carriage like butter – such a pleasurable experience I am lost for words!  My customers love Noro but when I showed them the Mini Mochi sample, they just ooohhh and aaahhhed.

Think the striping pleasure of Kauni, but with the softness of Malabrigo and you have Mini Mochi!

I am going to turn this sample into a cushion cover – I only had two balls to play with – so if you’re in-store please come on in and ooohhhh and aaaahhh with us!

After the Charity Knit-In tomorrow, I will be listing Crystal Palace yarns on my site and taking pre-orders for the planned shipment in September.  So make sure you are subscribed to my newsletter to be informed when these yarns are listed and available for purchase.

Until next week then!  Oh and here’s another drool-worthy close-up…

This week, my contract knitter Maree has been very busy knitting some new goodies from the Araucania Nature Wool that I have in-store.  I am going to visit my sister in London in December so these will do double-duty!

Maree said the Araucania is sooo soft and very easy to knit.  I think she did a fabulous job!

Araucania Nature Wool - fingerless gloves

This was a freebie pattern from Ravelry.com.  But I have a couple of Araucania pattern books in-stock too.  They are just beautiful!

Lacy Scarf = Araucania Nature Wool

The scarf was also a freebie pattern from Rav!  Gotta love Rav!

Close-up of Lacy Scarf

It’s a bit hard to see in these pics but the subtle shading of the Nature Wool makes it very pretty!

Sugar ‘n Cream

As the weather slowly gets warmer, many of my customers get busy with summer knitting in cotton and cotton/blends.

This year, we will be again increasing our stash of Sugar ‘n Cream so I got my knitting teacher Sue to knit this cute summer tote from 3 balls of Sugar ‘n Cream in ‘Jewels’, to showcase the range in-store:

Knit shopping bag using three balls of Lily Sugar 'n Cream in 'Jewels'

The top and straps are knitted on 4mm needles and the body of the bag on 10mm needles.  A great project for summer and at a cost of just $12.90!  The pattern is a free leaflet available in-store or from the Sugar ‘n Cream website.

Abuelita Merino

We have some new colours arriving in the beautiful Abuelita Merino Lace and Worsted next week.  I am always raving about what a wonderful alternative it is to malabrigo, but a friend of mine who was in the shop the other day showed me a hat she had crocheted from the Merino Worsted and remarked how it was MUCH softer than malabrigo.

So if you’d like to try some or feel how soft it is, come into the shop and touch our knitted ‘Ishbel’ shawlette:

This was knitted in Abuelita Merino baby lace – in ‘Blue Stone’.  It only used 50g of yarn! (half a skein).

Now here is what I’ve been up to!

Crochet Slouchy Beanie - crocheted in Debbie Stoller's Stitch Nation "Bamboo Ewe". Pattern from "Celebrity Slouchy Beanies to Crochet"

I crocheted this in just over 3 hours – a very quick and easy pattern from “Celebrity Slouchy Beanies to Crochet” (more copies due in-store next week).  I used half a ball each of two colours of Bamboo Ewe – so from 200g of yarn, you could get two crocheted hats.  This is actually a kid’s large, but as you can see it could fit a woman – it fits me!

My next project is also crocheted – the Joseph Wrap by Jenny King, as published in Crochet! magazine.

I used 8 balls of Noro Silk Garden – and just kept crocheting until I ran out!

Joseph Wrap by Jenny King Designs

Very soon, we will be installing a Gallery page on our American Yarns website to showcase the wonderful talents of my customers.  If you have bought some yarn from me – either instore or online – you will be invited to share pics of your work.  Every month, new projects will be posted and members invited to vote for their favourite.  The winner will receive a 10% discount coupon for redemption at American Yarns.

So to get the ball rolling, I thought you might like to see what some of you have been up to!

The beginnings of a crochet shawl in Noro Silk Garden Lite - colour 211 - pattern featured in Wrapped in Crochet by Kristin Omdahl

This is the start of a shawl in noro Silk Garden Lite colour 2011.  It never ceases to amaze me how well Noro crochets!  The long, slow colour changes are just beautiful.

Crochet Shawl in Noro Silk Garden - pattern from Wrapped in Crochet - Kristin Omdahl

Here’s another crocheted shawl completed by the sister of the lady doing the shawl above – again in Noro Silk Garden Lite – just beautiful!

Stay tuned for the launch of our gallery page – coming soon!