Author Archives: Julia

Hanne Falkenberg Trunk Show.

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The Amimono 3 Trunk Show has only been with us for five days, and already the next Trunk Show has arrived, to our delight. We weren’t expecting it for another couple of days, but yesterday, we were thrilled to open a box of ten garments designed by Hanne Falkenberg. Here they are, hanging on a coat rack by the desk, waiting for some curious knitter to try them on.

Hanne Falkenberg’s designs come in kits with her signature yarns, and are often made in garter stitch with flattering short-row shaping and colorful stripes. They are always constructed in surprising ways to intrigue the knitter and compliment the wearer.

Everyone in the shop had a great time playing dress-up, trying each sweater on for size and picking a favorite colorway. Anne’s mother modeled for us, too.

During the Trunk Show, we’re offering a 20% discount to those who prepay for their Hanne Falkenberg kit orders. Come by the shop before the end of the month to admire these clever garments, try them on, and place your order!

Cascade 220 Fingering.

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As I alluded to in a recent post, there are many patterns floating around out there that call for fingering weight yarn, and with good reason. Fingering weight yarn often comes in 100 gram skeins, which go a long way at about 400 yards per skein, depending upon the kind and company. One 100 gram skein can usually make a shawlette, a scarf, a pair of mitts or socks–a good deal for an entire project’s worth of yarn. Fingering weight yarn is also lightweight, making it quite appropriate for our less-than-arctic North Carolinian Falls and Winters. There’s also something aesthetically pleasing about the fabric a fine yarn creates, which tends to drape more readily than its thicker cousins. There is a lot to love about fingering weight yarn, and here at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop, we have a lot of fingering weight yarn to love. Here’s one more.

Cascade 220 Fingering is a very reasonably priced 2-ply yarn composed of 100% Peruvian wool; it comes in 50 gram skeins of 275 yards each. Its reasonable price is one of its major virtues; substitute it for Loft and you could knit the Stasis sweater for less than $40. Substitute it for Alpaca 2 and you could knit the Stole for less than $50.

It’s not a superwash wool, so you’ll have to hand-wash whatever lovely thing you make from it. Hand-washing can be a joyous activity, though, as I’ve written here before, so that’s hardly a drawback.

Cascade 220 Fingering’s other major virtue is its wide range of solid colors, perfect for combining in stripes or colorwork. We have 19 colors in stock with the 20th on backorder, giving you plenty to choose from as you plan your next project using fingering weight yarn.

Come by the shop to see Cascade 220 Fingering and the (many!) other fingering weight yarns we have to offer. See you there!

Amimono 3 Trunk Show.

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One of the most amazing things about being at TNNA in June was seeing all the sample garments that each yarn company and designer displayed in their booths. Pictures in pattern books can be beautiful and inspiring, but to touch a finished piece, to see the color in person, to try it on and get a sense of how the shape and size feels and looks on your own body is always better. With this in mind, Anne has scheduled some Trunk Shows for the fall, the first of which arrived today.

This Trunk Show features five garments from Helga Isager’s Amimono 3, a collection of sweaters and accessories made in Isager yarns. Our Isager distributors have lent us these five garments until October 1st, so if you want to see these pieces in person (and you should!), plan to visit the shop before the end of the month.

As soon as the Trunk Show arrived at the shop yesterday, I tried on these sweaters to see how they felt and fit, and it was an experience I highly recommend. For me, it changed my position on these designs from “admiring” to “coveting.”

Anne spent her time with these sweaters inspecting the seams and wondering aloud what finishing techniques were used–another good reason to see finished garments in person. The sweater below is named “Lemon,” and it’s one that Anne is currently making for herself in Isager Tvinni, so to encounter a finished “Lemon” was something special, indeed.

The yarns soften so much with knitting, washing, and wearing, and it shows in these samples. The garments are lightweight, yet sturdy; a winning combination.

Come by the shop to see them for yourself, and if you find you must make one, we’ll help you select the materials you need to do so. See you at the shop!

Show and tell: Noro, Isager, String Theory.

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We’ve seen some really special finished projects around the shop lately. How about some show and tell?

Shaunesy brought in her completed Diamond Motif shawl made in Noro Silk Garden. She took Katherine’s class on the shawl, the first in a series of classes Katherine has been teaching on projects from Knit Noro Accessories. If you like the look of Shaunesy’s shawl, come by the shop to see the book and all our colorful Noro yarns.

Natalie’s Volt took our breath away. The yarn is Isager Spinni, and the pattern is from Grace Anna Farrow’s fantastic book, The Fine Line.

Each shawl in The Fine Line makes great use of Isager’s singular color palette, and many of them, like Volt, use chevrons as a central motif. This book is definitely worth looking at if you’re a shawl-maker, and I know so many of you are. Find it with the other Isager books in the Fingering Weight section.

Catherine also brought some chevron-related show-and-tell: a completed North Arrow scarf. I was particularly touched by this as North Arrow is my own design–it is truly an amazing thing to see ones own instructions brought to life by another knitter. Catherine used String Theory Caper Sock for her scarf, and the colors are as gorgeous as the yarn is soft. If you haven’t worked with this yarn yet, do yourself a favor and make up an excuse to do so.

Thanks to all the fantastic knitters and crocheters who come and go at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop, wowing Anne and I and whoever else happens to be present with your skillfully-stitched creations. We are so thankful for the inspiration you bring, and so very impressed by all your work! See you at the shop.

Interweave Crochet, and Lantern Moon hooks.

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The latest issue of Interweave Crochet is here, and pleasantly full of good-looking crocheted sweaters for Fall.

We also replenished our supply of Lantern Moon crochet hooks recently, so you can find most any size hook you may need, made of rosewood or ebony, no less.  Crocheters, come by the shop to begin planning your Fall projects!

New colors in Swans Island Organic Merino Fingering.

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Recently, when we reordered a few sold-out colors in Swans Island’s buttery soft, naturally dyed, organically processed fingering weight merino wool, we couldn’t help but notice a few colors we’d never stocked before. Why don’t we have this yellow?, we asked each other. We should really have a darker green, don’t you think? And what about that new, limited-edition color for Fall? The delicious-sounding one? Oh yes: Sugar Maple.

So, we ordered a few new colors along with the old favorites, bringing our total number of available colors to a sweet 16. We just couldn’t help ourselves.

Come by the shop to see this expanded selection of Swans Island Organic Merino Fingering, and think about all the incredible one-, two-, or three-color shawls out there calling for fingering weight yarn. Multnomah, Rockefeller, Color Affection, I’m looking at you. Or you could make an entire sweater out of it–I did, and I couldn’t be happier.

See you at the shop!

New colors in Malabrigo Sock.

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That Malabrigo Sock is a well-loved yarn here at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop should come as no surprise, given the frenzy that usually occurs when we receive a box of the stuff. It’s gotten some attention here on the blog in the past, and we’ve seen several pairs of socks made out of it during recent show-and-tells. Malabrigo’s colorways are nearly as well-loved as the yarn, and I am not alone in memorizing their evocative names. Every so often, Malabrigo gives us new colorways to memorize, and today, I have nine to share, just released for the Fall.

Ivy is hands-down my favorite new color. What’s yours?

Big, big boxes from Isager.

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This summer, we’ve marked the passing weeks in Isager orders. The more frequently we call them to reorder missing colors in Alpaca 2 for the stole, or in Highland for the Fan, the more teasing we get from the other end of the line. Recently our Isager distributor asked Anne, “What do you do with all that yarn? Are you eating it?” Our desire for Isager is a hunger, indeed. Happily, last week brought another shipment.

Hot off the presses: Hat Ladies, by Danish designer Annette Danielsen, uses many Isager yarns to create hats and other small accessories. An excellent way to get your hands on Isager yarns without investing in a sweater’s worth of yarn, or to make use of the Isager odds and ends you may have already collected.

Danielsen, like Marianne Isager herself, often uses two strands of yarn held together to create different gauges, textures, and color combinations. Many patterns in Danielsen’s Hat Ladies call for the lace weight Alpaca 1 to be held together with another fingering weight Isager yarn–either Highland, or Tvinni, both of which we have in more colors than ever before.

Also hot off the presses: No. 11, No. 12, No. 13…, an answer to last year’s No. 1, No. 2, No. 3… Both of these books collect knit and crochet patterns by a group of like-minded Danish designers, all of whom use Isager yarns.

 Find these two new booklets on the teacart, surrounded by the latest books, and ask us where to find whichever Isager yarn you’re seeking. With all these new patterns and new colors in stock, it’s a good time to be plotting an Isager project.

Interweave Knits: Holiday Gifts, 2012.

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The Holiday Gifts issue of Interweave Knits is here, while there’s still time to knit those gifts before the holidays are upon us.

This issue is filled with knitted accessories, children’s things, christmas stockings, and other home decor. Flipping through it, I saw plenty of colorwork to keep things interesting, and cables, too.

This hat takes one skein of the wonderful workhorse worsted weight wool that is Plymouth Galway–a great value for 210 yards of sturdy, soft, well-behaved yarn.

You can find Interweave Knits: Holiday Gifts on the magazine rack by the door. Come by soon to snag a copy of your own!

Artyarns Mohair Splash and Rhapsody Glitter Light.

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Before we reorganized the shop last month, all of the sparkly, tempting skeins from ArtYarns lived together in one sparkly, tempting basket near the desk. Now that all our yarn is organized by weight and suggested gauge, those sparkly skeins have been divided up by type and moved into their new homes. Those whose labels suggest 5.5 stitches per inch, like the Regal Silk, were sent to the DK weight section, and those whose labels suggested 4.5 stitches per inch went to the Aran section, and so on. When our most recent ArtYarns shipment came in, I was pleased to see that both the Mohair Splash and Rhapsody Glitter Light suggest 5 stitches per inch–a Worsted weight gauge. Though many of the ArtYarns are separated, these two can still share a cubby.

Mohair Splash is composed of silk and mohair, and it gets its sparkle from splashes of beads and sequins that are strung intermittently along one ply of the yarn. We are often asked if the sequins interrupt the knitting, bothering ones hands, or catching on stray fibers, and the answer is, blissfully, no. Anne reports that the yarn is dreamy to work with, soft, smooth, and easy.

We selected only three new colors in Mohair Splash for Fall, but they really brighten up the spectrum.

Rhapsody Glitter Light is also a silk and mohair blend, but instead of beads and sequins, it sparkles with a shimmering strand of metallic Lurex. When you’re choosing between these yarns (which can be a difficult task, indeed), consider how much sparkle your project-to-be wants. Should the whole thing glimmer consistently, like the Rhapsody Glitter Light, or would you rather have a dash of shine here and there, as in Mohair Splash?

Come by the shop to ooh and ahh. See you there!