August's "Teaser"

I'm so excited to get this out to everyone as I'm really pleased with how the colourway worked up from this month's painting! YAY! Don't forget to check your insert card for the word "WINNER" as we have two random winners for September's membership. How fun! I still can't believe we've come to the first year anniversary for the club - HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to everyone! Onto another year of great paintings and fun colourways!

August's Inspiration - Jo Moulton

I thought it'd be fun to incorporate "Zen" into this month's anniversary offering so when I did a quick search of zen on Art.com I stumbled onto this painting and fell in love! Isn't it gorgeous? The artist calls it Zen Peonies. Wonderful combination of colours...lovely! I can't wait to dye this one on the Louet Gems - it should translate in a beautiful way!

Oh, and to make the drawing for 2 winners for September completely random, I am going to be putting "winner" on two insert cards for August and if you have the card, you're one of the winners so make sure to double-check your insert card to see if you won! I didn't know how else to make it totally random and thought this would be fun...a bit of a scavenger hunt with your packages :)

August's Membership Subscriptions

Wouldn't you know it! Paypal's invoicing is down and not accessible...some kind of glitch...I called about it but not sure when it'll be back up and working so I've set up Paypal buttons in the right hand sidebar for subscribing for August's membership. Please choose by your country and these buttons will be available until at least the 23rd or 24th of July so you have a chance to sign up now or later.

August is our anniversary month so in celebration, I'm going to do a random drawing and give away two (2) free memberships for September! You just have to be signed up for August and that's it to be eligible.

Thanks everyone for your continued support and if you have questions, don't hesitate to email me at zenyarngarden AT yahoo DOT com.

NOW CLOSED!

July's "Spoiler"

I enjoyed handpainting this month's colourway since it was a soft colourway with golds and blues and it seemed like a nice fitting for the warmer month of July. The base yarn is Louet Gems so I hope everyone enjoys knitting with it! I am excited for August as it's our anniversary and I get to choose the painting! Stay tuned...I'm hoping to find something exciting or even totally different. Thanks everyone for a wonderful year and onto our next!

Discarded Roses in a Scarf

I'm just not a sock knitting sort of girl. But I love, love, love this yarn. So I cast on 40 stitches on a size 3 needle and commenced to knit, knitting two together at the start of every other row. And when I was down to one stitch, I picked up 40 stitches along the 40 garter stitch ridges and repeated the process, decreasing one stitch every other row. As you can see, those decrease edges form the hypoteneuse of a right tiangle, and the triangles are arranged so that the hypoteneuse is the outside edge of the scarf. If you pick up only one thread from the garter stitch ridges, it gives an almost invisible join and makes your scarf quite magic. The pointed ends are very dressy and feminine. I got 6 triangles out of a skein of yarn, producing a scarf about 4.5 feet long and about 9 inches wide. You could make a narrower, longer scarf by casting on fewer stitches and working more triangles. Knit happy!