Tag Archives: dk weight

Luma Collection Trunk Show!

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Delighted to report that our Fibre Company Trunk Show arrived a little early – come by the shop to see the Luma Collection!

The Luma Collection is comprised of four lightweight garments knit with the Fibre Company’s newest yarn, Luma.

Luma is a smooth DK weight blend of 50% merino wool, 25% organic cotton, 15% linen, and 10% silk. This balanced combination of elastic animal fiber and cool plant fiber is ideal for year-round wear, especially in our warm North Carolina climate.

The “Stone Point” poncho has been the most popular of this collection since its release in February; Amy is planning a class on the subject for folks interested in learning about lace and making a beautiful poncho along the way. We have just a few spaces left, so sign up now if this is a class you’d like to attend!

We’ll have the Luma Collection on display here at the shop until April 23rd, and are offering a 10% discount on Luma during that time. Hurry in to try these garments on for size and get a tangible sense of how this yarn knits up in lace, cables, stockinette, and other texture patterns.

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! 

Hello, Malabrigo Dos Tierras.

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We’re excited to announce that Malabrigo’s newest yarn has arrived: meet Dos Tierras!

Though those vibrant hand-dyed colors look like classic Malabrigo, Dos Tierras is something new and distinct: a DK weight yarn with Peruvian baby alpaca blended into their well-loved Uruguayan merino wool.

Each 100 gram skein has 210 yards, enough for a pair of mitts, hat, or small cowl.

Look for pattern ideas on our “DK weight” Pinterest board, and look for Dos Tierras in the DK weight section here at the shop!

Hello, Fibre Company Luma.

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Meet Luma, the newest yarn from the Fibre Company!

Luma is a smooth DK weight blend of 50% merino wool, 25% organic cotton, 15% linen, and 10% silk. This balanced combination of elastic animal fiber and cool plant fiber is ideal for year-round wear, especially in our warm North Carolina climate.

The design team at Kelbourne Woolens have created a small collection of garments for Luma, exactly the kind of seasonless sweaters that suit this lightweight yarn. Print copies are coming to the shop soon, but you can take a peek at them online now. For more pattern ideas, look to our DK weight board on Pinterest, and also to patterns calling for the now-discontinued Fibre Company Savannah, which Luma replaced.

Look for Luma in the DK weight section here at the shop!

New colors from Baa Ram Ewe.

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The folks at UK yarn company Baa Ram Ewe dreamed up three new colors for their Titus and Dovestone DK yarns, and I’m happy to report that we now have them on our shelves here at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop!

Dovestone DK is a dk weight blend of 50% bluefaced leicester, 25% masham, and 25% wensleydale wools, all sourced and spun in the UK. It’s a nice big 100 gram hank with 252 yards, plenty for a hat, pair of mitts, or small cowl.

For pattern ideas, look to Carol Feller’s Dovestone Hills booklet, Kate Davies’ Buachaille, and our “DK weight” board on Pinterest. I think Dovestone DK is a particularly good sweater yarn; I made an “Epistrophy” cardigan with it absolutely loved the combination of pattern and yarn. Also consider Isabel Kraemer’s “Ready for fall” pullover, Churchmouse’s “Library Vest,” and tincanknits’ “Clayoquot” pullover.

The two yarns take the dye differently, coming out heathered in Dovestone DK, but bright and clear in Titus.

Titus is a fingering weight blend of 50% wensleydale wool, 30% alpaca, and 20% bluefaced leicester wool.

There’s plenty of pattern inspiration for Titus to be found on our “Fingering weight” Pinterest board, of course, and we’ve seen some beautiful Titus projects here on the blog over the years.

Come by the shop to see the full range of colors in Baa Ram Ewe Titus, Dovestone DK, and Dovestone Natural Aran. See you there!

Hello, West Yorkshire Spinners.

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Allow me to belatedly introduce one of our new fall/winter yarns, one that had the misfortune of arriving at a particularly busy moment, and whose blog post was put off for far too long. We’re happy to announce that we now carry DK weight Bluefaced Leicester wools from West Yorkshire Spinners!

West Yorkshire Spinners is a yarn company in the UK, and like Baa Ram Ewe, their focus is on producing high quality yarns from British wool, and revitalizing the textile industry in their home of Yorkshire.

Above is their Fleece Bluefaced Leicester DK, undyed 100 gram hanks of smooth, soft wool. It comes in three natural shades, reminiscent, of course, of the sheep themselves. Each skein has 244 yards, enough for a hat, cowl, or pair of mitts. Two skeins will make a nice shawl – consider “Parkin.”

WYS also makes a dyed version of this wool, the simply-named Bluefaced Leicester DK. It comes in 50 gram balls with 122 yards, and my first thought on seeing them was that they ought to be paired with a contrasting shade of Fleece Bluefaced Leicester DK for some colorwork or stripes.

A “Fancy Hen” was where I started brainstorming, having loved the one I knit for my niece and the one Anne knit for her granddaughter. Pick two or three colors between the dyed and the undyed Bluefaced Leicester DK yarns and try one of the following:

Look for these WYS in the DK weight section here at the shop. See you there!

Hello, Brooklyn Tweed Arbor.

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Brooklyn Tweed yarns are now available at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop! We’re starting with Shelter, Loft, and Arbor, and introducing each one on the blog this week. Today, meet Arbor.

Brooklyn Tweed Arbor is a 3-ply DK weight yarn composed of 100% Targhee wool. It’s Brooklyn Tweed’s newest yarn, and their biggest departure from what has so far been a line of woolen-spun heathers – Arbor is worsted-spun, and skein-dyed in solid colors at the organically-certified Saco River Dyehouse in Maine.

All 30 of these subtle, intriguingly-named colors are now on our shelves.

Worsted-spun yarns are more durable and dense than their woolen-spun counterparts, and have sharper stitch definition for crisp cables, lace, and texture patterns.

Targhee wool spun in this manner has an abundance of one of my favorite yarn characteristics: elasticity. Garments knit with Arbor should wear well and look sharp for years to come.

Brooklyn Tweed’s first round of patterns for Arbor are perfect examples of how well this yarn behaves in cables and texture patterns. Here are a few that caught my eye:

All of these Brooklyn Tweed patterns (and so many more!) are available as Ravelry In-Store Pattern Sales, where you purchase the pattern here at the shop and a digital copy is saved in your email and/or Ravelry pattern library. We’ll print a copy for you, too, so you can head right home and cast on.

Look for more ideas on our DK weight Pinterest board, and look for Brooklyn Tweed Arbor in the DK weight section here at the shop. See you there!

Mirasol Tupa: now on sale!

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Another discontinued yarn has moved to the Sale Trunk here at the shop: Mirasol Tupa. It’s a lovely yarn, but since it’s no longer manufactured, we’re now offering it at a deep discount of 20% off the original price!

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Tupa is a DK weight blend of merino and silk, a soft and shiny yarn in bright colors. Knitted fabric in Tupa has a nice mix of bounce and drape, making it ideal for scarves, cowls, shawls, mitts, and hats. We still have sweater quantities, too – look for pattern ideas on our “DK weight” Pinterest board!

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Though we’re sad to see good yarns go, we love sharing them with you at a discounted price. Come by to pick up some Tupa at a great price before it disappears!

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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!

Dovestone DK: new colors, Yorkshire Shores, show and tell.

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Our recent shipment from Baa Ram Ewe contained more than just the new Dovestone Natural Aran. We also got four new shades of Dovestone DK, a blend of masham, wensleydale, and bluefaced leicester wools.

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Playful red, orange, and purple brighten up the palette, while a mossy green fills out the selection of darker shades.

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We also got a beautiful new book from Baa Ram Ewe called Yorkshire Shores, filled with gansey-inspired garments and accessories knit in Dovestone DK.

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Between Yorkshire Shores, Carol Feller’s Dovestone Hills, the Landmark Collection and Dovestone Smallholding, we are bursting with uses for Dovestone DK, a yarn that has become a real favorite of ours. In fact, Anne and I both recently finished projects with Dovestone DK. Here’s Anne’s “Fancy Hen,” a gift for her youngest granddaughter. You may recall that I knit one last year as a gift for my niece; this is such a fun pattern that I’d like to knit another. I love the colors Anne chose for her hen!

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My own Dovestone DK show-and-tell is “Epistrophy,” a cardigan from Kate Davies’ Yokes.

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I’m so pleased with this sweater. The yarn was a delight to work with, every stitch, the pattern well-written, and the construction of this sweater and sweaters like it is one I always find so satisfying to execute: bottom-up, in the round, looking forward to the fun colorwork all along, then finished with a steek and special buttons.

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Come by the shop to get a closer look at Dovestone DK and all the patterns and books that go with it, and as soon as the weather cooperates, you’ll find me there with this sweater on. See you soon!

New colors from the Fibre Company.

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Unpacking shipments is an exciting part of my work at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop. Even if it’s not a new product I’m aching to take home myself, it’s always fun to see what’s in the box, and admire and sort colorful bags of yarn. That said, when the box holds something I do plan to take home, the unpacking is that much more exciting. It was with that extra excitement that I cracked open a big box of yarn from the Fibre Company last week.

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This box was packed with new shades in Fibre Company Acadia and Cumbria Fingering, the latter of which was the object of my desire, and the makings of my next sweater.

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Cumbria Fingering is a tightly-plied blend of 60% merino wool, 30% masham wool, and 10% mohair. For a yarn so sturdy, it’s awfully soft, and though the mohair makes it slightly fuzzy, it still has fantastic stitch definition.

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We’ve seen that nice definition in two new shop samples, mittens from the Kelbourne Woolens Year of Mittens Knit-Along. Marsha knit the “August Mitten” (above) and Amy knit the “September Mitten” (below), which is the subject of an upcoming class. Read more about it and sign up on our Classes page!

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The new shades of Acadia are particularly vibrant this season, a saturated little rainbow of six that fits beautifully into our existing selection.

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Acadia’s silk slubs give it color and texture interest, so it doesn’t take fancy stitching to make this yarn shine; any one of these shades would make a lovely “Easy Folded Poncho” or pair of “Welted Fingerless Gloves,” simple knits that let the yarn take center stage. Look at Kelbourne Woolens’ Acadia Collection for more ideas.

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I’m unpacking an awful lot of boxes these days, as fall is fast approaching and new yarns are arriving daily. Come by the shop to see what’s new from the Fibre Company and all our other favorites!

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Slope.

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We’re pleased to announce the arrival of a new knit sample here at the shop, and a new monthly feature, to boot: here’s “Slope,” knit in Shibui Dune, our inaugural Shibui Sample of the Month!

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Last year, Anne knit her own “Slope,” a curved-hem tank in the lightweight Shibui Twig. Most of the time it lives on the wall here at the shop, though she’s taken it down for special occasions, the likes of a wedding, and TNNA.

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The design has been a runaway hit for Shibui as well as our shop, requiring several reorders of Twig in “Brick,” the color Anne’s “Slope” is made in.

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This new teal “Slope” belongs to Sandy Barnes, Shibui’s sales manager and someone we love to catch up with at TNNA each year. She knit her “Slope” in Dune, making it a fall and winter layering piece that looks sharp over a long-sleeved tee or button-down collared shirt. Though the fiber content is very different from Twig, Dune possesses just as much drape, which very much suits the shape of this garment, whatever the season.

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We’ll have Sandy’s “Slope” in Dune on display throughout August, and are offering a 10% discount on Dune purchased for this project until August 31st. Come by the shop to see it for yourself and plan a “Slope” for your own fall wardrobe!