Dream in Color Pop Up! Club: February.

Dream in Color’s Pop Up! Club is back! Every month, we’re getting a special new colorway from Dream in Color, a Tucson-based producer of small batch hand-dyed yarns. February’s new limited edition colorway is here while supplies last!

This peaceful beige Smooshy Cashmere is flecked with streaks of rose and an occasional dash of green.

Use this yarn on its own for a special pair of socks, fingerless mitts, or a shawl, or combine it with a lace weight mohair for a fuzzy halo and slightly thicker fabric.

Shibui Silk Cloud and Tweed Silk Cloud pair well with this yarn – think Isabell Kraemer’s “Leni” hat, Tin Can Knits’ “Love Note” pullover, or Midori Hirose’s “Ranunculus” pullover.

Look for this special colorway in our fingering weight section here at the shop!

Warm Hands.

Warm Hands is here!

This eclectic collection of mitten and handwarmer patterns is edited by Jeanette Sloan and Kate Davies, and features many other designers, as well.

Some mittens are colorful, some are textured, some are lacy or cabled, and some combine multiple techniques for intriguing effects.

The mittens in this book are knit with Kate Davies’ own lines of yarn, Àrd-Thìr and Milarrochy Tweed. Àrd-Thìr is a blend of Peruvian fibers, 60% highland wool and 40% alpaca. The texture is smooth and round, for sharp stitch definition and a springy elasticity in the hand. Look for it in our aran weight section!

Milarrochy Tweed is a fingering weight wool and mohair blend. We don’t have it here at the shop, but we have a great many excellent substitutes – Jamieson’s Shetland SpindriftTukuwool FingeringBrooklyn Tweed Loft and PeerieIsager Tweed, and more.

Look for Warm Hands on our teacart, among the latest books and magazines for knitters! We also keep a nice selection of Kate Davies’ older titles in stock, the likes of Colours of Shetland, Yokes, West Highland Way, Milarrochy Heids, Happit, Shore, and Handywoman.

See you at the shop!

Dream in Color Pop Up! Club: January.

Dream in Color’s Pop Up! Club is back! Every month, we’re getting a special new colorway from Dream in Color, a Tucson-based producer of small batch hand-dyed yarns. January’s new limited edition colorway is here while supplies last!

January’s special colorway is a variegated mix of purples, from light lavender to deep plum.

It’s dyed on Smooshy with Cashmere, a super soft fingering weight yarn that’s great for shawls, cowls, or special socks.

“Reyna,” “Close to You,” and “Rosewater” are all lace shawls that can be knit with one skein of Smooshy with Cashmere – look for more pattern ideas on our “Fingering weight” Pinterest board, and look for this special colorway in our fingering weight section here at the shop!

See you there!

New Brooklyn Tweed Kits!

Just in time for last minute gift shopping, we’ve put together brand new kits featuring Brooklyn Tweed Peerie!

Each kit includes a “Cloudline” hat pattern and 2 skeins of Peerie, Brooklyn Tweed’s fingering weight merino wool. For this beginner-friendly pattern, two different shades of Peerie are held together throughout, creating a marled fabric.

“Cloudline” is from the new BT by Brooklyn Tweed collection, a line of concise, beginner-level patterns.

We’ve made up a couple of kits in the color combination shown in the pattern, and created four more of our own!

Swing by to see the colorways we came up with and pick one out for a knitting friend this holiday season!

Koigu Collector’s Club: Utopia.

The Koigu Collector’s Club continues! Each month, we’ll receive 21 skeins of KPPPM in a limited edition color dyed especially for a select group of local yarn stores that carry Koigu.

KPPPM is a fingering weight superwash merino, hand-dyed in vibrant colors by mother/daughter team Maie and Taiu Landra on their farm outside of Toronto, Canada.

This superwash merino yarn is speckled and streaked with shades of peach and plum, a sweet combination that Koigu calls Utopia.

Look for this limited edition colorway of Koigu KPPPM in our fingering weight section here at the shop!

West Yorkshire Spinners holiday colorways!

Each year, British yarn company West Yorkshire Spinners creates a special holiday colorway in their Signature 4ply sock yarn. This year they made three – Robin was the first to arrive, and now Holly Berry and Fairy Lights!

Signature 4ply is West Yorkshire Spinners’ self-patterning sock yarn, composed of machine-washable bluefaced leicester wool and nylon, for strength. These colorful skeins are dyed in such a way that the yarn creates a color pattern when you knit it in a small width or circumference, such as a scarf, pair of socks or mitts. No matter what stitch pattern you use, colorwork comes out as you knit, entertaining you as you knit even the simplest of projects.

Along with these two new colors came complementary solid colors, drawing some of the more prominent shades out of these festive colorways.

How to use the self-patterning skeins along with the solid ones? Trim your patterned socks with stripes, solid cuffs, heels, and toes. WYS is offering just such a pattern for free with each purchase of Robin, Holly Berry, or Fairy Lights – ask us for a copy when you pick up a skein!

Look for WYS Signature 4ply here at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop!

Back in stock, show and tell: Shetland.

The appetite for Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift and colorwork knitting in general seems to be growing, if our frequent Jamieson’s orders are any indication. We recently unpacked yet another big box of Shetland Spindrift, a classic fingering weight 2-ply shetland wool, which has brought our selection up to 160+ colors at the moment!

It’s fitting, then that Marie Wallin’s Shetland is back in stock! This exquisite book is full of intricate fair isle designs in a kaleidoscopic array of colors, all knit with the quintessential Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift. We still have a couple of copies of her newest book, Meadow, as well.

What else to make with Shetland Spindrift? Two knitters we know have recently completed colorwork hats with it, an excellent use of one of our favorite yarns.

Above is Sue’s “Roadside Beanie,” knit during a recent class here at the shop. Below is Joanne’s “Alba.” Both of these knitters have become somewhat smitten with Shetland Spindrift, developing collections of the stuff for colorwork swatching and projects, and they’re not alone – give it a try and see if you don’t feel the same way!

Look for Shetland on the teacart here at the shop, amidst piles of new books and magazines, full of inspiration for new projects, and you’ll find Shetland Spindrift in our fingering weight section. See you there!

Brooklyn Tweed Sample of the Month: BT Kids.

Our Brooklyn Tweed Sample of the Month for November is here! Come by this month to see selections from the BT Kids collection.

When we were planning our Brooklyn Tweed Sample of the Month program, Anne was especially excited to see “Atlas (For Kids),” a colorwork yoke that called her grandchildren to mind. When Kel at Brooklyn Tweed offered to lend us anything from the BT Kids collection, we jumped – you’ll find six pieces on display this month!

All of them are knit with Loft, Brooklyn Tweed’s signature fingering weight, woolen-spun yarn. It comes in 45 colors and we’re delighted to report that we have them all in stock. Even better, we’re offering them at 10% off during November!

We’ll be closed for a Thanksgiving break from Wednesday, November 27 – Monday, December 2, reopening at our regular business hours on Tuesday, December 3, so if you’re anxious to see these samples and get Loft at a discount, plan your visit accordingly. We hope to see you soon!

Just a reminder–all sales are final on discounted items; there can be no exchanges, returns, or special orders. Thanks!

Hello, Malabrigo Rite.

We recently celebrated our 13th year in business here at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop, a milestone we could not have reached without your support. In Jewish communities, 13 years marks a coming of age, a bar or bat mitzvah. For our own bat mitzvah year, we did something extra special, something so exciting, we’ve had a hard time keeping it under wraps!

We asked our friends at Malabrigo to create a special colorway for our 13th anniversary, and here it is, after months of planning: meet Rite.

Since March, we’ve emailed back and forth with Antonio at Malabrigo, dreaming up color combinations and anxiously awaiting his photos of trial skeins and swatches. The final colorway is a variegated mix of grey and blue, two of Anne’s favorite colors, and mine, too. It’s flecked with dashes of teal, Antonio’s brilliant contribution, and one that makes our colorway unique.

We have Rite in both Rios and Sock, our best-loved Malabrigo yarns. Both are super soft, superwash merino, plied for durability and stitch definition. It was positively flying off the shelves over our Anniversary weekend, but we still have plenty in stock! You’ll find Rios in the worsted weight section and Sock in the fingering weight section, and plenty of project ideas on our Pinterest boards. Naturally, we’ve been knitting with Rite ourselves – more on that soon!

See you at the shop!

Koigu Collector’s Club: Sheep.

The Koigu Collector’s Club continues! Each month, we’ll receive a batch of KPPPM in a limited edition color dyed especially for a select group of local yarn stores that carry Koigu.

The inspiration for this batch is Sheep, the beloved animal whose fleece makes some of our favorite yarn. Dyed on KPPPM, Koigu’s signature fingering weight superwash merino wool, this variegated colorway is ideal for making shawls, cowls, baby sweaters, and of course, socks.

As yarn-lovers, we have a particular fondness for sheep, and our friends and clients have kindly remembered that proclivity, bringing us decorative sheep from time to time. Peek into our front window or look around the shop, and you’ll find sheep made of wool, paper, beaded wire, ceramic, and wood. We find them to be fitting decor, though we often have to say, “Sorry, they’re not for sale!”

Look for this special colorway in the fingering weight section here at our shop, along with various other Koigu Collector’s club skeins. See you there!