Knit City- Here We Come

A big part of The Artist's Mark is that we are the only retail outlet for the now world famous Seawall Fibres hand dyed yarn. Each year, daughter Lisa (AKA- The Dyer) and Vickie (AKA- the Designer) head off to Vancouver for an event called Knit City.

Knit City is an event attended by thousands of rabid knitters and over the course of three days we sell several hundred skeins of yarn.

Last year, we introduced a product called the Sock Blank. This is a length of knitted yarn which Vickie "paints" with dye to create a piece of art. Here's one she did last year.

The knitter, however, starts unraveling the "art" and uses it to knit a pair of socks! Hence the name "Sock Blanks". Don't ask me to justify other than to say that knitters are, how can I put this in a nice way, CRAZY!

Last year they sold all they brought so this year Vickie is back at it with a vengeance.

So this year they will be heading west with an even larger selection and after they get back I'm going to sweet talk Vickie into making some for the shop.

This year, however, the big unveiling will be of our new spokesperson- Knut The Knitter! Here is yours truly posing with him.

Knut will be at the booth and we are even going to have a contest for attendees who get their picture taken with him and we have a really nice enamel pin featuring Knut for sale. These will also be available in the shop after the show if there are any left. As you can see, we have tapped in to the Viking heritage evident in the popular Viking Shield Shawl that Vickie recently designed and released.

So if you are in Vancouver on the weekend of September 29th, stop by the booth and get your picture taken. And if you are a local who comes by to buy yarn, you might want to hold off next week because a lot of our stock has already been shipped out there.

And while Vickie has been painting, I've been working on some jewelry pieces that I'll feature in an upcoming blog.

As always, if you get lost and find yourself on Digby Neck, stop by and say hi. The weather is still warm and visitors are telling me that the whale watching is really good!

The Queen Has Her "Studio Cats" Again

It has been, to say the least, an eventful summer. We have had house guests for about the last 2 months and one guest, daughter Lisa, brought a special gift!

Some of you may know that Lisa, the one who lives in the Bahamas and hand dyes our Seawall Fibres yarn, puts a lot of time in as a volunteer at The Humane Society of Grand Bahama. Part of that involves being a surrogate mom for newborn kittens and she recently took a bunch that were only 3 days old! Some don't survive but two "Potcats" (what they call cats down there) did.

Now Bahamians are interesting in that they love dogs and hate cats. So the chance of a cat being adopted down there is minimal and since the organization is terribly underfunded, many are, unfortunately, euthanized.

Lisa was determined that that was not going to happen to her two "boys" so she decided to bring them to the U.S. where they have a chance.

Enter Vickie, AKA "She Who MUST  Be Obeyed"- our artist in residence. It has been several years since Vickie had the inspiration of a studio cat so she said to bring them here.
And here they are:

They are brothers and Thor is the larger. Leif is the runt of the litter but we have already ascertained that both are excellent mousers. They appear to love their new digs and have agreed to work as Vickie's inspirational "muses" in exchange for food.

And not a minute too soon since Vickie is painting a large number of "sock blanks" for the upcoming Knit City Show in Vancouver next month.

This has been our best year ever for visitors and I can assure you that on average the weather from now to the end of September is really good and whale watching is at its best. So if you are looking for a late summer escape, come to "The Neck"!

Seawall Fibres Huge Success at Knit City 2017

I finally made contact with the girls last night after they had gotten home from Day #1. Apparently, business was brisk to say the least.

Vickie at the desk processing credit cards.

The girls say they estimate they sold about half the skeins they had shipped out there and that there were only a few of Vickie's hand painted yarn blanks left.

People lined up waiting their turn at the cash.

So they have already gone way past their sales goal for the entire event!
They said that it was great to meet so many knitters from the Ravelry group and to hear the comments about the quality of our yarn.
Today should be another busy day and I'll update tomorrow.

Knit City 2017 Set Up Day

As you know, the shelves are bare in the yarn section of the shop as Lisa and Vickie are out in Vancouver for the big knitting trade show- Knit City 2017.
On Thursday they got the various props they needed for the booth and yesterday at noon they were able to start setting up. here's how the booth looked when they got there.

Vickie assembling a display unit.

After the displays went up, they started putting up some of the yarn and finished goods.

Lisa doing up tags.

The show runs two days and apart from the regular colours they will be featuring Vickie's hand painted sock blanks and a commemorative colour dyed just for the show. Here it is.

And here is one of Vickie's hand painted sock blanks:

Believe it or not, knitters actually take these things apart and knit them and when they do they get two identical socks. But several of the people I have shown them to say that they would just hang them on the wall as art!
We'll keep you posted as to what is going on.

The Cupboard is Bare! (Temporarily)

Just to let you know, last night we cleaned out virtually all of the hand dyed yarn to send out to Vancouver for the Knit City Trade Fair.
Vickie will be back on the 5th of October and we will know then the status of our inventory.
So if you want Seawall Fibres Hand Dyed Yarn between now and then, you'll just have to fly to Vancouver!
And for all you knitters, I'll be posting pics from our Knit City booth as I get them.

The Rock Lab Has a Name

As you go through life, if you are fortunate, you get to meet some really interesting people and, happily, I've met my share. It's an added bonus when they are not only interesting but nice.

Since moving back to Nova Scotia, I've come across several, one being Vaughn Tidd.

Vaughn used to own the Whale Cove Campground further up The Neck and has been a "rock guy" all his life from the looks of it. Over the years he started doing more than just finding them and began acquiring lapidary equipment to be able to showcase the amazing beauty of the rocks found in Nova Scotia. A few years back, he decided to downsize and started selling some of his machines and I was fortunate enough to buy a trim saw and grinding arbor. Then, this year, I bought a larger (10 inch) saw and beautiful little rock tumbler and last week, Vickie and I drove over to the south shore where Vaughn now lives and come back with this nifty little flat lap.

A flat lap is a machine that allows you to grind and polish rock on a flat surface, using plates embedded with grits of different coarseness. I modified it a little by changing the water cooling delivery system and tried it out and it works great! I am really impressed. Also, I got the blade put back in the big saw and actually cut a few stones yesterday. It too works great.

So now the lab is complete with all the equipment needed to do what I want to do with the beautiful material we are finding but it was still missing something important- a name!

Coming up with a really good name is not the easiest thing in the world. It has to reflect what goes on and also, hopefully, the personality of the person inside and I think I've found the perfect name for it. I give you:

Now some who know me might say, "Oh isn't that nice- he named it for Vickie", but while I'll take the compliment, it's not the case. Whenever I have bought equipment from Vaughn, I have always said that he was free to drop by and use it since I know that it is really hard to give something like this up totally.

So my little man cave will henceforth be known as the VT ROCK LAB in recognition of the guy who made it possible- Vaughn Tidd. And I hope that by hanging this over the door, Vaughn will feel comfortable to come by and use his equipment any time he wants. And I hope that you too will want to come by and see what a well equipped lapidary shop looks like and some of the beautiful things it can produce.

And speaking of beautiful things, one of the pieces I came away from Vaughn's with is this beautiful amethyst crystal which he had found on The Neck.

I actually used the new flat lap to clean off the faces and now will continue to smooth the facets and polish it up really nice because it is going to someone special who really likes amethyst- my daughter Lisa.

It is a standing family joke that every time Lisa comes here, she looks for a piece of amethyst and never finds any, even when we "seed" the area. So perhaps this will fill the void.

Although we are very busy gearing up for Knit City at the end of the month, I will be staying here except for when I drive Vickie to and from the airport so the shop will be closed Sept. 27-8 and October 4th. Other than that, we will be open regular hours or longer if we are here.

We are so excited to be able to present our gorgeous yarn to such a large piece of the knitting community andI'll be posting some shots of our booth at Knit City when they are available.

My Best One Yet?

A few years ago I cut a stone that had sort of a chevron pattern in it and I thought it might make a nice pendant.
Imagine my surprise when I cut it and the chevron pattern was replaced by this:

In about 5 cms. it had become a beautiful example of fortification agate with a little druzy of quartz in the center. This is why I love cutting good quality agate because all the patterns are three dimensional. That is, they will constantly change as you go through the stone. To see this, all you have to do is hold it up to the light.

The patterns are amazingly complex and 5 cms. further in it will be totally different again. I'm just happy I cut it in this particular plane.
I am in a "cutting" phase right now so will be posting a lot of pretty pictures next week.
It's a cool grey day here on The Neck but no wind. We are keeping a close eye on Hurricane Irma which is approaching our daughter Lisa who lives in Freeport, Grand Bahama Island. From the looks of it, a lot of people are going to feel its effects and it couldn't come at a worse time for her because she's dying as much as possible to get ready for Knit City at the end of the month.
So wherever YOU are, we hope you are healthy and happy and not facing stormy days ahead.