The Hillsborough Chamber is sponsoring events in Hillsborough on Sundays, and we’re participating with a book sale on Sunday, September 23rd.
All in-stock books will be discounted by 25%, making this a great time to indulge in an exciting new publication, or pick up an older title that escaped notice the first time around – we have an awful lot of books to choose from!
Here is a full listing of events planned by the Chamber, so you can plan a trip to our happening little town. See you Sunday!
I’m delighted to announce that Kate Davies’ newest book has arrived at the shop!
Handywoman is Davies’ memoir of a life of craft, one shaped by a stroke she suffered at age 36. Her brain injury changed how she saw and moved through the world, and how she made her living in it. Hers is a story of adaptivity and creativity, one I’ve followed for years on her blog.
Kate Davies is a knitwear designer and writer who I very much admire, for her traditional-looking, smartly-crafted patterns as well as her academic approach to textiles. Her books often blend knitting patterns and prose, and I’ve been a fan of both those elements, knitting sweater after sweater as avidly as I’ve read her essays on textiles and history. I’m keenly looking forward to reading what she has to say about her own life, and about disability in general. Her recent and fascinating TEDx talk is a good preview of her approach to the subject matter, and definitely worth watching.
I find it especially impressive that Davies has brought Handywoman into the world under her own publishing imprint, expanding the scope of Kate Davies Designs from pattern books to include narrative-based books like this one. Her blog post about the process of creating Handywoman is interesting and inspiring, and shows just how much work goes into making books, from writing and design to printing and promotion.
Along with this new book, we’ve restocked some of our favorite Davies titles: Colours of Shetland, Yokes, Happit, and West Highland Way. Come by to peruse them all, especially if you’re unfamiliar with her work – she’s truly a unique voice in the world of knitwear, one with an important perspective to share.
Look for Handywoman on the teacart here at the shop!
Meet Felicity Ford’s Knitsonik Stranded Colourwork Playbook!
A sequel of sorts to her Knitsonik Stranded Colourwork Sourcebook of a few years ago, this Playbook picks up where she left off, transforming the imagery of daily life into stranded colorwork projects.
Ford’s colorwork is surprising, whimsical, and often collaborative, like the knitted correspondence above, or the tarmac-inspired bunting below.
Above all, Ford’s designs and ideas are playful, and invite knitters to play along. Her book does include patterns, but encourages knitters to adapt them to their own tastes and ideas.
Our friend and teacher, Nancy, recently met Felicity Ford at Meg Swansen’s Knitting Camp and came away inspired to make the “Efflorescent” shawl from Ford’s Playbook. She’s leading a class on the subject here at our shop, and we couldn’t be more excited to see the shawls that will emerge from it – sign up now if you’d like to attend!
Look for the Knitsonik Stranded Colourwork Playbook on the teacart here at the shop, where a variety of new books and magazines are waiting to inspire you. See you at the shop!
Beth Brown-Reinsel’s classic Knitting Ganseys has been revised and updated, and we’re happy to have it on our shelves!
Originally published 25 years ago, Knitting Ganseys is a book of knitting history as well as knitting patterns. Ganseys were traditionally worn by Scottish and British fisherman during the 19th century, designed to be hard-wearing and comfortable, but decorated with intricate texture patterns.
In the book, Beth Brown-Reinsel shares some of the history of this classic garment, then explains how to knit a traditional gansey on a smaller scale for practice. She covers all the techniques required, from cast-ons and stitch patterns to fit and finish.
If designing a gansey from scratch isn’t your aim, Brown-Reinsel also includes patterns for traditional ganseys and more modern gansey-inspired fare, as well.
Look for Knitting Ganseys: Revised and Updated on our teacart here at the shop, where everything is 15% off for just one more week!
Just a reminder–all sales are final on discounted items; there can be no exchanges, returns, or special orders. Thanks!
Delighted to announce that Kate Davies’ newest book is here!
West Highland Way is a stunning collection of patterns and essays inspired by the Scottish long-distance walking route it’s named for.
Landmarks along this route are marked with musings from Davies and a garment inspired by said landmark. “Còinneach,” a favorite cardigan of mine, is named for a hill overlooking Loch Lomond, for example.
Kate Davies is a knitwear designer and writer who I very much admire, for her traditional-looking, smartly-crafted patterns as well as her academic approach to textiles.
West Highland Way is exactly the kind of book we’ve come to expect from Davies: rich in cultural and historical information, lovingly produced, and bursting with photography as beautiful as the knitwear.
Come by the shop to browse the latest books as well as our older favorites; we keep many of Davies’ books in stock. See you there!
Helga Isager’s newest book is here!
K (Knit) aims to encourage new knitters to grow their skills, and features elegantly simple designs in Isager yarns, mostly sweaters with a few accessories.
Each one is named for a stitch that’s prominent in the pattern; a cabled pullover is named “C6 (Cable 6),” for example, and a stockinette raglan is named “YO (Yarn over)” for the shaping at the yoke.
Each pattern is accompanied by instructions for a swatch, allowing you to practice techniques used in the pattern as you check your gauge.
Isager also includes a full-size photo of the completed swatch, so you can see in detail what your swatch should look like as it grows, and even measure it against the photo.
Look for the book on our teacart, and find Isager yarns in the lace, fingering, and DK weight sections here at the shop!
Bristol Ivy’s Knitting Outside the Box was published in October, but it sold out before I ever had a chance to properly feature it here on the blog. Again and again, over the past few months, we reordered and it quickly disappeared. With a fresh stack of them here on our teacart, the time has come – let’s take a peek at this beautiful, inspiring book!
Bristol Ivy is an independent knitwear designer whose work you likely recognize – she’s designed for Brooklyn Tweed and the Fibre Company, among others, and her patterns have appeared in publications like Pom Pom Quarterly, Making, and Amirisu.
Ivy also has quite a catalog of self-published patterns available on Ravelry, and the variety of techniques and styles among them is also on display in her first book, Knitting Outside the Box, published by Pom Pom Press.
Knitting Outside the Box is a book of patterns, yes, but also an insight into Ivy’s design process and an invitation to knitters to create their own unique pieces. It’s full of creative exercises and also features a stitch dictionary, all with the intention of sparking new ideas.
Each pattern in Knitting Outside the Box is named for a female artist, scientist, or poet, bringing another layer of interest and meaning to each piece.
Look for Knitting Outside the Box here at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop!
The fifth installment of the Mason-Dixon Knitting Field Guide series is here! Let’s take a peek inside.
Ann Shayne and Kaye Gardiner’s series of Field Guides are pocket-sized booklets focused on a particular theme or knitting technique. The theme here is sequences, drawing on the inspired work of designer Cecelia Campochiaro.
Like the Field Guides before it, this volume is an introduction to the idea of sequence knitting, a few patterns to play with the technique, and some of Ann and Kaye’s trademark wit along the way.
Anne was taken with this Field Guide, and in fact has already whipped up a “Swirl Hat” for her son-in-law using Brooklyn Tweed Arbor – a slightly larger gauge than suggested, to accommodate his slightly larger head.
She was able to hand-deliver this gift on her family trip to New York over Thanksgiving, along with a family’s-worth of other hats that will be shared on a future blog post!
Look for the Mason-Dixon Knitting Field Guide No. 5 on our teacart, with the latest books and magazines. We still have a couple of copies of No. 4, too, in case you’re tempted to participate in Fringe Association’s log cabin make-along in the new year. See you at the shop!
We’re delighted to have Kate Davies’ newest book on our shelves!
Happit is a small collection of shawls and cowls, paired with a couple of essays by Davies, whose writing about knitting and history is as impressive as her design work.
Several of these designs call for yarns we stock here at the shop. “Fantoosh,” the lace shawl on the cover, is knit with Fyberspates Vivacious 4ply, a hand-dyed yarn we keep in good supply. The two cowls, “Funchal Moebius” and “Betty Mouat Cowl” are made with CoopKnits Socks Yeah!, a favorite easy-care fingering weight wool. We just got a handful of new colors in that yarn – look for a blog post on the subject soon!
Happit makes a lovely addition to our Kate Davies collection, and a good introduction to her work if you’re not yet acquainted with her. Look for it on the teacart here at the shop!
Another new book has arrived at the shop, a little different from our usual fare. This book is composed neither of patterns nor personal essays nor pretty knitting pictures. Rather, Knitting Comfortably is a book about the health of our hands and bodies, written by a physical therapist who happens to be an expert knitter.
We’d heard Carson Demers’ book mentioned a few times since its publication, but Clara Parkes’ rave review put us over the top – we had to have this book at the shop, and we’re so glad we do! It’s all about the ergonomics of handknitting, a guide for taking care of our most crucial knitting tool: ourselves.
Whether we knit English or Continental or any other method, we expose ourselves to the possibility of injury when we knit, especially when we knit for long stretches on a regular basis. It’s imperative, then, for us to understand what we’re doing with our muscles as we work, and how our posture affects our movement. In order to knit as much as we want to, we have to take care, and that is the goal of this book.
It’s clear that Demers has spent years working diligently to make this book as thorough and useful as possible. It’s dense with text, but quite accessible, peppered with clarifying photos and diagrams. He also includes plenty of “swatchortunities,” little knitting exercises that help to illustrate his suggestions and ideas.
I’ve only just begun to read through this book, but already it’s changed the way I think about my knitting practice. It may be tricky to break some of the bad habits I’ve accumulated over years of knitting daily, but I am motivated to interrogate my own behavior and adjust it to assure many more years of this craft I love so dearly.
Look for Knitting Comfortably on the teacart here at the shop!