This crazy summer is flying past us – we’ve closed our store for July just to give us a bit of breathing room while we increase production to create inventory for our FIRST Fiber Festival! We’ll be at Festival Twist next month in Saint-André-Avellin, Quebec. I have heard that this is one of the biggest festivals in Canada, with about 20K people in attendance, so we are doing our best to ramp it up.

We are also trying to sell our teeny tiny 600 sq. ft. condo and buy our first house outside of the city to allow The Blue Brick more room, and a proper production studio, so we can stop dyeing out of our kitchen. (Pro tip: Trying to amp up production while staging your home is a bad plan).

All good things, but we are definitely burning that proverbial candle at both ends. It’s exciting and complicated and fun all at once. We’re running on pure adrenalin.

So it makes sense that we took at little break for Canada Day Weekend and drove to Ottawa to watch the parliament hill fireworks and then to Old Quebec City for a romantic getaway. For the drive, I took socks, of course ;)

Most of our gradients (Peggy’s Cove has too many colours) are available as ‘Sock Options’. Sock Options are matched gradients in skeins of 150 yards each (300 yard total) and are perfect for smaller projects like socks, gloves, or to use as accents in larger projects. This pair was done using ‘Kim’s Barn’ in Niagara MCN – Sock Option.

The pattern is free, and was designed by my dear friend Rayna. She even named them after me, and the pattern is called ‘Shireen’ (psst, check out Rayna’s other sock designs, she’s amazing!).

Pattern mods:

• I worked the smallest size (56 stitch cast-on) using 2.75mm needles because Niagara MCN is a sport yarn.
• Using 1×1 rib instead of 2×2, work 14 rounds
• Switch to k3, p1 ribbing, and work for 45 rounds
• Heel, gusset and toe as per pattern
• Maintain 3×1 ribbing on instep until you get to toe shaping.
• And that’s it! Easiest socks ever, and a perfect fit :)