Monday, September 28, 2009

Regatta Fun!


Hope everyone made it down to Railroad square yesterday for the Handcar Regatta and had a rollicking good time, I know we did! It was terrific seeing everyone lending their hand to knit a sail for our boat. Everyone was so full of spirit and wearing such amazing costumes. The handcars were spectacular and brimming with ingenuity.

Thank you to every one who stopped by the Cast Away booth and helped with the sail!


Check out more pictures of the event at the flickr Handcar Regatta 2009.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Autumn Musings

Autumn is starting to creep it's nose up and here at Cast Away we are looking forward to the sweater-wearing Fall months. It's time for thinking of new autumn sweaters to knit, for planning your holiday knitted gifts, and for dressing in knitted layers. In fact, layered knits were once again seen all over the runways this season, and so we may soon start seeing it's influence upon our knitting. Missoni's Ready-to-Wear showed layers of soft camels, pinks, creams and grayed blues. One of their key pieces were the super long and thick cowls. This would be a great piece to make this Fall out of Misti Alpaca's Chunky or Malabrigo's worsted yarn. Or maybe try Twinkle's Soft Chunky for a thick short cowl, like what appeared on the Rodarte runway.

Speaking of yarns, our new Fall yarns are beginning to arrive in. We are now carrying MiraSol Yarn, and just received lots of amazing colors in both Miski and Sulka!Miski is a medium worsted weight and is 100% Baby Llama and would work great for a cute slouchy beret or cosy cabled scarf. And Sulka is a thick worsted/chunky weight yarn and is 60% Merino Wool, 20% Alpaca and 20% Silk! Sulka would look great in a textured cardigan, great for layering or it would work well for fair isle mittens.

Another silk and wool blend we've received is Elsebeth Lavold's Silky Wool in eight colors. This is a really beautiful light-weight DK yarn, that looks fabulous knitted in a lace stitch. The fiber content is 45% Wool, 35% Silk and 20% Nylon and knits at 5 1/2 stitche per inch with 192 yards per skein. We've also received two new yarns from Jade Sapphire. We now carry their 6-ply Cashmere and their Sapphire Sock, which has enough yardage for one pair of sox.

We've also gotton in two new yarns from Filature Di Crosa, Gioiello and Pom Pom. Plus more colors in Superior Cashmere and even more new colors in Mochi Plus by Crystal Palace.

On another note, we were sent an email about submissions for a "Pattern-A-Day" Calender. Check out: http://www.knittingpatternaday.com for information.