I hear people not wanting to learn to knit or crochet during the summer months, so I don’t usually teach then. But while I was out walking the dog in the heat of the morning, I was thinking – it’s too hot to be out here doing this – I’d rather be knitting!

Sometimes it is too hot to do anything too strenuous, and so yarn crafting is the perfect way to spend some time doing something productive.

You can do small projects, like hats, but I especially like small motifs that can later be joined together to make a bigger project. Granny squares are small and portable and don’t take up too much space on your lap (unlike a sweater or blanket). You may want to work on something lacy and open, instead of dense and warm.

Natural fibers, such as cotton and linen also are nice to work with during the summer, or any fine weight yarn. You do not want bulky, cozy yarns now, because if you get sweaty palms, that slows you down while you are trying to create something.

If you are planning to make gifts for the holidays, or attend craft fairs, you need to be thinking about these creations far in advance, or at least go through your stash and plan out what you will need or what you want to make.

Unfortunately, yarn sales are few and far between at this time of year, but you may have scored some bargains at the end of spring when old stock got cleared out.

Summer is a time for doing lots of other activities, but it doesn’t have to mean you can’t still do some knitting or crocheting.

Over the years, I have started, and completed, many projects. However, I’ve also started, and not finished, many projects, for a variety of reasons. Sometimes I would experiment with colour combinations, and my swatch of choice was a granny square. These little gems accumulated over the years, and I had so many, I decided to do a purge and put them together.

I have done purpose-made granny square blankets before. In those projects, the size was consistent, and the colours were carefully selected and coordinated. Joining them would be a pleasure.

This purge-project wasn’t going to be straight forward. Between the various sizes, and various colours I had tried over the years, I had to put a lot of thought into placement.

I started by sorting them into #of rounds. I began in the middle with

5-round squares, as that is what I had the most of. Then I added larger numbered rounds, and placed them as best I could. Of course, the different sizes didn’t line up, so I had to improvise at the edges and just crochet a few rows in particular areas to square it up.

When crocheting them together, there were seams that didn’t line up, so I just slip-stitched to where the next join was and carried on.

The various colours made for a challenge as well. I had made pastels, brights, weird combinations, lovely combinations. They would all have to get along. I tried to avoid having the same colours beside one another, and tried to have them somewhat pleasing to the eye. Where did this odd-ball come from?

And of course there weren’t really enough squares to make a large enough blanket. I had many many first-rounds, so I took them and added various rounds to make more of 5 or 6 round squares. Here I could choose colours that I needed, and avoid ghastly combinations.

It may not be the prettiest, although it’s not horrid either. It will definitely keep someone toasty warm.

I really enjoyed this challenging project, and because I still have plenty of various squares left, anther blanket is in the works.

Whenever I travel, either locally or to Mexico or the states, I like to look for yarn. I haven’t had much luck in Mexico the last few times I’ve been, but in March, I was able to purchase some Made in Mexico yarn. The secret is to find a fabric shop (with a vast selection I have to say) and along with the fabric are some craft supplies and yarn. I’m not sure what I will make with this collection, but it will remind me of my Mazatlan visit.

In a continuation of cleaning up around the house, I’m starting to tackle my craft room, formerly known as the Solarium. I’m not sure how it got overtaken by yarn, and books, but it has. I, like so many crafters, am trying to confine my yarn to just one or two rooms in the house. It has occasionally crept into more than that, but now it is just where I actually can sit and knit or crochet.

It is always a challenge to sort yarn: is it by colour or brand? It it by weight or by fibre? In general I sort it by weight i.e. baby yarn together, bulky or chunky together. But if I have enough of a certain brand, I will likely put that together. Also, if I buy yarn for a specific project,  I would put the yarn and pattern together in a bag, but this bag now becomes unwieldy to put on a shelf, so it goes in a bin. And yarn on a shelf looks nice, and is easy to see, and yarn in a bin becomes forgotten.

In my cleanup, I discovered many bits of yarn, which I intend to tie together, knit an i-cord with, and then knit the i-cord into something, which depends on how much I end up with.

I discovered many granny squares of various sizes and palettes. I have joined many of them already, but as I dig deeper, I find more. Should I make them bigger and join them? If so, what colours should I finish them off with? And the biggest question of all – do I need to buy more yarn for that?

I may never be fully organized, as it is kind of a happy endeavor to go through a bin and discover hidden treasures, or regrets, or why did I ever start this project, or what do I need to finish it?.

After all, what is really wrong with buying more yarn?

Continuing down on Vancouver Island, I was able to go to Needle Arts Centre needleart.com in Campbell River. A wonderful store with great staff. They offered to wind my hank into a ball, which I was so surprised at. I declined their offer, as I know that I’ll recruit someone to hold it for me while I wind it. They also took an interest in what I was making with the Punta Yarns skein I was buying.

Although we passed through Courtenay, I didn’t get to Uptown Yarns uptownyarns.net as we left too early in the morning before it was open.

I was unable to go into Let’s Knit (let’s knit) in Qualicum Beach, because it was closed for their summer holidays! Don’t they know that some people need wool in the summer? Of course they deserve a holiday, and let’s face it, lots of people take a break from yarncrafts during the summer, especially in such a beautiful place as Qualicum. I was very disappointed however…

I was able to to go the Stedman’s in Parksville and pick up a skein of wool, as is my annual tradition. Again, you wouldn’t necessarily think that a department store would have any yarn, but they have a great selection of a few brands, with a great variety of colours. They also have lots of needles and hooks.

I did not get to The Wool Shop in Parksville, but it is highly rated on TripAdvisor.

Carrying on down the Island, we passed by The Loom in Duncan, but I did go there last year. Although we stayed in Sidney, I didn’t get a chance to go to  In Sheep’s  Clothing either because we left too early in the day.

Victoria has the fabulous Beehive Wool Shop beehivewoolshop, which has been there for ages! Again I missed a visit there this year.

All in all, there are many yarn shops/ places to buy yarn on Vancouver Island, and I highly recommend that you buy a little something for yourself at every one of them!

I recently went on a road trip to Vancouver Island. I used to live there, so I am familiar with the beautiful scenery. But since this is a yarn blog, I want to share some experiences in regards to getting yarn on holiday.

We started out in Port Hardy. The population there is less than 4000, so I didn’t know what to expect. Some small towns have a local access to yarn, others, none whatsoever.

Project at start of trip

Ace Hardware Port Hardy, BC

We went to Cafe Guido/Drift/Book Nooks,(cafeguido.com) for coffee, and I saw two women knitting, so I asked them to recommend where to buy yarn. “Ace Hardware” they replied, but they also mentioned that they mostly buy online. As well, they said “it is a good excuse for a road trip”. Amen to that!

So on Sunday morning before we were to leave, we went to the local Ace Hardware store, and lo and behold, an entire  back area for yarn and sewing notions. I only bought one skein of wool because I had decided beforehand to only buy wool so I could felt it, and I don’t really need anything else. The picture above is from Ace Hardware.

Hint: if you are going on holiday and can get to yarn stores, either have something specific in mind, or at least have an idea. It is not fun to be overwhelmed by all the beautiful yarns only to leave empty handed! My idea was to buy only wool, so I can make felted bowls. This idea focusses me to look for wool that would look nice after felting.

I also took along one project, and these photos show how much I got done. Not a lot, which means I was busy doing other activities, but I did get some yarning in.

With all the hatred going on in the world right now, it is easy to not feel inspired. But with the recent tragedy in Orlando, it has inspired me to work with more rainbow colours. Rainbows are easy to craft in either knit or crochet. Hats, scarves, blankets, toys, you name it, it can be created using beautiful rainbow colours. I immediately ordered these yarns in wool so I can felt my knitting later.

Crafters have an obligation, almost, to create things of beauty in times of ugliness.

I often donate my creations to charity. Our family donates to several charities that collect household items, so I will add a blanket into the bag of other things. I hope that my blanket goes to someone who needs one, but it could also be sold to raise money by a store that also helps the needy. Either way, I have to relinquish the blanket to the universe and hope that it helps to keep someone warm and cheers them up.

I know about donations because I work in a thrift store for a non-profit. So imagine my surprise when one of my donated blankets showed up there!

I don’t know what the story of the blanket is; I can only guess that it ended up being bought at a charity shop, used, then donated to our charity shop.

So now this blanket was in our shop. It was hung up and priced at $12.00 which I was pleased about. But it continued to not be sold. It was moved to the head of the rack to be seen by everyone. It got moved to the baby clothes area. I finally moved it to the linens bin. It seemed to be at least looked at there. I noticed that the price had been lowered to $5.00. Hmm. But it sold to a nice woman. I did not tell her I’d made it; I did not ask where it was going. That is $5.00 to our charity, thanks to my efforts.

That is the thing about donating to charity – you can’t have restrictions on the items. As long as you have gotten rid of them, you can no longer control who does what with them. I will continue to donate blankets and hope they find a good home.

It is a conundrum about knitting and crocheting and cooler weather. On the one hand, when it gets cooler, people want to be inside more. This, you would think, would mean more time crafting. But on the other hand, this time of year people also get very busy with shopping, wrapping, cooking, cleaning, seeing Christmas lights, visiting etc. This actually means less time crafting.

If you work in retail, you are extremely busy and it can get very tiring.

And if you are making gifts for people for Christmas, you can get somewhat stressed by timelines and perfectionism.

After Christmas is when the sales are, including yarn. You would buy more if it was on sale before Christmas to make presents with, but no, it’s after. You may have no money left for yarn, but then again you may have gotten gift cards. Yahoo!

For the new year, it would be a good idea to shop your stash, and finish up more WIP’s. It is also a good time to do an inventory of projects. If there are things that just need a bit of finishing, get to them. If there are projects that you know you will never get to, or just don’t enjoy, you can donate the yarn to a good cause.

I just got a bunch of clear bins to sort projects into. Initially I thought I’d need big bins, but surprisingly, there are a lot of little projects, so I don’t need more big bins!

Also a good idea would be to do something for charity. In North Vancouver, there is a woman collecting hats and mittens for the Syrian refugees.

But most of all, it is time to make things just for me! A new colourful scarf, tea cozies instead of blankets, and a dog coat (maybe).

Time to make a cup of tea, settle under a cozy hand-knitted blanket and make something beautiful!

It was one of those days where projects, literally, unravelled.

I have been working on a knitted blanket on huge needles, with chunky yarn. I was probably half-way through, and went to do a couple more rows when I noticed one of the edges coming undone! EEK!

There did not seem to be a way to pick up those stitches, so yes, I undid many, many rows. Luckily, it was not all the way back to the beginning. I think what happened was when I joined a new skein, it somehow came undone, and somehow, unravelled all the way up the side. I’ve never had that happen before, so I didn’t know what else to do. It was one of those moments where you wonder if it is worth it to try to fix it, or just start over. I chose to start over.

Then, just as that issue was resolved, I was looking at the beginnings of a sweater I was working on, and thought that it looked awfully large. I wanted it to be loose, but not that loose. And, I actually did a gauge swatch, so I thought I’d be good, but it still looked too huge. And I was not really liking the colour either. When I chose the colour, I was thinking in blue tones, but it has more grey marl in it, and that’s not really what I wanted. So I undid one skein’s worth of knitting. I’m going to change yarns all together and start with a colour I really love. I have to use two strands held together, and that makes it a bit more picky, but I think the colours will be beautiful.