Tag Archives: brooklyn tweed

Making No. 3: Dots.

Posted by on

Happy to announce that the latest issue of Making is in! Let’s take a look inside No. 3, whose theme is dots.

Making is a bi-annual magazine for knitters and crocheters, yes, but also for embroiderers, sewists, bakers, felters, dyers, quilters – all manner of makers.

Since yarn is our focus here at the shop, I’ll come right out and say that the showstopper of this issue for me is Norah Gaughan’s contribution, a breathtaking cabled shrug knit in Brooklyn Tweed Arbor.

Besides that, there are plenty of other inspiring designs in this issue of Making, from garments to accessories to home goods.

Beautifully photographed and lovingly produced, Making is a treat of a publication. Look for it on the teacart here at the shop, surrounded by the best in new books and magazines for makers like us. See you there!

BT Yokes Trunk Show!

Posted by on

Our walls are newly decorated with a Brooklyn Tweed Trunk Show! Visit us by Sunday, May 28th, to see the BT Yokes collection in all its glory.

BT Yokes is primarily a collection of pullover sweaters, though there are a couple of cleverly shaped cowls in the group. All of these pieces are informed by a long tradition of handknit sweaters with circular yokes across the North Atlantic. Read more about it on the BT blog for greater insight into that history, and if your interest is piqued, come by the shop to pick up a copy of Kate Davies’ superb Yokes.

Some of the garments in the BT Yokes collection are knit with Loft, and others with Shelter; one chunky cabled pullover is made with Quarry, Brooklyn Tweed’s bulky weight yarn. Though we don’t currently stock Quarry here at the shop, we’re happy to special order it for you, and we do have the colorcard so you can see all the shades in person.

Loft and Shelter we keep in good supply – it’s such a pleasure to have every available shade here on our shelves, and it makes it so much easier to play with color combinations for fair isle patterns like these!

I was particularly pleased to see one of the marls in Shelter put to good use on the body of the “Atlas” pullover; it can be hard to picture how marls will knit up, so a good-sized sample is more than welcome.

We’re offering a 10% discount on these three Brooklyn Tweed yarns during the Trunk Show, so hurry in to take a look, try some sweaters on for size, and plan your next project. We even have a few spaces left in our Brooklyn Tweed Yarn Tasting, if you’d like to spend a Sunday morning trying four BT yarns and getting 15% off a BT purchase during the event. We limit registration to 15 people, on account of our small space, so sign up now to claim one of the last spaces!

See you at the shop!

 

A reminder: all sales are final on discounted yarn. There can be no returns or exchanges. Thanks! 

Hello, Brooklyn Tweed Vale.

Posted by on

We’re happy to announce that Brooklyn Tweed’s newest yarn is here at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop! Meet Vale.

Vale is a lace weight Rambouillet wool, with 450 yards on each 50 gram skein. Like all Brooklyn Tweed yarns, Vale is entirely sourced, spun, and dyed in the US, reflecting the company’s steadfast allegiance to domestic textiles.

Vale has a lot in common with Arbor: the fiber is worsted-spun for a smooth yarn with sharp stitch definition, then skein-dyed at the Saco River Dyehouse in Maine. Some of their colorways overlap, appearing in both Vale and Arbor, but there are some new shades unique to Vale, delicate pastels in particular.

Arbor and Vale are also spectacularly bouncy in the skein and in the hand, full of elasticity – one of my favorite yarn qualities.

To welcome their exciting new yarn, Brooklyn Tweed has revised several of their popular lace patterns for Vale. Old favorites “Girasole,” “Rock Island,” “Bridgewater,” and “Lucca” shine in Vale, and so does Jared Flood’s newest design, “Gully.” This one-skein brioche cowl pattern is free with a purchase of Vale until June 30th, 2017.

Look for Vale in the Lace weight section here at the shop!

By Hand.

Posted by on

A new publication has found a home here at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop – we’re proud to stock By Hand.

By Hand is a series of lookbooks, a magazine of sorts, where each issue focuses on a place or region. The subject matter is the makers of that community, the designers, hand-dyers, yarn and fabric companies, and fiber artists that both shape and draw inspiration from the place they call home.

The first two volumes are now on our shelves, featuring Portland, OR and Portland, ME, respectively. They are filled with lush photos, interviews and articles, projects and patterns, and a recipe or two.

Portland, Oregon, is home to Shibui and Brooklyn Tweed, two yarn companies whose work we admire so much, and whose yarns we are proud to keep on our shelves here at the shop.

Portland, Maine, and the rest of the mid-coast region is home to Swans Island, Clara Parkes, designers Bristol Ivy and Hannah Fettig, and the Saco River Dyehouse, where Brooklyn Tweed Arbor is dyed.

We were so inspired by these maker profiles, and hope you are, too – the people behind the products and projects we love are special, indeed.

Look for By Hand on the teacart here at the shop, where the latest books and magazines live!

knit.wear.

Posted by on

The Spring/Summer 2017 issue of knit.wear is here!

This stylish magazine from Interweave is notably garment-oriented, a publication with more sweater patterns than accessories.

So many of our favorite yarns are represented in this issue – Fibre Company Acadia and Arranmore, Brooklyn Tweed Loft, Shibui Twig, and more.

Come by the shop to pick up a copy of knit.wear, and browse our latest acquisitions while you’re at it. We hope you find inspiration here!

Brooklyn Tweed Trunk Show!

Posted by on

We are delighted to announce that our first-ever Brooklyn Tweed Trunk Show has arrived!

From now until March 19th, 2017, we’ll have eight garments from the Brooklyn Tweed archives on display, and we’re offering BT yarns at a 10% discount.

As soon as we became a Brooklyn Tweed stockist in January, we began planning a trunk show, eager to see their glorious designs in person. They kindly sent over a list of garments in the warehouse and let us put together a curated trunk show of our own.

This group reflects Anne’s taste and mine, though we tried to strike a balance of men’s and women’s sweaters using a variety of techniques. In muted neutrals and shades of blue and green, they run the gamut from colorwork and texture patterns to good old stockinette, which always flatters the wearer.

Some of these were knit in Shelter, and some in Loft, Brooklyn Tweed’s signature woolen-spun, US-sourced, 100% Targhee-Columbia wools in worsted and fingering weights, respectively.

Along with the Trunk Show, we also brought in hard copies of all of the featured patterns, which are beautifully printed on cardstock. Come by the shop to flip through a binder full of them and admire the garments themselves in living color. Even better, you can try them on for size, and plan your next project in Brooklyn Tweed yarns, all at a 10% discount. See you at the shop!

A reminder: all sales are final on discounted yarn. There can be no returns or exchanges, nor special orders–the discount applies only to what we currently have in stock. Thanks! 

What’s winding.

Posted by on

Back in December, we rearranged the front room at the shop a bit, moving the ballwinder from the teacart, shifting a few shelves, and adding a new table. That table houses the swift and ballwinder, a dedicated winding station right by the front window, which does double and triple duty as a window display and a naturally-lit spot for blog photography.

A rainbow of CoopKnits Socks Yeah! getting wound and ready for sock-knitting.

The table came from Anne’s mother’s apartment in New York, where it had been living for many decades before it moved south with Phyllis herself. It’s the perfect shape and size for our space, but it also came, importantly, with good memories for Anne of her mother cutting out patterns there to sew her clothes. Take a close look at its surface next time you’re here at the shop, and you can see dotted lines in the wood from her tracing wheel.

Just as Phyllis began sewing projects on this table, so do we begin knitting and crochet projects here, with that important first step: winding the yarn.

Getting wound up and ready to knit a shop sample in Brooklyn Tweed Arbor.

Yarns that come in twisted hanks need to be wound into a ball before use, a task that some knitters find pleasure in, but others consider a chore. We have a swift and ballwinder here at the shop to make quick work of that task, and we’re happy to do it for you. Now that the winding station is such a pleasing place to be, I often find myself photographing the yarns that pass through it, admiring the clever and sturdy design of Nancy’s Knit Knacks Heavy Duty Ballwinder. These photos are some of my personal favorites, and they’ll look familiar if you follow us on Instagram.

Winding Brooklyn Tweed Shelter, a “Hadley-Pullover”-to-be.

As I wind yarn at the shop, I’m frequently joined by customers and passers-by, looking on from the worsted weight section or the sidewalk, just enjoying the simple pleasure of the spinning swift and the growing ball of yarn.

Isager Alpaca 2 and Shibui Staccato getting wound and ready to become a “Find Your Fade” shawl.

Come by the shop to plan your next project, and leave with your yarn ready to use right away. See you there!

Show and tell: Brooklyn Tweed, part 2.

Posted by on

Earlier in the week, I shared a few of the many Brooklyn Tweed works-in-progress that began life as yarns on our shelves. I can’t wait to see them all grown up and completed, just like this next group of garments.

Nancy knit this “Pei” cowl by Michele Wang with just one skein of Brooklyn Tweed Loft, using the color “Birdbook,” a mossy green. She kindly left it with us to display for awhile, so look for it next time you’re here at the shop!

Katherine used Brooklyn Tweed Arbor in “Hammock” and Fibre Company Acadia in “Blueberry” together to knit these “Gimmers” by Ann Kingstone. Technically this is a work-in-progress, as the second mitt is still underway, but I couldn’t resist photographing this stunning bit of colorwork, even before blocking.

I knit this “Banff” hat by tincanknits in three sittings, loving every stitch of Brooklyn Tweed Shelter, plotting a sweater with it already. The yarn is soft and light, feeling somehow spongey or doughy in the hand, and strange as that description may sound, it’s such a satisfying fiber to work with, I can scarcely recommend it highly enough! I chose the colors “Snowbound” and “Long Johns,” an evocative combination.

Katherine knit this “Bradway” shawl, by Shannon Cook, using three shades of Shelter: “Fossil,” “Truffle Hunt,” and “Almanac.”

Her upcoming class on the subject still has a couple of openings; sign up now if you’d like to claim one!

Thanks to all the knitters, crocheters, weavers, and other fiber artists who begin their projects with a trip to the Hillsborough Yarn Shop, and thanks to those who bring them back to show us the finished product!

Show and tell: Brooklyn Tweed, part 1.

Posted by on

When we first announced that we’d become a Brooklyn Tweed stockist, we were quickly joined in our enthusiasm by a great many knitters eager to get their hands on Brooklyn Tweed yarns. After all, these are yarns with big reputations, yarns that lots of us had seen only online. No surprise, then, that I have two blog-posts-worth of show-and-tell in Brooklyn Tweed yarns, some of which are still on the needles. Let’s start with those!

Jodi is knitting a Churchmouse “Easy Folded Poncho” with Brooklyn Tweed Shelter in “Hayloft,” a rich mustard yellow that, like all colors in Shelter and Loft, seems to grow more complicated on each viewing. The pattern calls for DK weight yarn at a smaller gauge than what Jodi’s getting, which means her poncho will be a few inches bigger, and so much the cozier. Note her Cocoknits Stitch Stoppers, keeping those precious stitches safe!

Anne considers a swatch a treat, a little preview of what’s to come when she finishes current projects and allows herself to cast on for the next. Above is her swatch for Michele Wang’s “Hellebore,” knit with Brooklyn Tweed Loft in “Woodsmoke.”

Shelter was the first Brooklyn Tweed yarn I reached for as soon as it arrived here at the shop. That hat has been finished for weeks, and we’ll see it in the next blog post. Right now, I’m working on a “Hirombe” hat in Brooklyn Tweed Arbor, using the nearly-fluorescent “Firebrush” color, a bright orangey-red. The hat, designed by Jared Flood, is decorated with twisted stitches, and though it looked straightforward enough in the photo, I learned at least three new techniques before my swatch was two rows long.

Sidney is already well into her “Grille” pullover, designed by Bonnie Sennott and knit with Brooklyn Tweed Loft. The color is “Postcard,” an intricate one somewhere between pink and gray.

I can think of so many more Brooklyn Tweed works-in-progress that have started life here at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop: a “Flight,” “Seeds Hat,” and two “Boardwalks” in Loft, a “Far Hills Hat,” “Baa-ble Hat,” “Tinder,” and “Hadley Pullover” in Shelter; a “Byway” and “Guernsey Wrap” in Arbor, and lots of others. Who else has Brooklyn Tweed yarns on their needles, and what are you making? Leave us a comment, or come by the shop to show us your progress, and look forward to a second Brooklyn Tweed show-and-tell post here on the blog very soon!

Interweave Knits.

Posted by on

The Spring 2017 issue of Interweave Knits is here!

This issue is crowded with cozy, classic-looking sweaters for men and women alike. This one was knit in Brooklyn Tweed Shelter, a worsted weight, woolen-spun Targhee-Columbia wool.

Another favorite yarn appears in this issue, too: Fibre Company Arranmore, a bulky tweed with a rustic look and soft hand.

Look for the latest issue of Interweave Knits on the teacart here at the shop, among other recent publications. See you there!