Seems like everything I made last year was some shade of brown. This Spring, inspired by Blossom, our resident cherry tree fairy, everything is coming out pink. A pink dress in French General’s Petite Ecole, a pink shawl in morehouse lace, a pink short sleeved lacy sweater in Tosh Light, and finally, the easiest quickest project start to finish ever – a pink tie.

The dress and the tie were sort of made up with some vintage patterns providing some building blocks. This tie was so easy to make, really. Two hours is all you need. You are welcome to use our sewing studio for free this week to make one in honor of Father’s day.

	Madeline Tosh Back in full force! Un-earthly colors in Merino Lightand Prarie. Both yarns are perfect for summer knitting. They are yearning to be knit up as light and airy cardigans for all those beach walks or Promenade strolls.
	Imperial Stock Ranch Batten down the hatches, you will be blown away by these new yarns from my favorite new friend. Anna is a hand-dyed cotton wool blended and plied beauty. Erin is a hand-dyed wool, a bit lighter than it’s worsted weight sister.
	Cascade Ultra Pima Eight new summer colors in this fabulous silky smooth cotton.

	New Patterns from Colette Check out our newest patterns from Colette. Dresses, shirts, skirts and even lingerie.
	75 Birds, Butterflies and Little Beasts to Knit and Crochet A small book packed with garden creatures. We are building a garden in our window. Any creatures that would like to inhabit it are welcome.

Teeny Tiny Toy Knits with Anna from Mochimochiland June 19th 1-3 pm Take knitting to the extreme by learning to make miniature toys no bigger than a peanut! In this class, Anna Hrachovec of Mochimochi Land will show you the basic techniques and minimalist details needed to knit an adorable Tiny Panda or one of her other toy patterns. Knitting in the round on double-pointed needles, making an I-cord, and simple embroidery are some of the techniques explored. These miniature objects make cute trinkets, embellishments, or accessories. Sign up here

Toy Design with Anna from Mochimochiland June 26th 1-4 pm Design and make your own huggable doll, animal or other character that is all your own! Anna Hrachovec of Mochimochi Land will guide you in starting with a sketch and turning it into a plan for a knitted toy design by using some simple geometry and math along with lots of tips and tricks from her years of experience exclusively designing toys. Sign up here.

Crocheted flower Workshop with Cal Patch Friday June 24th 6:30-8:30 May flowers may come and go, but you can whip up some colorful spring cheer with your bits of leftover yarn and a crochet hook. Learn how to make a variety of styles of flowers to adorn any kind of handwork! We will explore several methods of construction, and you’ll leave with a bouquet of new skills. Sign up here.

Zippered Pouch Workshop with Cal Patch June 25th 10 am-12 pm Here’s a quick project that can be adapted for all kinds of uses: the classic zippered pouch. Whether you need a business-card holder, laptop protector, camera case, or crochet hook carrier, here’s the solution! We will learn how to insert a zipper and sew a pouch to suit your style. Sign up here

Located at 128 Union Street in Brooklyn.

Meet Pollo, my Slick Back Angora bunny. He is the cutest bunny on the block. I don’t think he sneaks around hiding eggs but he reminds me that the little ones and the big ones need holding and stroking and even though they seem independent, they always appreciate unconditional bunny love. In my world, Easter is an excuse to get some more bunnies in our midst whether they be stuffed, wooden, edible or alive.

	Schulana Angora 100% Angora yarn. in a worsted weight. Perfect for baby booties or any accessory far away from the nose.
	Jamie Harmon Yarns Merino Wool and Angora blend 2-ply and single ply yarn. Hand spun and dyed in Vermont.

Bunny Cups Hand made in Brooklyn, these cups are perfect for drinking or holding your tools and notions.

Located at 128 Union Street in Brooklyn.

In an attempt to bring a bit of the in-store Brooklyn General experience to our online friends, we’ve decided to profile some of the wonderful folks who frequent the shop. Where better to start than with the people who lend their talents to the shop every day: Heather Love and Marcie Farwell.

Heather Love is a self-proclaimed lover of fiber, and she revels in the instant sense of comradery she feels when she meets other knitter, spinners, and stitchers. She teaches our knitting, spinning, and quilting classes and offers expert advice on all things crafty four days a week at Brooklyn General.

Heather learned to sew and knit as a small child, and has been doing both her entire life. As a young adult, Heather’s love of art and craft lead her to the Museum School in Boston, where she studied photography and glass. During and after her student years she created and ran an accessories company, for which she made scarves, hats and mittens. When her boyfriend’s job brought her to New York, she settled in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and landed a job working for artists Mike & Doug Starn. During that time Starn Studios was located on Union Street in Brooklyn, just up the street from Brooklyn General. Heather was so excited when she realized Brooklyn General would be a yarn store. She and a friend began stalking the shop before it was even open, frequently peeking in the windows to chart its progress. Heather became one of Brooklyn General’s most frequent customers and eventually began working in the shop on Sundays and teaching the quilting class. About five years ago she took a spinning class at Brooklyn General, and spinning quickly became her primary fiber-arts passion.

Three years ago Heather moved fully into the world of fiber arts. She left Starn Studios to work and teach full time at Brooklyn General and to create her own hand-spun and hand-dyed yarns and patterns company, Hello Mello. Hello Mello (taken from her middle name and her grandmother’s maiden name, Mello) offers primarily luxury fiber yarns. In her spinning, Heather uses a lot of rare fibers such as pashmina, guanaco, vicuna, and yak, and her favorite fiber, BFL (Blue-Faced Leicester). She loves both undyed fibers and bright colors and enjoys working with a broad color palate. Most of the yarn she creates is small-gauge, such as sock and lace weights, but she also enjoys doing a variety of custom spinning.

For Heather, spinning provides a sense of relaxation that doesn’t come with other things, and she enjoys that the yarn she makes becomes someone else’s (or her own) raw material and has another life as a garment, object, or work of art. Still, for Heather, the fiber arts world always comes back to the wonderful ad hoc community it inspires. She loves the fact that anytime you knit in public, you can almost guarantee you will be approached by other knitters. People from vastly different backgrounds who otherwise have little in common are connected by the creative process, and that connection is half the fun.

Marcie Farwell teaches several of our sewing classes and adds a bit of mid-century flair to the shop three days a week with her gorgeous vintage dresses. She is also an artist who enjoys working with fiber and other mixed media and collaborating with other artists.

Originally from the San Fernando Valley in California, Marcie’s interests in vernacular architecture and photography brought her to New York City where she earned her BA in Architectual History at NYU and studied photography through the work/study program at the International Center of Photography. Later, a job at wedding dress designer Mary Adams’s shop, The Dress (then on Ludlow St), and an ever-growing vintage fabric, clothing & sewing pattern collection reawakened her childhood interest in sewing and the history of women’s costumes.

Eventually Marcie returned to the West Coast, this time to San Francisco, where she managed a knitting store. A friend, Katrina Rodabaugh, asked if she would take part in a show called The Dresses/Objects, in which several artists were asked to make a 1920s-inspired dress from fabric swatches printed with text from Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons. The show was exhibited at Mills College, and again last summer at Z Space in Theatre Artaud in San Francisco. In much the same way that Marcie connected with architecture though the history of the everyday, she has long been fascinated by what certain culturally prescribed items of clothing–such as a wedding dress, a morning dress, or a spinster’s dress–have signified to both the larger culture and the person wearing it. Inspired in part by Mary Adams’s self-taught style, Marcie began making more “art dresses,” elaborate machine and hand-sewn dresses that take several months to make and that are meant to be experienced much like sculpture. Her next art dress, entitled “Wede,” a mourning dress/childrens’ fort based on widow’s weeds, was exhibited as a part of T^nts for Rock Paper Scissors Gallery in Oakland, CA. In 2009 Marcie returned to New York, this time to Ditmas Park, Brooklyn. She collaborated with dancer/choreographer Lindsay Gilmour and created a modern-day spinster dress and costume for a dance piece called “East Wind In a Petticoat,” performed at Ithaca College.

Last year Marcie and her friend Massie Jones, along with five other artists, created a women’s art collective based in Cornwall-on-Hudson called The One Stone (a play on the name of their studio, Two Birds). They had their first show in June 2009, and are now working on the third show, for which the theme is Blue.

Located at 128 Union Street in Brooklyn.

We just love oilcloth in all of its retro glory. It fills an important niche in home decorating: You want your table/chair/floor to look beautiful, but your child wants to use it as a plate/stool/easel. For those of us with *busy* households, oilcloth saves the day. It is incredibly useful to have a few large pieces at hand to use as table clothes, art mats, and under-the-highchair food catchers. Oilcloth is the height of old-school practicality, yet your company will invariably comment, “how pretty!”

Feeling inspired? We just love Heather Cameron‘s oilcloth chair cushion tutorial for her HGTV blog.

What else can you do with oilcloth? Check out these ideas from Oilcloth International:

What is your favorite use for oilcloth? Leave us a comment and let us know!

Located at 128 Union Street in Brooklyn.

Try one of these small, fresh projects (most are free patterns!) in our suggested yarn–perfect for when the weather gets warm and you just can’t bear to lug around that bulky sweater project.

Satchels

photo credits (clockwise from upper left): Gale Zucker, Pam Powers, Geminime (on Ravelry), Mindy Lewis

We love these sweet bags–wooden handles seem to be a natural choice for leaf satchels. The delicate Leafy Reticule (upper left) by Ann Hahn Buechner from Mason-Dixon Knitting Outside the Lines calls for a DK yarn–we recommend one of the soft springtime colors of Rowan Pima Cotton. The latest edition of Interweave Knits features a romantic, fabric-lined satchel (upper right) by Pam Powers in a worsted cotton–try Lana Grossa’s Linea Pura Organico. The Leaf Satchel (lower left) by Teva Durham from Loop-d-Loop, Volume 2, is fashioned with a double-strand of DK-weight yarn such as Elsebeth Lavold’s Silky Wool, and the Cop Cat Bag (lower right) by Mindy Lewis will work up nicely in the worsted-weight Cascade 220 .

Small Comforts

photo credits: Cybele (on Ravelry), NorwayKate (on Ravelry)

Bring nature indoors with an elegant tea cozy from Sublime Book #614, (also a perfect project for trying out one of the many, many beautiful colors of Rauma Strikkegarn) and lacy summer-weight socks by Corey Laflamme (try Rauma Babygarn or Claudia Hand-Painted).

Delicate Washclothes

photo credits (clockwise from upper left): Eva Skulbru Eriksen (both top photos), Smariek (on Ravelry), MissMandiGirl (on Ravelry)

A handmade cotton washcloth is a small project, but a big luxury. The patterns for Leafy Cloth, Apple Leaf Cloth, Twin Leaf Cloth, and Vignes (Vineyard) Dishcloth are all available as free downloads on Ravelry and are a great way to try out a new cotton yarn!

For Baby

photo credit: Rowena Sweeney

It’s never too early to encourage a love of nature! This aptly named baby blanket, Ready for the Floor by Rowena Sweeney looks beautifully fresh and modern while giving baby a soft space to explore.

Beautiful Leaves

photo credits (clockwise from upper left): Midorisan (on Ravelry), RaeA (on Ravelry), Colleen Teerling, Monique Boonstra

Knitted and crocheted leaves have their own appeal as embellishment, or jewelry, or just as pretty objects. Have fun experimenting with different weights and styles of yarn to create your own Mountain Laurel Leaf, Feuille de Ginkgo, Lacy Leaf, or Leaf Lace Cotton Cuff.

Finally, for an inspiring read, check out the article in Rowan Knitting & Crochet Magazine #47 about knitting outdoors, and then take your project outside!

Located at 128 Union Street in Brooklyn.