Yes, you read it correctly. In July 2007, we teamed up with the angels at Lornas Laces to create a line of custom sock yarn like you've never seen before. Each month we introduce a limited number of hanks in a new colorway, a colorway inspired by anything and everything: the time of the year, upcoming holidays, the weather outside, current events, or maybe something as simple as a recent guest on Oprah.
Currently, we're only producing enough of the Shepherd Sock for a few pair of socks per U.S. state, so the likelihood of you seeing someone else with the same pair is pretty doggone low. And once we sell out, we're sold out - no one in the UNIVERSE will ever be able to get more. Lornas has promised us that they will destroy each month's secret dyeing algorithm, so if you love socks - and if you love Lornas Laces (who doesn't?) - then you might want to grab a few hanks right in the beginning.
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My Favorite Fellas
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The November Limited Edition color - My Favorite Fellas - is available now!
We'll have a more complete description shortly...
P.s. Don't forget that the Swirl DK and
Swirl Chunky
are both 50% Off.
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Trick or Treat
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Ah, Halloween. It brings back memories. Back when i was a kid in Raleigh, my best friend Allison and I used to run wild, especially on
Halloween and Easter. Given the fact that there was an Kerr Drug in walking distance from our house,
Allison and I used to count down the days until the day AFTER those famous holidays. Why, you ask?
Because that's when all of the CANDY WENT ON SALE!!! The first day after Halloween would yield prices
at 25% off, 2-3 days later the prices would drop 50%, and eventually every piece of candy could be had for pennies.
We would go crazy. We saved up our kool-aid stand money (that's another story...) all summer for these super candy sales
(yes, we had limited parental supervision those days and consequently bought as much sugary candy as we could afford).
Anyway, I'll never forget those days... and the sheer happiness of knowing that we could get a bag of candy corn - or a peanut butter egg - for a nickel.
(Of course, to date myself, the McDonalds down the street sold ice cream cones for $.26: a quarter plus 1 penny tax.)
So, in honor of my memories of Raleigh - and in celebration of Huck's 1st Halloween season, we've come
up with a color that reminds us of the colors we saw while walking up and down the sale-candy aisles. We hope that these colors
remind you of your own youth. Trick or Treat!
P.S. Don't forget that the Swirl DK and
Swirl Chunky
are both 50% Off.
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Purple Mojito
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Yes, we know Mojitos don't usually have anything purple in them
(something about a Grape Mojito sounds pretty interesting, don't you think?!), but the cool minty greens and serene lavenders in Purple Mojito are about more than what might be
an interesting summer cocktail!
Yes.. Summer is drawing to a close and my desire to hang on to the lazy summer nights is ever-increasing, yet
I'm already excited for the busy fall months and the holidays ahead (I think that's why September is one of my--and some of the girls in the shop's--favorite months!). Ashley and her now-husband Cory finished their yard just in time for
their backyard wedding last month, and now that life is returning to normal for them she says they've been enjoying evenings tending their garden and watching the sunset. Rumors
of a knit night on Sandy's deck have been circulating all week, and it seems there's always chatter about a barbecue or picnic on the weekends.
Needless to say, the inspiration for this month's color came from these sorts of end-of-summer rituals that
are just a little bittersweet as the seasons change, but more than anything help us all to recharge for the coming fall months. For September's limited edition color, we thought
we'd bring you along with us for just a moment: a barbecue with good friends (or a quiet evening knitting on the porch),
a refreshing drink (perhaps a mojito!) in hand, and the season's last few blooms of purple sage rustling in the wind.
P.s. Don't forget that the Swirl DK and
Swirl Chunky
are both 50% Off.
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Huck's Room
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Ok, let's be honest. I think it's pretty safe to say that my favorite color is brown.
So much so that the girls at the shop constantly tease me about being obsessed with it
(maybe because 80% of my recent projects have been in shades of brown?).
So naturally, when it came time to choose the color for now 2 month old Huck's nursery, my vote was for shades of brown.
Don't get me wrong - I do like blue...really I do, but I just couldn't imagine an entire room
in shades it...and without any brown! Sure blue is supposed to be calming, but what about a crying
baby is calming, anyway (and believe me, this kid has lungs)? Needless to say, we settled on two
colors for his room: brown for the bottom few feet of the walls, and a light blue for the top,
separated by a jungle-themed border. We liked the color scheme so much,
we thought we'd share it with you in this month's color Huck's Room.
Maybe the combination of blues, browns, and in-betweens will be a common ground for you and say,
the person you're knitting for!
Quick Note: you might have noticed the inclusion of a few new yarns in the list above:
Swirl Chunky and
Swirl Dk. Both of
these yarns are being discontinued by Lorna's and we are selling them at 50% Off.
Don't worry, we'll be getting about 50 more colors in September,
but just have them in Huck's Room for now.
Be warned - the Swirl Chunky is moving fast (though i like the Dk better, in all honesty)!
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Rocket Pop
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Just in time for the 4th of July, Rocket Pop is reminiscent of well... Rocket Pops! It makes me remember racing after the neighborhood ice cream truck with change in hand to pick up a rocket pop... ahhhhh, summer. The combination of natural, pewter, bold red, and powder blue are sure to make you want to knit well into the warm summer nights ahead! Available in Shepherd Sock, Sport, Worsted, Helen's Lace, and Lion & Lamb!
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Jimmy's Journey
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Jimmy's Journey... the color this month represents my own recent journey that has simultaneously come to an end
AND just begun. After 10 months of playing "host" to
this growing baby, I'm more than overjoyed to reclaim my body (and my stomach!). And as a gift to myself (i guess they call it a "push present"?),
I developed the following colorway with the girls from Lorna's Laces... the perfect combination of colors
that I love (and that are just a little bit boyish - for the new boy in our lives).
Island Blue, lavender, blackberry, denim, and cedar green...all mixed together to create a shade that's
springy and refreshing - and just screams "new life!" I hope you enjoy it as much as I do ... and that you'll
forgive me this one month of Limited Edition self-indulgence. :)
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African Violet
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This month's limited edition color reminds me of the African Violets that my
grandparents grew indoors. Back in Springfield, Virginia, my grandmother and grandfather
had the most amazing outdoor garden... close to an acre of land devoted to cucumbers, peanuts, lettuce, beans and more. I'll
never forget the summers I spent as a child there - breaking beans, canning tomatoes, and playing pinochle in the basement!
Not only did they have the most amazing outdoor garden, but also an incredible indoor one. This is where
they grew plants like the African Violets. They were always so beautiful - and I
never could get over the fact that they flourished so well inside (and I was always fascinated by the
purple lightbulbs). Well, my grandmother passed away a number of years ago, but this particular grandpa
is still alive and kicking (now in Pennsylvania) - and I even saw a few African Violets in his windowsill
the last time i visited. This month's for you, grandpa. Thanks for the great memories (and for teaching me that
milk always tastes better with 2 ice cubes)! :)
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Robin's Eggs
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Robin's Eggs? Don't ask where that name came from, because I honestly don't know...
Maybe from the deep, deep desire to hear little birds chirping outside of my window?
Or maybe I'm just thinking of Easter candy - and remembering the Robin Eggs Malt Milk Candy.
Yum! Those were some of my favorite - and still are! Of course, i'd always try and eat the
hard coating off of the candy and then suck on the malted milk center until I rotted out
the inside of my cheeks. Yep - now that i'm looking online at photos of that candy, i realize
that those candies inspired the name of this month's Limited Edition color! Hot pink, a lovely blue,
a great green, and grey.... this is honestly one of my favorite Limited Edition colors ever.
It's just ... different. Doug even commented on how much he liked it! I sure hope you
enjoy it as much as we do.... and that you think of malted milk balls when you knit with it. I sure will!
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Garden Daze
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Gardening in March? Yeah, well... when we originally came up with this month's name,
the ground was dry, the skies were clear and the temperature hovered around 50 degrees.
Now the skies and the ground are white, the temperature has been stuck around 30, and
it feels like we've had snow fall every single day for 4 weeks... heck, the only thing
that's growing at my house are the icicles on the roof!! Anyway, after debating over various
variations of "mint chocolate chip" and "muddy leprechaun", Sandy wisely observed that the
greens in this month's color reminded her of the garden that she'd soon be attending to...
and that the chocolate brown reminded her of the dirt in which her hands would be submerged.
We started with "digging in the garden" and eventually ended up at "garden daze", which we
hope you enjoy! And let's keep our fingers crossed that the sun will come out and we'll all
be gardening soon :)
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Simply the Blues
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I know, I know... we were supposed to have an inspiring red or pink color for this month since February is all
about Valentine's Day, American Heart Month, and other "red" themed events. Well, we're not
going to. And here's why: One of the girls here has recently broken up with her
boyfriend - and has NOT been looking forward to spending V-Day all by her lonesome.
She says she has the blues, so we decided to swim upstream this month by offering "Simply the Blues"...
In honor of all of those women that are single during February and are sick and tired of being
inundated with images of red, wine, chocolate, and endless love - we've all been there!
This color is a few of the blue colors blended together: denim, pond blue, china blue...
call it the
"Purple Club" or
"Red Rover" of the blues...(Editor's note: I hope everyone realizes the lighthearted tone of the above
story - we aren't trying to rebel against the establishment or anything... just thought that we'd have a little fun with Blue this month!)
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New Years Lights
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5, 4, 3, 2, 1.....Happy New Years (Lights)!
We were all counting down until January's color arrived in the shop.
It's reminiscent of parade floats and fireworks and it just plain makes me smile. For only being officially
into winter by a week or so we've had a lot of snow here in Truckee/Reno--one of the perks of living in the mountains, I suppose.
All this cold weather is, as Sandy always says, making me want to knit! Honestly, the bright colors in New Years Lights remind
me of the funky, intensely colored toe socks (usually with tassels, bows, bells or who knows what attached) that were popular in
my middle school years. I might just have to knit myself up a pair of toe socks (think knitting toes like knitting very small glove
fingers) to reminisce over the awkward years.
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Boughs of Holly
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Fa la la la la... la la la la... Those are the only words i can remember, except that i think "boughs of holly" might
be in the song somewhere. Yep - it's that time again: Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day ... all of the
wonderful and colorful December holidays are coming soon! No matter what you celebrate (or what you don't!),
we can all benefit from a little extra light and color during these weeks of very little sunshine. I don't
know about you, but darkness at 4:30 just puts me into a funk. It's like WHAM! and all of the sudden i'm
literally in tears over a cup of spilt milk. But that's where knitting comes in... and i have to say that
this month's color (Boughs of Holly) is making me happier than most. The color simply reminds me of holiday
wreaths and stockings and the prepackaged sugar cookies at Safeway.
Hence the name,
Boughs of Holly.
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Taos Thanksgiving
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Well, I've never been to Taos. Never spent more than a few hours in New Mexico, now that i think about it. (Actually,
after finishing school in houston, i drove my beat up Jeep Wrangler through N.M., en route to Pullman, WA for round 1 of grad school (round 2 was Penn State).
Grad School for what, you ask? Political Science and Sociology. And now i have a yarn store... go figure!).
Anyway, enough about me... let's get back to Taos.
I've seen pictures and heard stories of the place - and not a single one of them was negative.
In fact, all i've ever heard about the area is that it's simply breathtaking. Prettier than one could possibly imagine, they say.
So when Beth (from Lorna's) sent us the sample that would later be selected as this month's color, all of those
stories immediately came back to me. I could just picture the sun hitting the mountains, casting a reddish, rusty glow over the land.
And maybe i was hungry (or low on iron) when i saw the color, but i also couldn't stop thinking about Thanksgiving... and turkey.
Hence the name,
Taos Thanksgiving.
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Amber Rose
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October brings all kinds of things - the changing of the seasons, candy corn in ridiculous quantities (you should see the stash on my desk!),
little ghouls and goblins gearing up for trick-or-treating, Breast Cancer Awareness Month,
and most likely a daily rendition of "Happy Birthday" to our favorite New Zealander -
Amber - here in the shop.
This month's color is sort of a combination of the latter two, believe it or not. Amber Rose started as a joke, as
Amber wanted to pick October's color (and have the color named after her, of course!) for her birthday.
Then we got to thinking that, since her middle name is Rose, October might just be the perfect month for her to name the color.
Breast Cancer Awareness Month is of course associated with pink, so after a little bit of color play, Amber Rose was created!
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What? It's September already??!! The passage of time never ceases to amaze me... One minute the streets of Tahoe are crowded with tourists on holiday around Memorial Day, then poof! - one second later the streets are full again - only this time it's Labor Day weekend. Where in the heck did all of that time go? It's a mystery to me, for sure. To be fair, i have heard that time speeds up as you get older... as an 8 year old, you've only been alive for 96 months, so a single summer constitutes 1/32 of your entire existence. Now that i've been around for 408 months (as of last week!), those 3 piddly summer months (1/136) are just a blip of time on the radar of my life so far. Crazy, isn't it?
What does that have to do with Gone Fishin'? Ha ha - not much (as usual), except that the name came to us (Jeanne gets full credit this time) as we were lamenting the fact that the summer has gone by so quickly... and we all wished that we could take a week off and spend it on the side of the lake, staring at the clear blue water - and maybe we'd just put a sign on the door of JBW that says "Gone Fishin'... We'll Be Back Later." Now that would be some great customer service, wouldn't it?! :)
So, no matter where these last few weeks of warm weather take you, make sure to have a few hanks of the Gone Fishin' in your travel bag... it's a fun new color packed with endless possibilities!
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Hot August Night
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What can you do with a Hot August Night??
Knit! That's what i'm going to be doing with my Hot August Night yarn... This month's Lorna's Laces Limited Edition color was named after the smoky night skies here in the sierras... With all of the smoke this year, the skies have turned intense shades of red, orange, purple, and brown - and we've tried to recreate the colors to the best of our abilities. The Hot August Night color is available in: Shepherd Sock, Shepherd Worsted, Lion and Lamb, and NOW Shepherd Sport!
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Fireworks
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Let the Fireworks Begin!
Naturally the first thing to come out of my mouth when Beth from Lorna's Laces asked for a color name, this being July's color, was Fireworks.
When the girls at the shop first saw this color though, they all thought of popsicles -- you know, the ones off the ice cream truck that stained
our mouths neon colors in childhood. I'm a sucker for reminiscing, so I passed the new name on to Lorna's Laces. The color arrived today, labeled
FIREWORKS! It seems Lorna's Laces is just that efficient and they had already labeled the majority of the hanks before I got back to them! So if in all of this we've told you this month's color will be Popsicle, I'm sorry...but let the fireworks begin!
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Blueberry Snowcone
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The color is called Blueberry Snowcone because it reminds us of, well, summer snowcones! To be honest, I wanted to name it Blackberry Snowcone since it has so much purple in it (it has purple, periwinkle, bright blue and charcoal), but we figured that might be confusing since Lorna's already has a Blackberry color. Either way, the color is gorgeous and I'm excited to use it for this little sundress or maybe a baby sweater set. Then I'll just have to find a little kid to give it to!
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Becca's Last Day
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The May color was designed by longtime Lorna's Laces employee Becca. Here's what she had to say about the color - and her experience at LL: "Leaving Lorna's Laces is bittersweet for me. It is hard to leave an environment that has become like a home. With the good friends, the bright colors, the dance parties and lots of memories it is hard to believe that leaving is the best option. But, sometimes you have to jump into change with both feet and trust that you will land safely. So, thank you to Beth and everyone else at Lorna's for nurturing me (and putting up with me) for the past three and a half years. I hope that you all like the color that I created, and I hope that it encourages you to jump into change with both feet."
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Lily Pad
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The April Lorna's Laces limited edition color Lily Pad makes us feel like playing leap frog to celebrate the beginning of spring! The colors are elegant yet still remaining fresh. Jeanne says that it reminds her of one of Claude Monet's paintings of the water lilies (in fact, we were thinking of naming it Monet's Meadow!)
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Spring Forward
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This month, the girls in the store sat down and picked out a few of their favorite Lorna's shades - and asked Beth if she could dye them all next to each other. Whisper, Sage, Sunshine, and Natural are joined together to create "Spring Forward" - our limited edition color for March. I personally love it!
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SWAK
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American Heart Month, Valentines Day, and lots of chocolate.... February makes me think of reds, browns, and all of the colors in between. This month's color SWAK (Sealed with a Kiss) is the perfect combination of all things sweet (candies, love, your honey, etc). Whether you choose to knit a pair of socks for the love of your life - or a shawl to keep your darling mom warm during the cold months - or even a simple poncho for your 2 year old - you'll adore watching the colors of red, purple, and deep brown blend together. So - have fun with this color - and have a terrific February!
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Ice Storm
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"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere you go..." Well, maybe not everywhere, but at least it's snowing a ton here at my house. After skiing in the sunshine this morning, we returned home to snow and ice... and white skies. Yet just a few weeks ago I went for a run on the trails in shorts and a t-shirt! The lack of snow back then is what prompted us to come up with a yarn color that reminded us of snow and ice... maybe as our way of doing the 'snow dance.' And i guess it worked, cause it's been snowing all week long!
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Golden Holidays
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Ah, the holidays... traditional colors of red and green filling the house (well, not my house, but i have heard rumors that other people decorate their houses for Christmas, Hannukah, and other Winter Holidays!). This December, the creative geniuses at Lornas Laces have taken that red and green, softened them up a bit (think cedar and cranberry) and then added a touch of Gold. The result makes me giddy!
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Autumn Leaves
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For November 2007, we came up with the color Autumn Leaves! Remniscent of, well, Autumn Leaves... you can't go wrong with the shades of gold, brown, and rust.
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Candy Corn
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For October 2007, we came up with the color Candy Corn (our very own Jeanne came up with the name!). The color combination of orange and chocolate came about as a tribute to those who are fans of the Halloween holiday - and to those who aren't (hence the brown instead of traditional black). Personally, this color makes me think of those chocolate dipped orange slices, but it reminded Jeanne of her favorite October treat Candy Corn (without the white, obviously).
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Cherries Jubiliee
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For September 2007, we came up with the color Cherries Jubilee. With summer coming to an end, we find ourselves already missing those warm nights with ice cream in hand. I know the green in this yarn doesn't really have anything to do with ice cream, but the pinks and browns reminded us of that favorite ice cream cone. I hope you like it as much as we do.
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Rainforest
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For August 2007, we came up with the color Rainforest. Why Rainforest? Well, because Rainforests remind us of the tropics... and the tropics remind us of going on vacation... and August is the month for summer-ending vacations...
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