Spring Renewal

We have made it to green grass and blooming flowers here in Alberta (finally!) and The Stitchery celebrated its first birthday! Since a year has gone by, I would like to say thank you to our customers, subscribers, social media “likers” and our suppliers! It’s been a year of learning for me – SEO, bounce rate, QST – so many things involved in having an online shop.

I’ve met so many new people either via email, social media or in person and absolutely love hearing from you. Please feel free to reach out at any time to share your thoughts. I have had some very helpful product suggestions and one rather unhelpful criticism that it was very complicated to find our shop’s physical address (just to clarify The Stitchery is 100% online!). Something I would love to hear from you is how you heard about us. If you are reading this and don’t mind, please drop a comment on this post and let me know. I will be adding this question for future subscribers but I would love to know how you all found us!

On to what’s coming to the shop! Many of you have seen the Scheepjes Skies advertised on social media. It is so lovely and 100% cotton (vegan!). Currently, you can pre-order as we are anxiously await the shipment to arrive from the Netherlands. There are two weights available (1) lights which is fingering and (2) heavy which is DK and two sizes (28 g and 100 g). If you can’t decide which of the 9 colours suit your fancy, there are assorted boxes of the complete colour line in either weight.

There are already some great patterns coming out for this new Scheepjes line. For example, Cloud Catcher is a free crochet pattern on Ravelry by Mark Roseboom but this lovely soft cotton can be used for garments, shawls, blankets – anything you want a lovely soft cotton for!

Speaking of Scheepjes, by popular demand, we are stocking more whirl colours! They are also en route from the Netherlands but should be posted in the shop very soon. I recently finished the Spotting Clouds Top by Christina Hadderingh and am now looking for another garment pattern for the Whirl and am thinking the Embrace of the Sun dress. If you look at Schweta’s project page on Ravelry, you can see she has used just one whirl in Blackcurrent Squeeze Me to knit up this lovely dress!

I feel I can’t write a blog without mentioning knitting socks … I love knitting socks. I knit them anywhere and everywhere. There’s always a sock on the go in my bag in case I have to sit and wait with idle hands. We have some lovely new sock yarns in the shop and my current favourite is Opal Ice Cream. This lovely sock yarn is reasonably priced with the great quality that we know Opal provides.

If you feel like you just don’t get enough of me … you’re in luck! Did you know that The Stitchery has a YouTube channel? My disclaimer is – I am not a professional YouTuber and the videos are created to show products and kits (as I know it’s difficult to buy online) and to offer reviews and tips. The next video I will be publishing is how to do the kitchener stitch (very useful for seaming the toes on cuff down socks). I would love for you to check out the channel and would be even more pleased if you subscribe to the channel so that you will be alerted when new videos are published and also so that I can show my son that people do actually watch my super boring knitting and crochet videos (his words).

Thank you for all the love over the past year! It really is true that every time an order comes in, I smile and get excited to pack the order up for you with a little something extra tucked inside. I want you to know that you’re buying from a small, local business owned by a yarn-loving human where every sale is still as special as the first.

Happy yarning,

Monika