Just in time for the holidays you can whip up a bright and colorful cardigan for the little person in your life! The Honeycomb Child’s Cardigan features bright, striped sleeves and a whimsical honeycomb pattern on the body. Valley Superwash Bulky is a soft, machine-washable yarn that is perfect for kids, and with ingenious knit-in buttons this one is safe for your curious toddler! Designer Melissa Metzbower learned to knit as a teen and started creating her own patterns when she couldn’t find the right clothes for her sensitive skinned daughter. She says her designs are need driven, and very practical. Since they are geared toward busy people most of the designs call for washable yarns, and are meant to be as knitter-friendly as possible. Melissa really enjoyed getting to work with this yarn, “I absolutely love the squishiness of Valley Yarns Valley Superwash Bulky. This project was one I was sorry to see finished. The colors are so rich, the yarn knits up quickly, and the squish!!! Yum! The bonus to this yarn is that it is washable. Love that!”

If you’ve seen the cover of our holiday catalog, you know we’ve featured some adorable bears this year. They make the perfect gift for a favorite little one. Knit in either Valley Yarns Valley Superwash, or Valley Yarns Valley Superwash Bulky, they use the same pattern, but end up in two different sizes. The pattern also features accessories for your new bear friends; a hat and sweater. We’ll be starting the bears next week. In the meantime, you can collect your supplies.
Skills You Will Need (or Learn):
knitting in the round on dpns
knit in front and back of stitch (kfb)
knit 2 together (k2tog)
slip slip knit (ssk)
seaming

Things You Will Need:
Valley Yarns 670 Holiday Bears pattern (PDF or physical copy)
For 9″ bear: Valley Yarns Valley Superwash – 1 skein for bear, 1 skein for hat or sweater
For 12″ bear: Valley Yarns Superwash Bulky – 1 skein for bear, 1 skein for hat or sweater. (We’ll be knitting ours with Valley Superwash Bulky in 02 tan, with accessories in 23 grape.)
For both: Scraps of dark brown or black for face, and natural for the optional pom pom on the hat
2 sets of US 5 (for 9″ bear) or US 8 (for 12″ bear) DPNS, or size needed to get gauge
Polyfill or Superwash Merino Wool Top for stuffing (Note: if using wool top for stuffing, remove stuffing before machine washing to avoid clumping or pilling.)

Gauge:
For 9″ bear: 6 sts = 1″ (stockinette worked in the round)
For 12″ bear: 4 sts = 1″ (stockinette worked in the round)

We hope you’ll join us for this KAL. We’ve broken it up into four weeks, but you can finish much faster than that, making these bears a great gift idea.

Are you a fan of Valley Yarns? Have you been meaning to try it for a while but just haven’t gotten around to it? Now’s the perfect chance during our Valley Yarns Flash Sale. You have through October 6, 2015 at 11:59pm EDT to save 30% on Valley Yarns!

Valley Yarns is our own brand that we source from all over the world. We look for beautiful yarns that will last, and strive to have them at affordable prices. You may want to take this chance to check out our two newest yarns, Valley Yarns Hatfield and Valley Yarns Sunderland. Both of these 100% alpaca yarns are super warm.

Maybe merino is more your style? Take a look at Amherst. It’s one of my favorite Valley Yarns yarns because it is so soft. Prefer something without wool? Valley Yarns Southwick, Valley Yarns Longmeadow, and Valley Yarns Goshen are all wonderful cotton blends. I have a hard time knitting with cotton, but I must say, Goshen is one of my favorite yarns, and I’ve done several projects with it.

If you’re hoping for something machine washable, we have three weights of Valley Superwash, Worsted, DK, and Bulky, that are sure to fit whatever project you are looking to make. I’m actually thinking about some quick accessories in Valley Superwash Bulky, since the weather turned a bit chilly over the last few days, and we have some great bright colors that we’ve recently added to the line.

This is just a small sampling. No matter what Valley Yarns yarn you choose, you’ll love working with it. If you need inspiration, we also have a wonderful collection of Valley Yarns patterns designed exclusively for the yarn.

Don’t forget, until October 6, 2015 at 11:59pm EDT, you can save 30% on your purchase of Valley Yarns.

With Thanksgiving being celebrated this week in the States the bell has been rung for the final round of gift making. While there may be a few of you out there who still have time for larger projects like a sweater, most of us need patterns for small or quick gifts, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be special! Our Great Gifts eBook has patterns perfect for the special people in your life and you still have time to make all of them.

The Basic Scarf from Measurements, knit in Northampton Bulky, is a bit of a choose-your-own-adventure scarf that even a beginning knitter can play along. With 5 stitch patterns to choose from and easy calculations to change the width and length of your scarf this may become your go-to pattern. The Welcome Home Blanket may be the perfect  gift for the new baby in the family. The classic feather and fan pattern gets a modern update with bold blocks of color and the incredible squishiness of the Valley Superwash Bulky make this one a joy to knit. One of our newest yarns, Leyden, is show off to great effect in the Cobblestone Socks. The subtle pebbled surface of these socks works wonderfully with the variegated hues in the yarn and with some of the richer jeweltone colorways of Leyden these could be just the right pair of socks for the special guy in your life. The Rail Trail Mitts knit with two colors of Valley Yarns BFL Fingering would certainly be appreciated by the outdoorsy types in your life, the die-hard cyclist that’s still out on their bike in the snow or the early morning dog-walker. And the Forget-Me-Not Cowl is a beautiful, airy cowl perfect for a little extra layering. Knit in our 2/10 Merino Tencel which is available on cones with over 1,000 yards you could easily knit cowls for several friends or co-workers from the same cone.

Each pattern is available as an individual PDF for $3.99 or you can download the whole collection in the Great Gifts eBook for just $11.99. Who will you make these great gifts for?