Colors mimick nature

Mother nature is truly amazing!  While working in the garden early this morning, I was in awe of the bright, cheerful colors of the flowers and greens.   Nature doesn't have colors that clash within the garden. There are all kinds of shades and hues. Nothing is forced.  Nature also inpsires the dyeing of yarns.

It is fun to hand painted or kettle dye yarns from our farm.  The photos are from our garden this morning and the yarn is our merino/cashmere blend in a fingering weight The yellow green is hand painted and the purple is an ombre.



What looks cool

It is a rainy day in Natick today.  We like to think that Iron Horse can brighten your day with hand crafted gifts from local artists as well as all the wonderful yarns, books, patterns and more.

We are fortunate to carry many different wonderful yarns from leading yarn companies as well as hand spun from local artists and from our farm in Sherborn. At the moment, we have Berroco's Lago garment trunk show in house as well as their Big Kids/Little kids trunk show. 

Every once and a while a hand designed, knitted piece just catches the eye of eveyone tht walks in.  The above photo is of "Windley".  It is made with Lago yarn.  Windley is the perfect name for this top.  It is light, breezy and will fit a variety of women, petite to large, young to elder.  It reminds us of cool breezy days at the beach. The yarn colors are beautiful from bold and bright to soft and pastel.  We are getting a new shipment of yarn in tomorrow along with more pattern books.  The hands are twitching to start this piece!

We have Noro Iro and Noro Kureyon sock yarns at a huge discount this week until supplies are gone.  The company has decided to no longer make these beautiful yarns.  Darn!  Just when we have some great models in the store in each yarn.

Enjoy your day!

Knitters are like fragile fragrant flowers

This is a picture of my magnolia bush that my daughter gave me for Mother's Day this year.  It is one of my favorite flowers with its heady sweet fragrance.  It is also one of the hardest plants to keep growing and blooming.  Many times it will just drop its buds and leaves and die.  Why?  I have found through the years of being given this wonderful plant and trying everything, that what it needs most is love and a little TLC with some patience..  It needs bright light, space with no drafts, encouragement with water and fertilizer and humidity with heat.  This is the first time I have received one with just buds and given it all the above ingredients and it is now rewards us with beautiful white flowers and fragrance throughout our home.

So how does this pertain to knitters and crocheters?  They are like the magnolia, at times fragile with their projects, needing encouragement, TLC and patience. Everyone learns differently.  Many have high expectations of themselves and some times us.  But with time, patience, TLC and encouragement we are rewarded with someone completing their project in class, wearing it proudly or giving it as a gift with a smile on their face. 

It has all been worth it!

What do you do when you have a day off from the store (Iron Horse)?

There really is not a day "off" when you own and run a farm.  Today started with feeding and watering  animals.  It is also a time to physically appraise the health and well bearing of the animals. Next came working in our vegetable and flower gardens.  The weeds are faster than our pease, lettuce and radishes! The plan today is  winding some hand dyed and painted wool yarn that was dyed yesterday and into new skeins for the store.    With the yarn of the month club just starting again, this keeps the dye pots happy and full.                                                                                                                     

 Friday a shipment of roving came back from one of the three processing mills we use so some time has been spent winding the roving into balls.  We are fussy where our raw fiber goes because we want to be sure we receive our own fiber back.  After the processor ships back to us, we personally wind the roving into 4 ounce balls.  Occasionally, we will also place some of this roving into our needle felting sample packets.These "balls" are all 4 ounce balls from locally bred, rasied and sheared in Sherborn, MA.  This fiber happens to come from a friend's flock of Corriedale sheep in a rich natural white- cream color.  Some of this has already been reserved for two stores in California.  So boxing up and shipment is on the agenda today. The rest will go tonight to Iron Horse and be placed in the cubbies for hand spinners and needle felt makers.

Tonight is our monthly "Stitch Night" from 6:30-8:30 PM. It will be fun to see what everyone is working on and hear about their plans for the summer.  It is one of the  most pleasant times in the store.  All are welcome.

Knitting in Public

This week is World World Knitting in Public week.  It started off yesterday and runs through next Saturday.  We thought this was the perfect time to re-create ourselves and try to get our blog up and running again.  We are most fortunate to have Martha working in our store who blogs often and has offered to help!

It is funny to have a week to celebrate knitting in public when many of us who do portable hand work often have that project bag stuffed in our handbags, as an extra tote "just in case" there are a few moments between our daily rush to get a few stitches done. Please, no knitting and driving.  Only knit if you are the passenger.

The weather is great, we want to be outside more, why not knit in public?  Take it to the park, the kid's games, a cook out, the doctor and dentist office.  Think of portable projects like socks, gloves, mittens and baby projects.  We can fill your head with ideas.  Just drop into the store, Tuesday throught Saturday.

We have knitting "in public" in our store, the second Monday night of each month (it is this Monday everyone!) from 6:30 to 8:30 PM as well as every Thursday morning 10 AM to 12 noon. Both sessions are complimentary.

Stitch Night!

Once a month, usually the second Monday night of the month, we open the door wide to welcome all stitchers in crochet and knit to sit around the table, using us what one is working on, show of finished projects and encourage you to continue on. Last night was no exception!

Pam had two of her knitted characters with her, a great Santa and a wizard who was was standing patiently watching over us when all of a sudden his hat would just pop off his head and drop to the table. This happened a couple of times. We deemed him magical!

Barbara showed off her gorgeous cowl made with Iron Horse Farm's hand dyed Merino/cashmere/nylon fingering weight yarn out of the 60 Quick Knits Project book by Cascade Yarns. Jessica was wearing one of her creations as well as another sweater completed in hand.

The sock yarn swap happened again on the floor for those knitting the miter sock blanket and the Beekeeper's quilt afghan.

Overall there was a lot of good cheer, great stitching and wonderful company. Til next month!

It's Thursday!

Another Thursday has passed. Thursday mornings are a great time in the store. It is a complimentary meet time for stitchers. Whether you crochet, knit, are a beginner or advance, it doesn't matter when all come together for the love of fiber.

We are all enablers! We ooh and ahh over everyone's projects. Someone usually has a great new pattern or book for us to wet our appetite and have to purchase for the store.

Our latest "craze" is Frog Tree's Origami pullover sweater made out of delicious sport alpaca. It is a beginner sweater of two rectangles of a K1, P2 ribbing! Mindless knitting. We have actually decided to make this our KAL starting January 20, Friday from one to five. We will continue this casual meeting of hands and needles (yes, crocheters, we have the crochet version also)until most sweaters are being worn by their creators. Stop in for the whole four hours or just a few.

The leaves of the table have been tucked back into their storage space, the stitchers have left for their lives outside the store and all are inspired and ready to tackle the world!