New Interchangeable Shawl Stick Designs Created With a Snap

Our shawl pins are a popular item at the yarn shops where they are sold and sometimes we have a hard time keeping up with making more designs.  It seems as soon as we make a bunch, the stores snatch them up and we don't have many left to list in our Etsy shop or online store.  When we started up our Snap Decisions Collection (Interchangeable Fashion in a Snap!), we came up with an idea of adding a snap base (with clay) to a metal shawl stick so the designs could be interchanged.

Our other shawl pin styles are metal that we cover in clay and after a lot of brain storming (and lack of sleep) I finally figured out how to add a snap base to those as well.  I am quite excited about this.  While the metal sticks work best in knits with a tighter weave, the clay covered sticks are a little thicker, so are a better fit for bulky or loose weave knits.

These shawl sticks work really well with our larger snaps as the snap base is plain (no frame surrounding it).  The snaps can be worn on other similar type snap base accessories and worn as a necklace or even a large chunky ring.

Finally, our third and latest shawl stick design has the clay covered stick and a snap base with a decorative metal frame.  The frame makes the shawl stick more suitable for adding our regular size snaps. 

All of our new shawl sticks with a snap base are available in our online store and some sets we have put together will be in our Etsy shop soon.

They are also available in several yarn shops that sell our work:

Kelowna Yarn & Needlecraft

Kelowna, BC

A Twist of Yarn

Vernon, BC

Intwined Fibre Arts

Salmon Arm, BC

Lynden Tree Yarns

Grand Forks, BC

Donna's Yarn & Craft

Kamloops, BC

Knit 2 Yarns

Kamloops, BC

Snowflake Shawl Pins

For the winter season we made some snowflake shawl pins in assorted colors -- Black, Blue, Teal and Purple.  The snowflake pattern on the end of the stick was made from the same snowflake finding used to create our snowflake snaps.

These shawl pins are now available at Donna's Yarn & Craft in Kamloops, BC and Kelowna Yarn & Needlecrafts in Kelowna, BC.  We also made extra and listed them in our online store here.

Intwined Fibre Arts in Salmon Arm

Intwined Fibre Arts is a quaint yarn shop that opened up in Salmon Arm just over a year ago.  They already outgrew their space so moved to a larger one just down the street from one block.  We just love their new store even more an their unique layout.  They have been selling our buttons and shawl accessories but have now added more for a larger selection.  They haven't had time to celebrate their new location yet but when things settle down after Christmas, we are looking forward to doing a live demonstration in their store.  So here is a peek at what their new shop looks like:

Front area and window of shop

Another sectioned off area

Area in the back for relaxing or knitting

Their cute little store scottie mascot

Althea, shop owner/manager

Our button and accessories

Our scarf jewelry and other accessories

Sweater and Shawl Accent Pieces at Kelowna Yarn & Needlecrafts

We have been busy making more shawl and sweater accent pieces for the yarn shops that sell our work.  Our Sweater Guards have been a real hit and we came up with this display for the stores to show them off.  These pieces shown here are now available at Kelowna Yarn & Needlecrafts.

This is Rebecca modelling what she calls a "Shawlette".  It is really pretty isn't it?  It is kind of like a shawl and scarf combined and I love the beadwork on the trim.  This is a class project that Rebecca will be teaching in March at Kelowna Yarn & Needlecrafts.  She is also wearing one of our shawl sticks which makes a nice accent piece as well as a fastener.

Vintage Style Jewel-tone Flowers

We have been making lots of "Vintage Flowers" in a variety of jewel-tone colors.  We create the flowers and bake them so they are ready to be used when needed.

The "vintage-like" centres are not metal but polymer clay.  They were created from a mould we made from a vintage button.  A Swarovski crystal is embedded into the centre and they are then accented with mica powders and baked.  We will generally make up a whole batch in different colors at a time so they are ready to use.

We like to use our vintage style flowers in various ways:

Shawl/Hair Sticks:

Brooch Stick Shawl Pins:

Scarf Charms:

  And Jewelry:

New Brilliant Blooms Jewelry

Every spring I get into a mode of making lots of flowers.  I am not sure if it is due to spring fever and all the flowers popping up that inspire me or more to the fact that when I go through our inventory, I discover that we have few flower designs left in stock and the need to make more.

This year I wanted to create flowers that were extra bright and cheerful.  I decided to use the Pantone Spring 2014 Fashion Colors for inspiration.

Whenever I make my flowers (shown above), I like to save some extra "petal" canes to make the sculpted flowers like the ones in the scarf necklaces and earrings (below).  These were made the same way as the "Daisy" flower in my Sculpted Flowers Tutorial.  I just used bright colored clay in place of the white and black instead of the grey for the outlining.

These are our new falling petal earrings

for our interchangeable earring system:

The colors I used to make the flower petals shown above (left to right) are:

Dazzling Blue (with more white added),

Violet Tulip (reduce the amount of white mix to 1/2 part)

Cayenne, Radiant Orchid, Celosia Orange, Freesia

Each earring comes with three "strands" at different lengths that can be worn individually or combined in various ways.

Intwined Fibre Arts

We are excited to announce that our buttons and shawl pins are in another new location.  Intwined Fibre Arts is a fairly new yarn shop that opened up in Salmon Arm and now have a selection of our handcrafted buttons and shawl sticks for sale.  The shop is very quaint and colorful with a wide selection of beautiful fibres.  They carry a wide range of supplies for knitting as well as felting.

Althea, owner and manager of Intwined Fibre Arts

Shawl Sticks

Owl Shawl Sticks

New Stores

Dave and I are both relieved that the largest Christmas show (Kamloops Craft-a-Fair) of the year is now over and we only have two more smaller type shows left for the season.  We can now go back to focusing more of our time on servicing the yarn and quilt shoppes that sell our work.  This is even more important now that we have recently added two more shops to our wholesale list.

One of the stores is the Nee Nee Girl's Yarn Shop which is located in the General Store in the quaint little town of Falkland.  We pass through this town on a regular basis when traveling over to the central Okanagan area and sometimes enjoy stopping in at a local cafe for some tea and coffee or brunch.  We are excited that a good assortment of our buttons, shawl pins and other accessories are now available in this shop and we are looking forward to creating new ideas and pieces for Kelli, the owner.

The other store we have just added is a new yarn shop that just opened in Vernon called "A Twist of Yarn".
It is located in this beautifully restored vintage home just one block off the main highway.

The photo below shows one of the cozy rooms with a dining table and chairs for sitting at.  Our buttons and shawl pins are on the rack in front.  You can see the gorgeous hardwood floors throughout that have been all refinished.

This is Camella, the owner, standing in front of the beautifully restored fireplace and skeins of her own hand dyed yarn above.

One of the rooms is filled with an assortment of looms and spinning wheels.

A Twist of Yarn has only been open a few weeks but is already buzzing with lots of excited knitters in the area.  We wish Camella and her shop great success!