Simply Socks Yarn Co. Blog

Holiday Shopping & Fun!

Thank you so much for a busy week as we sent out so many lovely holiday parcels from our big online holiday event! I can tell that you're also getting your holiday gifts in order as there's lots of Malabrigo Mecha and Rasta going out so you can make quick gifts. We're still in the midst of sending out a lot of these parcels and while we typically send things out within 24 hours, we appreciate an extra day of patience as we work a little less and spend a little bit more time with our families during this holiday week.

My crew and I looking forward to another busy week next week as we are having our big in-person Holiday Open House! A week of shopping, contests, treats and more. If you're anywhere close to Fort Wayne, Indiana, we'd love you to join us! Lots of people come from out of town, packing the car with fiber friends, and making a day or overnight trip of it. With over 20 tons of yarn to share, it really is worth the trip.

In addition to next week's in person event, we'll also be treating our online friends to free US shipping Monday and Tuesday with a coupon code I'll share soon. If you can't visit Fort Wayne, Indiana, we'll pay to get your yarn to you if you order on those days. We'll even send you a gift of holiday stitch markers if you order Monday through Friday next week as a way to thank you for celebrating 20 holiday seasons with us here at SSYC. I know that this time of year we all see a lot of ads and deals for clothes and electronics and other things, and I greatly appreciate that you all choose to spend your hard earned dollars here with us. It makes all the difference in keeping SSYC open and serving you - we hope for another 20!

All the Holiday Yarn - Grab it Now!

Santa's filled his bag with festive yarn and it's all been dropped here at Simply Socks Yarn Company! I love this time of year - not only are we knitters and crocheters making things for people we love, but we also get the chance to work with (and collect) yarn that isn't widely available. Our dyers really pulled out all the stops this year and we have SO MUCH to share. New colors, remakes of your faves, the rare Charan Sachar mug sets.... we have it all! Read on to see what we have, then go to the Kits & Clubs link to grab your faves. Keep in mind, these are all limited in supply, so if there's something you really want, please plan on pouncing or waiting until next year if it sells out fast. I'd love to have unlimited supply of all these, but there's only so much time our dyers can devote to just us, and they already do give us great priority this time of year.

Dream in Color is back with Colossal Sock (50% more in a skein), Smooshy Sock and Smooshy Cashmere in our five exclusive holiday colors above. Kitschy Kringle, Howliday Cheer, The Naughty List, Gettin' Blitzen and Santa-gria.

Leading Men Fiber Arts has sent their popular Krampus, Winter Wonderland, Reindeer Games as well as I'll Meet You At the Mistletoe and several others on their Showstopper Sock. We also have a restock of all their Sock colors here. They even offer knit up pictures (the second photo on each listing).

Want Yarn Love? Katie's holiday colors are back after a year without them, and we have new hues and your faves on Juliet Sock, Oliver Twist Sock and Twisty Sock Sets. The Twisty Sock Sets are super cool because it's the Oliver Twist skein (merino/nylon marled with a black ply) and that black really gives added dimension to the holiday colors and the sets are paired with a mini for a punch of color for toes and heels. 

Want more sock sets? We have them both from The Sheepy Shire (as well as their holiday skeins of Staple Sock and Meadow Sport, many with knit up samples shown above) AND Night Owl Fibers for stripes, shown below. Just some of them. There are many lovely options!

Want more stripes? I have Christmas and Hanukkah options on Sock and Worsted from Urth Yarns.

Love West Yorkshire Spinners? This is their 2024 Yuletide holiday color. I also have restocks of their others here (I try and stock them a few times a year).

I have all our awesome Madelinetosh holiday hues back for you as well. They've been out of some of their bases recently, but we have them all on Tosh Sock (100% superwash merino), Twist Light Sock (superwash merino/nylon), Tosh Merino Light (singles), and Tosh DK. I even have some on Pashmina and Tosh Vintage (worsted weight). All are at the Kits & Clubs link like everything else. Shown below are just a few of the options - Jollyville, Mistletoe, Caroling and Mint Condition.

For the first time, I have a holiday option from Frog It! Yarn, a Super Sock Set that is a full sized skein and two coordinating mini skeins. It would be cute with the Sweet & Tartan sock pattern.

Love Emma's Yarn? We'll have the new Holly Jolly color along with two tonal options Feelin' Pine and Santa Suit. We're still waiting on this late shipment to arrive, so it could be later on Tuesday or Wednesday that you see these. I'd like to think that we are immune to the holiday shipping delays that happen this time of year every year, but alas, we are not.

And for those that want something amazingly special, I have our Sip & Knit Kits again featuring the ceramic art of Charan Sachar with a skein of La Bien Aimee DK and a matching pom. You can sit and make a special hat while sipping your favorite drink from this gorgeous 16 ounce mug. I have several of these myself, and they are worth every penny. I've had some for years, using them in the dishwasher and microwave every day, and they hold up beautifully. It's like drinking from a little work of art. For the mug and yarn and pom it will be a bit over $100. I have these three color options this month, and next month I'll offer three other options, same color mugs but different yarns.

I hope you see something here that will bring you joy! Please don't hesitate if there's something you really want b/c our special offerings do tend to sell out fast. This time of year when the weather starts to turn is my favorite time of year for knitting. Not only do I get to make new mitts and hats and scarves for me for whatever winter coat I'll be wearing, but I also get to make new things for my friends and family. And I'm often sitting at holiday choir concerts or basketball games or robotics tournaments, and so I have plenty of new project options to keep me going during all those events. I really do feel lucky to be a knitter!

More Holiday Goods!

On Monday's holiday drop, we'll have for you our five exclusive colors from Dream in Color, including Howliday Cheer and Kitschy Kringle, which we haven't had for two years.

We will also have Santa-gria, The Naughty List and getting Blitzen. All these on Smooshy, Smooshy Cashmere and our Colossal Sock.

Want Leading Men Fiber Arts? I have those gorgeous hues like  Winter Wonderland, Reindeer Games and more. They even provide knit up pictures of their colors, which can be quite helpful as long as you get it that the skeins that I take photos of are the true representation of what you can expect, and the knit up samples are from another lot during another year.

Then we have Yarn Love back again. Katie's been so busy that we weren't able to get her holiday colors for Christmas in July, but thankfully she had a break in her dye schedule for us! We have all sorts of Twisty Sock Sets (so the skein that's marled with a black thread and a solid mini), Juliet skeins (merino nylon), and Oliver Twist (marled) skeins. I love these so much!

All these will be available Monday, Nov 25 mid morning EST at our Kits & Clubs link. And I'll more to share too!

SSYC's Holiday Open House - A Weeklong Event!

 

For those who are newer to SSYC, we've done an in-person Holiday Open House every year since we opened our larger storefront 14-ish years ago. A few years back I realized that the one-day event had gotten pretty darn large with Check Out lines reaching the entire length of the store, and it would serve y'all better if we made it a week long party. So now we celebrate some each day for a week, being open from 10am-2pm and we feature a different special or sale or gift each of the days we are open. We spread the party out for a total of 20 hours instead of 6, and it allows us to slow down, enjoy the time, and have a bigger overall event that's less frenzied. This year, the SSYC Holiday Open House Week is Monday, December 2 through Friday, December 6. Come from 10am until 2pm each day to party with us! 1315 E State Blvd, Fort Wayne, IN. There's plenty of parking on street and in our lot, and we have no steps and wide aisles for those who require that for navigating.

For those of you who can't make it during the day on the party week days, we are still open our typical one day a week in-person shopping days here.  It's worth noting that Team SSYC will be taking a bit of time off the end of the week/weekend of Thanksgiving, as usual. We are not open to the public on "black friday" or "small business saturday", as that's a weekend where we take time off to instead be with our families. We all love yarn and love to shop, but darn it we love our families more. We will be back to returning your emails and shipping after the weekend on "Cyber Monday" which I think we should rename "Stitcher Monday" don't you? We'll also be offering gifts with online purchases the week of Dec 2, little stich marker sets, and I'll post those details in a week.

What's going on the week of the Holiday Open House? Every day we will have our fish bowl contest and you can enter once a day. At the end of the week we randomly choose winners for things like gift certificates or yarn (Malabrigo and Cascade have sent a lot!), so if you happen to come in every day (even if it's just to drop your name in the fish bowl) then your chances really increase! In addition to the contest and general frivolity, each day we'll offer the following:

Monday, 12/2 - Free holiday stitch markers with your purchase plus 15% off Dream in Color & La Bien Aimee yarn

Tuesday, 12/3 - Cookie Cottage cookies for all plus 15% off Opal Sock Yarn & Laneras Yarn

Wednesday, 12/4 - Free holiday stitch markers plus Sale on a sale - an additional 10% off our already reduced sale yarn

Thursday, 12/5 -  Cookie Cottage cookies plus 15% off Hue Loco & Uschitita Fibre Arts

Friday 12/6 - Cookie Cottage cookies plus 15% off Cascade Yarns & JojoLand

*please note that sales for each day (except Wednesday) include regular priced yarn, not sale yarns. Sales are in person shopping only.

Please bring your fiber friends and come see us! It's pretty typical that people bring a car load of friends, go to one of the many great local places to eat (Hoppy Gnome and Acme Bar are hits) and make a day of it. While we are busy, it's not overwhelmingly so because the shop is quite big at 3500 sq ft, and we tend to be most busy from 11am-1pm. While we can sometimes stick around a bit after 2pm, we also need to get our kiddos from school or off the bus, so I don't recommend coming at 1:55, ya know what I mean? 

So please come join us! We are also having our online holiday yarn release on Monday, Nov 25, so if you aren't local or close by you can still be a part of the fun! Details are here.

More Holiday Goodies to Come

We have some festive yarns to share with you in our big holiday drop on Nov 25!

First, we have new colors and restocks from The Sheepy Shire. You can see a video here. Tara and Mike dye their yarn in PA. They've been taking a bit of time off this past year as they are growing their family, so I'm so glad that they not only sent us restocks of things like Griswold Family Christmas Tree, Yippee Ki Yay and Buddy the Elf (the first three shown below), but new colors like Hygge, Sitting by the Fireside and Through the Trees (click on the photo to expand it and see up close). They make such lovely colorways, don't they? 

Then I will have new hues and restocks of previous holiday colors from Emma's Yarn. Holly Jolly is vivid and festive and oh so much fun.

Santa Suit and Feelin' Pine are super if you want to focus on just red or just green.

Love stripes? I'll have sock sets and skeins from Night Owl Fibers, like Christmas 2024, 2023, and 2022 shown below. Plus lots of others.

These will all go live mid-morning EST on Monday, Nov 25 at the Kits & Clubs link. I'll share more later this week too!

Henry's First Project - Finished!

12-year-old Henry has finished his first knitting project! From start to finish, this was all him. He chose the yarn from what I had at home, and after I helped him cast on he asked very few questions - usually at the beginning of the row.

He cast on around 14 stitches for a stockinette scarf in Malabrigo Caracol color 139-Pocion. I think by the end he had 17 stitches on the needle and he used all of two skeins. He even cast off himself and all I did was weave in the ends for him.

He then washed it in the sink using a little bit of shampoo, soaked it for about an hour, rinsed it, and then squished out the water gently in the sink. Then he laid out the scarf on a towel, rolled it up, and stepped on it to get all the water up. He then brought down the little fan in his bedroom and used it to circulate air around the scarf so it would dry faster. This morning it was almost dry.

After he gets home from basketball practice tonight, he's going to write up a card to his Kindergarten teacher from 6 years ago, one of his favorite people who he still sees nearly every week at a special club she does. He wrote out a note about how he hopes it gives her comfort like she has given him for years. He wrote a draft so he can write it up nicely in the card later tonight. All him.

I'm so proud of this dude. It took him about 20 hours to complete, all while sitting with me on our couch watching Modern Family. He really is a knitter and a fab little man. You can see the Reel of the washing process here, and if you'd like to leave him a comment there or here, I know he would just love it. I don't think he even knows what a blog is, and doesn't care about Instagram, but I'll share what you say and I'm betting it will propel him toward his next project.

New in the Shop

We have so much new yarn in the shop over the past week. Not only did we get a big shipment of Regia sock yarn to replenish our stock, but we also have new hues of the gradient Virtuoso DK, new solid colors, and reinforcing thread!

Reinforcing thread is just nice to have on hand, whether you use it all the time or not. It's not pricey, so it's just good to keep on hand in several colors just for peace of mind. We've offered in by Lang for awhile now, and now we have the same thing from Regia.

Want solids? We have lots, and if you get two of them, you can make these cool cabled knee socks - just respond to your emailed receipt and ask me for it.

If you love the look of gradient yarns, Virtuoso DK is quite nice. It would be great in the pattern I've been using lately for mitts, the Cozy Cuffed Mitts, and I also have two free patterns for you, the cape above (you need three or 4 balls depending on your size) and the socks below (one ball).

Then I have the Energy Flow yarn that reminds me of the cottony, fuzzy socks you see in Target. And it comes with a free yoga sock pattern too. Just respond to your emailed receipt and ask for the pattern. Here's a short video of it up close.

If you want to get a head start on Christmas themed knits before our big release on Nov 25, then check out the restock of Flock Fibre we have on skeins and sock sets. I put these out now b/c it's been nearly two years since we've gotten Kim's yarn, and it's the only place you'll find it this holiday season, so I wanted to share it now.

Then we have restocks and new hues of Sock from Life in the Long Grass. Just so many stunning hues! Choose two colors to make the Lovetta pattern that you can get for free until Nov 17 from Ambah O'brien. Details here.

Want tools? We have restocks of all the great things from Twice Sheared Sheep, like the nice row counter shown here.

Lemonwood has sent us restocks and new designs of their super popular Mini Minder. Very cool for knitting and crocheting on the go.

Mermaid Tale & Party Cake

And if you love a small dyer, Frog It! Yarn has dyed up some beautiful new hues for us. I just can't get enough of these. I'm gonna have to get more base options from them soon because their dyeing is just impeccable.

Enchanted Forest & Clan Fraser

I hope you find something you love! It's the perfect weather now in Indiana to make cozy knits, and I've been really enjoying the quick mitts I've been doing. Grab some Vintage and join me!

Ooooooh, MITTS!

Last week, shop friend Kathleen emailed me a picture of her recent finished project, and boy did it make me jealous and want to knit some mitts! Aren't these just gorgeous?

She used the Cozy Cuffed Mitts pattern and Tosh Vintage worsted weight in GG Loves Dawn. This is one of the assigned pooling colors (so it's meant to have pools of color) and I just love how it turned out in a basic pattern. There are all sorts of patterns (like the ones from Dawn Barker) that are meant to accent the planned pooling colors, but this goes to show that they look fab in typical patterns too.

So, of course, I had to be like Kathleen and make my own. And wouldn't you know that this is a great pattern for feeling accomplished as it really does knit up quick. I was able to get one mitt done in just about three hours - maybe less. A lot of it while sitting at James' school the other night listening to the college counselor tell me about how much college costs and why I should just sell a kidney now to afford it.

But back to yarn.... Of course, I chose Beta Crucis. Because there's nothing quite like complaining about something (like disliking knitting thousands of little black stitches) and then DOING IT AGAIN. But I just had to. I'm not sure why I had to, but I did. So I did. *Note to all, there was enough other color to make it all good.* And then I ordered ice cream for myself as a reward. Both for knitting dark stitches and also for sitting through a boring meeting that is just the beginning of a year of boring meetings. All so I can prepare myself to sell a kidney to send my first born to college, away from me, which seems impossible since it feels like he should still be 6 years old.

And I already started another pair. Maybe I should call this month #mittvember?

Flock Fibre is Back!

It's been nearly two years since we've been able to get the artistry of Kim at Flock Fibres, but I'm happy to report that she's back in the dye studio and has sent us the loveliest batch of Take a Hike Sock and Flock Sock Sets.

Kim dyes her skeins at the edge of the Canadian Rockies, drawing inspiration from nature. 

We have some new hues, restocks AND holiday colors, like the ones show, above and below. Even though our holiday collections won't be up on our website until Nov 25, I'm posting the holiday skeins and sock sets now because I know many of you have been patiently waiting for over a year. Please do grab what you'd like because I'm unsure when I'll be able to get more. I do hope our wait isn't as long as it was, but you never know.

Take a Hike Sock in Gingerbread Party

Want pattern ideas? The Coffee Talk sock pattern is popular with the sock sets. And I quite like the Cozy Autumn socks for a skein.

Donation to the Boys & Girls Club

Thank you for your donations to the Boys & Girls Club through our Socktober fundraiser last week! You all donated $600, and I matched it, so yesterday I sent the Boys and Girls Club $1200.00  (plus I paid the fees for the transaction). Below is the receipt showing our donation, with a few things cut out for personal privacy.

Thank you so much for your support of SSYC so I have the means to give. Without your 19 years of support, I wouldn't have a solid business that is capable of giving in the way that we do. If you'd like to donate directly to the Boys & Girls Club, here's a link to do that.

Ask the Knitters

Dear Knitters,

I have some Opal wool socks I knitted probably 15 years ago - they are still being used but the toes are almost worn through.  I have some others I have knitted that just look worse for wear.  What do you do with them when you have determined you can’t save them any longer?

Thanks!  Laura S.

 

 *            *            *

Help a knitter out and leave your advice in the comments section below.  Have a question you'd like to see answered here?  Simply title an e-mail Ask the Knitters and send it on to [email protected] . Your question could be chosen for this series.

What We're Knitting

Or I could really title this "What we're knitting in my house" because it's not just me knitting anymore, but Henry has joined the house of knitters!

Of course, I had to find a picture of James knitting (below) from 5+ years ago, in the same spot in the family room. Oh, how this tugs at my heartstrings!

A couple weeks ago Hen asked me to show him how to knit again and this time it really stuck. I've been sick with some kind of cough thing (like everyone else, it seems) and I've been knitting when I have the energy. Henry's been right next to me, tinking along. This is his Malabrigo Caracol scarf he's working on right now, and I have to say I'm darn impressed with it. He likes how fast it works up compared with the yarn he started on. The color is Pocion.

I'm working on a new pair of Opal Hundertwasser socks color 5056-692. And as you can see, I am doing black toes and heels again, even though I complained about it with the last Hundertwasser socks I made. I like the stark contrast of the bold solid, and I've only dropped a stitch once. These tiny black stitches may do me in, but darn it, I'm going to pretend that my 46-year-old eyes are just fine and do it anyway. 

If you'd like to join along knitting Opal Yarn with me this month, feel free to tag your posts with #opalaong and so I can see what you're making too! In the past week, I've seen some great stash dives of a decade or more! So cool to see. And please enjoy this picture of yarn barf. Just proof that even though I know I'm gonna end up with a big hunk of yarn, I just can't stop myself from pulling from the middle. Tangles and all.

Here's our Halloween costumes this year! Like I mentioned above, I've not been feeling well, and when my lungs get affected, it takes me awhile to recover. I wasn't able to walk much when Halloween came on, so we found a golf cart, the kids decorated it, and my guys ferried me around so I could still go with them to trick-or-treat. It was super fun!

I was a pinata, Terry was Ted Lasso, James was a 17 year old, and Henry was a shark.