Baaad Anna's Yarn Store

This weekend we are joining in the first annual Saltspring Fibre Fair hosted by Elderberry Yarns, the owners of the newest revamped fibre mill in British Columbia. With a marketplace, classes and a sheep-to-shawl competition this new fibre festival is a perfect day trip or overnighter for any Vancouver, Victoria or Pacific Northwest fibre artist!

Come join us if you have the Saturday or Sunday of this weekend available. A cool ride on the ferry and a sampling of island living is a wonderful way to celebrate a short summer stay-cation exploring our gorgeous province!

Baaad Anna’s hit the road again with a 2018 edition of their Baaadass British Columbia Roadtrip in mid-June. We followed some of our steps from the 2017 Baaadass roadtrip and ventured into a few new corners of our beautiful province!

We brought along our treasured Wollmeise, and also a vast selection of our favorite brands and bases that are mostly unique to our store. In turn, we were introduced to some amazing yarn and fibre talent from across the province that we then brought back with us to Vancouver!

We hosted seven pop-up shops and a yarn tasting event on this year’s trip across BC’s Interior. We had the opportunity to partner with knitting/spinning/weaving guilds, fibre enthusiasts and even popped up at a farmer’s market. Here’s a photo-essay of some of the highlights of our 2000km journey!

Off we go!!!

Stop #0.5: Chilliwack

We started with an unexpected parking lot pop-up in Chilliwack upon request of one of our regulars who contacted us in hopes of fondling the Hedgehog Fibres. As it was her birthday weekend, we couldn’t say no. Always good fun sharing the love of pretty, pretty yarn!

Stop #1: Kelowna

Kelowna was our first scheduled stop on this trip specifically to join the city’s first annual fibre festival: Yarn Okanagan! The evening program included a wine knit night at a local vineyard, and the Saturday marketplace and classes turned out to be a smashing success. Kudos to the organizers of this year’s event and wishing you all the best in building this festival for years to come! Count us in!

Lara and I chillin’ with Sasha and Willow, the lovely ladies of Knox Mountain Knit Co.

We then took advantage of our day off to bike the entire 88km section of the Kettle Valley trail that runs from Kelowna to Pentiction! That’s one off the bucket list!

Stop #2: Penticton

The Penticton Beer Knit Night was our most hops-filled pop up shop! What a lovely group of ladies (and a few gents) that joined us for an evening of shopping and crafting in the brewing after-hours at Cannery Brewing!

Stop #3: Summerland

We returned to the Summerland Farmer’s Market for a repeat of last year’s fun. Word of mouth went out through local knitters and Facebook fibre art groups so we were able to add to the browsers of the eclectic collection of foods and handicrafts.

Stop #4: Oliver

We were introduced to an amazing new venue in Oliver by another of our local regulars. Maker Place is a mixed media fibre arts space hosted by master seamstress Dianne Gibson. We had a lively evening of yarn tasting where we shared the love of colours, textures and fibery possibilities!

And check out Dianne’s amazing Cat-bus which we got to stay the night in, right on the side of a vineyard!!!

Stop #5: Armstrong

Next we joined a number of Northern Okanagan and Shuswap spinners and weavers at The Homespun Haven, a gorgeous countryside store specializing in weaving yarn and spinning fibre. We managed a good three hours of a spin-in/knit group and pop-up before a glorious storm swept in fast and furious! Thank you Sharon for opening up your lovely farm with us!

And then we were off across Arrow Lake to head over to the Kootenays! I LOVE the small free-of-charge river ferries that connect these communities! I also want to take this opportunity to give kudos to my partner in crime, Lara H without whom this trip wouldn’t have happened!

Stop #6: Winlaw

We were invited by the Slocan Valley Needles Guild to host a show-and-tell style Trunk Show and had an educational evening all round. Housed in an old one-room schoolhouse, this is a perfect place to share the love learning new knitty tips and tricks; and did these ladies ever give me a schooling! Thank you!

Stop #7: Castlegar

Our stop in Castlegar marked our year anniversary return to the Doukhobor Discovery Centre joining the Selkirk Weavers and Spinners Guild at their year-end potluck. We got to catch up with some friendly familiar faces, and hopefully lure a few new attendees to the Lower Mainland in the Fall to join us at Knit City! You ladies are awesome!

Thank you to everyone that came out to meet us on our travels, and if you are in community that could use a visit from the Baaad Anna’s travelling pop-up, please contact us to brainstorm! We so very much enjoy the uncovering the hidden gems of our communities, and sharing expertise and talent of our shared fibre sheds!

Next up…

We will be heading out on our next short baaadass roadtrip this weekend to the first annual Saltspring Fibre Festival in the BC Gulf Islands. If you have a day this weekend to spare, it is a perfect daytrip from Victoria or Vancouver, so come join us for some fibre arts delights!

Colour Adventures was started by Elena Nodel in 2012 out of her passion for fibre and colour. At the time she was already a world renowned knitwear designer by the name of ‘Anadiomena’. She spent her time in both the Lower Mainland and the Shuswap region, with one of her key inspirations being her daughter Maya for whom some of her most famous designs were created. Elena sadly passed away at at an early age in June 2017.

Her gorgeous yarn lives on due to a wonderful partnership started in the last years of her life. The owners of ‘A Twist of Yarn’ yarn shop in Vernon, BC, Camella and Ryan worked with Elena’s family to offer the same beautiful bases and colourways that Elena had created and that we now have the pleasure to begin to fall in love with!

We are thrilled to bring on the truly affordable single-ply fingering weight Merino Light line, as well as a special Exquisite Aran line, a worsted weight base that is comprised of 75% merino, 15% cashmere and 10% silk! Come check out our full selection in store or online.

Camella and Ryan have offered to donate $1.00 for every skein purchased to Elena’s family as a legacy fund to help her husband raise their young daughter. Baaad Anna’s will be working with them to supplement an equal donation to this fund for any Colour Adventures skein sold at our store, as a means to continue to support Elena’s legacy.

You can also find all of her patterns on Ravelry (under her profile, Anadiomena) a place where we like to see what other people are knitting, showcase her own work, and just simply enjoy to be in touch with people that share our passion for knitting. We are thrilled to be able to continue to spread the love of Colour Adventures yarn!

Shop for Colour Adventures here!

Wanna try a new way to knit in the round? Addi’s Flixi Flips are a set of three 21cm flexible double pointed needles the are worked over two needles instead of three. They have a flexible bend in the middle so two needles act like having 4 DPNs in your project, and you use a third as a working needle. For anyone into sock knitting or stuck on sleeve island, this is a dream come true!

Here’s a great intro video that reviews this product and shows how these needles really bring the best of both DPN and magic loop together at last! Come and check these out!

Friggin’ sleeve island.

For the past three months Baaad Anna’s has put out 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.

To date we have collected 44 pairs of unisex various sized socks! Knit with a variety of yarns that have been donated either through the Baaad Anna’s upcycling yarn donations or came directly from the knitter’s own stash, the generosity of these knitters show how amazing this community is at strengthening the fabric of our shared society!

We have a few pairs being dropped off each week, so we are sure to make the goal of a pair per resident by the time the doors open in August! If you are working on a pair, or want to still contribute, any additional pairs we receive over the goal will be donated to the 39 Temporary Modular Housing unit in our neighborhood at 1131 Franklin St that were announced after the Kaslo project. This will be an ongoing project for our Give Back Sundays.

A HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who has participated, and if you want to still do so, this Sunday is our monthly Give Back Sunday event from 1-3pm where you can join our community knitters and pick up free yarn to knit projects for others! Read more about Give Back Sundays here!

During the summer, from June to mid-September, the Guild operates a gift shop of handcrafted works at the Doukhobor Discovery Centre. On Saturday June 23rd from 11-2pm, Baaad Anna’s will be joining the Guild at Doukhobor for their annual picnic and launch of summer! If you can’t join us that day, be sure to drop in throughout the summer as the Guild demonstrate the traditional art of weaving and spinning in this unique museum. Throughout the rest of the year Guild meetings are held once per month at the Centre where guests are welcome. The Selkirk Weavers’ & Spinners’ Guild can be contacted through their Facebook page.

The Slocan Valley is a valley in the West Kootenay region of British Columbia, Canada.

The valley is home to the villages of Slocan City, New Denver, Silverton, as well as the unincorporated communities of Crescent Valley, Slocan Park, Passmore, Vallican, Winlaw, Appledale, Perry Siding, Lemon Creek, Rosebury, and Hills. Valhalla Provincial Park is located on the western side of the upper part of the valley, and is adjoined on its south by the valley of the Little Slocan River. Just east of Slocan Lake are the ghost towns of Sandon, Cody and others, which were busy mining towns during the silver and galena mining era known as the Silvery Slocan (1890s-1900s).

Castlegar is the second largest community in the West Kootenay region of British Columbia, Canada and is located within the Selkirk Mountains at the confluence of the Kootenay and Columbia Rivers. Castlegar is a regional trade and transportation centre, with a local economy fueled by forestry, mining and tourism. Castlegar was recently cited as one of the Top 8 Places in British Columbia for most promising growth. It is home to Selkirk College, a regional airport, a pulp mill, and several sawmills. The population of 7,259 people includes a large number of Doukhobors, who were largely responsible for much of Castlegar’s early development and growth.

We are thrilled to head north to Armstrong on Thursday June 21st on the next leg of our Baaad Anna’s Roadtrip 2018. We are partnering with Sharon of Homespun Haven to host a Trunk Show and Pop Up on a farm just a few minutes outside of Armstrong.

Homespun Haven is a country store specializing in weaving, spinning and felting materials in the North Okanagan. Bring your knitting, wheel or any fibre art and come join us if you’re nearby in the Interior!

The City of Armstrong is located in the North Okanagan of the Canadian province of British Columbia, between Vernon and Enderby. It overlooks the Spallumcheen Valley, which forms a broad pass between the Okanagan Valley to the south and the Shuswap Country to the north, and is about 480 km (300 mi) from each of Vancouver, B.C., Calgary, Alberta, Spokane and Seattle, Washington. The town of Armstrong celebrated its centennial in 2013.

Next up, Baaad Anna’s is excited to return to Oliver, BC and this year we are cozying in to the Maker Place for an evening of Yarn Tasting on June 30th from 6:30-8:30pm. (tickets here)

We are so excited to partner with master seamstress Dianne Gibson of Maker Place on this event. This unique location creates a space to gather and share creativity while learning and sharing idea’s in a studio environment. If you find yourself in Oliver, this is a unique workshop where DIY projects can be shared and created with ease and enjoyment. Hosting a variety of visual art events, this amazing shop has paint nights, upcycling clothing workshops and sewing bee’s all year round, in addition to offering an open artist studio.

Oliver is a town near the south end of the Okanagan Valley in the Southern Interior of British Columbia, Canada, with a population of over 4,000 people. It is located between Osoyoos and Okanagan Falls, and is labeled as the Wine Capital of Canada by Tourism British Columbia

Want to join us? Tickets are limited, but you can pick them up here!

Baaad Anna’s will be revisiting Summerland on Tuesday June 19th at the Tuesday Farmer’s Market from 9am -1pm. We enjoyed meeting the local knit community as well as the variety of other makers and growers at this gorgeous Okanagan lakeside town last year; and are thrilled to bring along some woolly goodness again to this event.

Baaad Anna’s hits Summerland Farmers Market 2017.

Summerland (2011 population 11,280) is a town on the west side of Okanagan Lake in the interior of British Columbia, Canada. The district is between Peachland to the north and Penticton to the south. The largest centre in the region is Kelowna, approximately 50 km to the north (via Highway 97), and Vancouver is approximately 425 km (264 mi) away to the west. The district is famous for “Bottleneck drive”, a system of roads connecting a large number of wineries.

Baaad Anna’s second stop will be to quench its thirst at Pentiction’s Cannery Brewing with a pop-up beer knit night!

Cannery Brewing is a go-to micro-brew located amongst the breathtaking scenery of the South Okanagan. Using only the natural ingredients, Cannery Brewing is proud to provide unpasteurized beers with a fresh, crisp taste. Come join us with your needles for a brewskie and a yarn squeeze!