2011 ReBelle Holiday Mix

Groupon questions

We are really excited about the Groupon promotion and hope you are too, this is something we have wanted to do for quite some time. We have been getting a lot of questions about the Groupon so here's a breakdown of the rules.

• The ReBelle Groupon can be used toward merchandise, classes, or equipment rental.
• The Groupon is not supposed to be used toward sale items, but we are going to make an exception for the items on the clearance shelf and the yarn of the month (currently Noro Kureyon!!) If you use the Groupon during a sale for other items, those sale items will be rung up at their regular price.
• The Groupon must be used in a single visit and is not valid for cash back.
• The Groupon is limited to 1 per person (whether bought by you or received as a gift.)

If you have any other questions, feel free to either post them here or give us a call at 859-389-9750. Enjoy!!

Christmas Music

Sarah and I made a mix of all of our favorite Christmas songs this year to share with you. Merry Christmas!!

Advent calendars

Every year when December 1st hits it reminds me of one thing- I still don't have an Advent calendar. As a child, my mom would always put our Advent calendar up on December 1st and it was one of my favorite things about the holidays. The calendar we had was handmade of felt with a typed (as in on a typewriter) little poemy thing a the top. There were little yarn ties that held all the treats in place and every night my sister and I would get to untie and fight over the treat for the day. I imagine it was pretty frustrating for my mom, but we really loved it.

As an adult, I am more about the simple beauty of the Advent calendar. For years I have been planning to make one to hang, but have yet to do it. Maybe this will be the year of the Advent calendar. Just in case any of you are thinking about putting together your own, here are a few of my favorite knitted/crocheted Advent calendar patterns for you to enjoy.

Mini Knit Stockings
Crocheted Christmas Lights
Adventskalender

Brambles beret

A couple of weeks ago we received our first fall shipment of Malabrigo which included their new Rios yarn. For those of you who haven't seen it yet, Rios is a 4-ply superwash worsted-weight yarn that is, get this, softer than their original worsted. The colors are exactly what you would expect from Malabrigo, but since the yarn base is superwash, the colors are richer and more saturated than their other yarns. In one word, this yarn is AMAZING!! Around the time of the Malabrigo shipment, the new knitty was released and naturally the Brambles beret caught my eye. Originally, I had planned on knitting Brambles out of a single-ply, I love the way cables pop in a single, but somehow I got the idea of knitting it in Rios in my head and I couldn't get it out. All of the colors we ordered were in my personal color palette so instead of antagonizing over picking the right color I went with the color we had most of- Sunset.


The pattern itself was very well written and the progression was logical (obviously written by a math person) and for the first time in quite a while I didn't feel the need to make any changes to the original. I loved this pattern and will likely knit another one in a different size later in the season.

Coquille from Knitty

Looking for something a little different to knit for Fall? Here's our version of the Coquille shawl from the first fall Knitty. The small size can be knit with 200 grams of the sock yarn you love most, our personal favorite is Noro Silk Garden Sock (pictured.)

How to start a KAL with Ravelry

Knit-a-longs (KAL) are a great way to learn new techniques while tackling a challenging project with others. I was knitting with some friends last week and someone mentioned that it would be really cool if Ravelry had a feature that allowed you to compare your queue with the queues of your friends so that you could easily find common projects for starting a KAL. A post and an email later we learn that you can compare queues so here is a quick tutorial for you.

First, select the pattern tab and go to the "advanced search" feature listed under the search box. In the advanced search, go to the pattern tab, select "in my queue" and "yes." This will give you all of the patterns currently in your queue.


Next, in the pattern tab select "queued by."


You should end up with a box on the left of your screen with spaces to fill in the ravelry username(s) of the person/people in your KAL. I am just using Sarah, but if I wanted more people I would choose "and" instead of "or" and type in the names and hit "apply."


You should end up with a listing of your common patterns which you can use to decide on a project for a KAL.


This search and comparison can also be done with your favorites, the only difference is that there is no "in my favorites" button so you will go directly to "favorited by" and type your username along with those you are comparing. I would like to throw out a big kudos here to Casey and Jess for putting together such a comprehensive site. Seriously, what did we do before Ravelry?

Also, due to this magnificent feature, several of us are doing a KAL for Eunny Jang's Endpaper Mitts. If you would like to join us there is a Facebook event with all of the details.