Baaad Anna's Yarn Store

At this weekend’s Woolith Fair yarn crawl, we are please to host a pop-up from Iron Dog Books, a local Mobile Book Truck from noon to 6pm this Friday April 27th.

We are so excited to partner with one of our regulars, Hilary Atleo whose amazing Book Truck is becoming a Lower Mainland icon! Although her amazing truck won’t fit in our East Van location, Hilary will be bringing a wide range of pre-loved knitting, fibre arts, crafting and makers books that can be swooped up by our Yarn Crawlers this Friday, including lots of Martin Storey, lots of Erica Knight, a smattering of other cool titles.

And if you miss her books at our event, be sure to check out her schedule of events for where her amazing truck will be next!

Who is ready for Vancouver’s annual yarn crawl happening this coming up weekend? Woolith Fair is in its 3rd year and we are thrilled to again be able to offer a variety of amazing happenings throughout the weekend to welcome all the Lower Mainland crawlers. In addition to offering 10% OFF EVERYTHING in our store to Woolith Fair participants, here’s a sneak peek of what you can plan for!

On Friday April 27th Baaad Anna’s will be hosting Iron Dog Books, a mobile book store that will be setting up a knitting, fibre arts and makers book section in our store for the day!

On Saturday April 28th Baaad Anna’s will be hosting a Trunk Show from local designer Caitlin Sheperd from pluckypigeonknits!

On Sunday April 29th Baaad Anna’s will host a Hedgehog fest with 20% off all of our Hedgehog Fibre Arts; AND we just got a giant new order of her new spring colours and all her favorites!

We will also be hosting a weekend-long Yarnheads Spring Sale taking an additional 20-50% off a variety of items in store all weekend long! Keep an eye out on this week’s blogs featuring more on this weekend’s happenings!

The yarn community is an amazing place. Fibre artists, crafters, makers, designers, dyers and farmers all come together to create a vibrant and active community that grows cultural, physical and mental well-being. A Local Yarn Store (known affectionately as a LYS by many in the fibre arts community) both serves and celebrates with this community, so to be at the giving-end of this new community-driven day of celebrating LYSs this Saturday is such an honour!

On Raverly, the online knitting and crocheting forum, you may have already heard about the Local Yarn Shawl.

The knitwear designer Casapinka has recently published a beautiful shawl pattern that she is offering free of charge to anyone who wants to support LYSs on the 1st annual Local Yarn Store Day. With purchase of any yarn for this pattern on April 21st you will receive a coupon code to get the pattern delivered directly to your Ravelry library for free.

This version of the Local Yarn Shawl makes use of a gradient kit.

The best thing about this shawl is that it can be done with any weight and colour combination that your heart desires! Join along with us as we knit this gorgeous shawl over the next few weeks, as we would love to see what many and varied yarn combinations are chosen for this project. By not giving a single yarn suggestion for this project, everyone’s finished object will be as unique and diverse as the various Local Yarn Stores that this community frequents! Come celebrate with us this Saturday!

To create a pop of colour, this knitter paired a semi-solid yarn with a complimentary speckled yarn.

Let’s celebrate!

There’s a few of our suppliers adding to the festivities this Saturday:

• Free shawl pattern from Sugar Bush with a purchase of any of their yarns which can be used with either Sport, DK or their worsted weight yarns; Or if you buy any 5 or more of the same yarn base, you will get a full pattern book for that yarn, free of charge!

• PomPom Quarterly Magazine is offering a coupon code with purchase of any of their magazines and books, to be used towards a free Ravelry download of any of their out of print PPQ magazines!

• We will be taking pre-orders for Andrea Rangal’s AlterKnits Stitch Dictionary at 20% off its cover price ($27.95 down from $34.95); this amazing resource from this local designer from Victoria sold out in the first week the last time we ordered them!

• All other Interweave knitting and crocheting magazines in store will all be 15% off!

Come celebrate with us!

Check out these amazing hand made wooden sock blockers we just got in! They are BC-made by a young maker couple going by Blue Coop Creative from the Okanagan, using pine wood rubbed with beeswax and orange oil.

If you’ve never used sock blockers after washing your hand knit foot warmers, check out my blog post on it here. And the beauty of these hand created ones are a marvelous way to celebrate a valuable step in the creation of this slow clothing project. We’ve thrilled to add them to our lineup, although they are of a limited quantity, being a labour of love!

$34.00/available in Women’s Medium or Small in store or online at www.baaadannas.store; Contact us for special order for a different size.

This Sunday April 8th is our monthly all-welcome, free-of-charge, community-building knit group Give Back Sundays! Bring your tools and come and knit or crochet from 1-3pm with donated yarn amongst like-minded East Van makers.

This knit/crochet/fibre craft get-together invites you to come with your tools and pick up some donated yarn to create something for someone in need in our community. What you choose to make is up to you but for the months of April and May Baaad Anna’s is putting a knit-sock challenge to see if we could collect 52 pairs of hand-knit socks to donate to the welcome package of residents to the Kaslo Street Temporary Modular Housing Project that is set to open its doors to 52 homeless or marginally housed individuals from within our East Vancouver community. There is some controversy to how the City of Vancouver rolled out this project, but the individuals coming into these units deserve a warm welcome and how better than with a symbolic offering of warm feet.

We have a selection of donated fingering and DK weight sock yarns to offer for anyone who is wanting to participate, or if you choose to use your own yarn our thought is to keep the colour and pattern-selection gender neutral and with ease so it might fit a wider selection of recipients.

Of course you are welcome to come to this week’s Give Back Sunday and work on any other project of your choosing. We’ve collected mitts for the Downtown East Side Womens Centre, tiny purple baby hats for Purple Crying Awareness, and prosthetic breasts for those in need; and we’d be happy to provide yarn and snacks for a two hour craft-for-others event at the store from 1-3pm. Hope to see you there!

For anyone looking to bond with a friend, son or daughter over the Easter holidays, check out our fun needle felting workshop coming up. And for those that would like to expand on their basic wheel spinning and learn more about plying we have a brand new class for you! Check out these and our other upcoming fibre arts classes running at Baaad Anna’s. Registration details can be found here.

LEARN TO NEEDLE FELT

This workshop will teach the basics of needle felting and will build a three dimensional fibre art creation to take home. No previous felting experience necessary. All materials included (felting needle, a mixture of Corriedale wool and foam block).

DATE: Sunday March 25th from 2:00pm-4:00pm

INTERMEDIATE WHEEL SPINNING: PLYING

This is a two day next-steps class for the beyond-beginner spinner who would like to brush up on their plying technique. Go from guessing at what you are going to create with your wheel to a measured approach. Bring your own wheel or rent an Ashford Kiwi wheel from Baaad Anna’s.

Week 1 Lets Ply: This would be an class on plying 2-ply, 3-ply, 4-ply and chain plying. It would be showing proper techniques, as well as strategies for balancing out imperfections in singles.

Week 2 A Bit of Simple Math for Spinning: This class is a great one to follow plying. It goes through wheel ratios, why they are important, measuring twists per inch, and how to spin to a specific twist per inch. All people have to know is how to count, add, multiply and divide!

DATES: Saturdays April 7 & 21st from 10:30am – 12:30pm

FIRST TIME SOCKS

You have been knitting for a while and feel like you’ve found your footing.  Do you want to put a sock on it – knit with your own hands? Then this is the class for you!

In three weeks, you will have a knit a boot sock (DK-weight yarn) or an around-home sock (Worsted-weight yarn). You can also knit a tiny sock if you don’t have time for homework.

Techniques learned:

• Jeny’s Stretchy slipknot Cast-on
• circular knitting with double-pointed needles (DPNs)
• avoiding ladders and loose stitches
• picking up stitches for heel
• Kitchener stitch

DATES:  Thursdays, April 5, 12, 19 & 26th from 6:00-7:30pm

MENDING WORKSHOP with Holli Yeoh

Materials INCLUDED: Holli Yeoh’s Repair Kit (valued at $31) is included in the cost of this workshop and includes: Eucalan sample, bent-tip needle, straight needle, needle felting needle, foam, locking stitch markers, small embroidery hoop, embroidery floss, sweater/blanket storage bag.

DATES: Sunday May 6th from 2:00-5:00pm

Registration details can be found here.

We are looking for a crocheter that may be able to help us celebrate the life of fibre arts advocate in our community. Although we can not often take on such requests, we have been asked to help locate someone who may be able to finish a crocheted blanket started by lady who had given so much time of her life encouraging others in our community to pick up knitting needles and crochet hooks for the first time. If anyone would have a few hours to donate to this project, please contact us at baaadannas@gmail.com and we can arrange.

Small crochet blanket needs help! All yarn and instructions provided… if you join us to work on it on this weekend’s Give Back Sunday we’ll even provide snacks!

And to that end, join us this Sunday March 11th for the second installment of our Give Back Sundays! This knit/crochet/fibre craft get-together invites you to come with your tools and pick up some donated yarn to create something for someone in need in our community. Whether you choose to knit a pair of mitts for the Downtown East Side Womens Centre, or create a tiny purple baby hat for Purple Crying Awareness, or crochet a prosthetic breast, we can provide yarn and snacks for a two hour craft-for-others event at the store from 1-3pm. Hope to see you there!

As the grey days continue through this typical Vancouver winter, I seek the comfort of a little bit of luxury, and there’s nothing better than a merino/cashmere/nylon cowl to cut through this cold. Victoria-based designer Andrea Rangel recently launched a knit that pays homage to Seattle architecture, and the yardage of the sport-weight wool required for her new pattern makes our Wollmeise Blend a perfect match to this classic and somewhat nostalgic piece.

Pacific Arches Cowl is knit as a tube in the round, making a squishy and beautifully weighted neckwarmer. With its neo-gothic motifs, this simple two-string colourwork piece creates an eye-catching work of wearable art.

We love our Rohrspatz und Wollmeise yarns with their incredible yardage and stitch definition. Come in to check out our wall of Wollmeise, as we are proud to hold one of the largest collections of this amazing yarn in Canada.

Our wall of Wollmeise!

We are a proud retailer of Ravelry patterns such as the Pacific Arches; and although we are not able to sell Wollmeise directly in our online store, you are free to call us at (604) 255 2577 to order and our current stock is live online, so you can see what colourways and in which quantities we have available at any time!

Special thanks to our staff Reagan for modelling the cowl!

Ready to pick up some new fibre arts? Our Learn to Knit class starts on Monday, try a new skill with Entrelac, and we also have a chance to get hands on with a spinning wheel! Here are some fun, learning opportunities coming up in March.

To register visit our online store, or call 604-255-2577 to reserve your spot!

BEGINNER KNITTING

This is a beginner knitting class for anyone who has never picked up needles, or for someone who is looking for a beginner refresher. Participants will learn the basics including casting on, knitting, purling and casting off. The class project will be a choice between simple hat, scarf, or arm warmers.

Minimum 3 participants and max 8

DATES: The class runs for 4 weeks (6 hours altogether) for each Monday in March: March 5, 12, 19, 26th from 6:00-7:30pm.

ENTRELAC MITTENS (INTRO TO ENTRELAC) WITH HOLLI YEOH

In this one afternoon workshop, learn to knit the entrelac mittens pattern from the book, Knit Noro Accessories. The pattern is published in only one size, but in this class students will learn how to size the mitten up and down and will receive full instructions for five sizes. This is large-scale entrelac with a total of only eight full diamonds in the mitt. Discover how the unique thumb extends from the centre of one of the diamonds. The class project will be to knit a child-sized mitten with some advance homework so we can get started right away with the intricacies of entrelac. Prerequisite: Beginner-intermediate knit skills.

DATES: Sunday March 11th from 2:00-5:00pm

INTRO TO WHEEL SPINNING

This is a two day beginner spinning class using an Ashford Wheel, and includes equipment rental for a three week period.  Participants will learn how to set up and use the equipment.

DATES: Saturdays March 3 & 10th from 10:30am- 12:30pm

Check out Holli’s amazing Entrelac mitts!!

To register visit our online store, or call 604-255-2577 to reserve your spot!