Tag Archives: fingering weight

Koigu Collector’s Club: Birch.

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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.

Birch is the limited edition colorway this month, a pale celery shade streaked with greens. Dyed on KPPPM, Koigu’s signature fingering weight superwash merino wool, Birch would make a lovely shawl, baby sweater, hat, or pair of socks.

As I’ve written here before, KPPPM plays well with others, and this particular colorway brought to mind some of the solid shades in Ewe Ewe Fluffy Fingering, another superwash merino we carry here at the shop.

Where high contrast combinations are desired, consider these charcoal and forest green shades. Even this light aqua stands out against Birch, where neon yellow and white make a quieter contribution.

What to make with these color combinations in mind? Caitlin Hunter’s “Marettimo,” “Navelli,” “Sipila,” and “Zweig” are all modern colorwork sweaters, calling for hand-dyed fingering weight yarns – Koigu is a natural fit, and we have several others that would work well with it. Check out the patterns on Ravelry, and come by the shop to take a look at the yarn!

See you at the shop!

Mason-Dixon Knitting Field Guide No. 11: Wanderlust.

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The eleventh 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 of this eleventh Field Guide is Wanderlust, interpreted by designer Wendy Bernard as a choose-your-own-adventure approach to sock knitting.

This little book is all about hitting the road with the ultimate travel project: a pair of socks. Bernard includes instructions for socks from the cuff down or from the toe up, along with a variety of stitch patterns to play with.

We have a lot of tempting sock yarns here at the shop, the likes of CoopKnits Socks Yeah!, Malabrigo Sock, Fyberspates Vivacious 4ply, Ewe Ewe Fluffy Fingering, and of course those tempting limited edition colorways from Dream in Color and Koigu.

Maybe your stash is already bursting with sock yarns you’ve picked up as souvenirs over the years – this book is just the thing to get those yarns on your needles.

Come by the shop to pick up a copy and a skein of sock yarn for your next road trip!

Koigu Collector’s Club: Tulips.

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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.

May’s special colorway is called Tulips, a riot of greens with flecks of other bright colors dyed on KPPPM, Koigu’s signature fingering weight superwash merino.

This highly variegated colorway has so many different colors in it! I had fun pairing it up with solid shades in other fingering weight yarns, thinking of Andrea Mowry’s brioche “Harlow” hat, which Amy is teaching in an upcoming class here at the shop. Brooklyn Tweed Peerie and Shibui Staccato are both wonderfully soft, come in a range of rich solid shades, and are the right gauge for pairing with Koigu KPPPM.

Peerie, with its stellar elasticity, is perhaps especially well-suited to the “Harlow” hat, if your interest is piqued by that pattern. Head to our Classes page to sign up now for a fun introduction to two-color brioche!

Other two-color projects that you might consider include Craig Rosenfeld’s “Drea’s Shawl,” Stephen West’s “All the Angles” and “Clockwork,” or Christy Kamm’s “ZickZack Scarf.”

Tulips and Riviera are a nice match to my eye – two limited edition colorways aligned!

Look for Tulips in our fingering weight section here at the shop. See you there!

Dream in Color Pop Up! Club: May.

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

Smooshy with Cashmere is the featured yarn again this month, dyed in a limited edition variegated colorway, streaked with gray, ochre, and shades of pink from pale rose to fuschia.

Veronica of Dream in Color tells us this colorway is inspired by Parry’s Penstemon, one of her favorite Sonoran desert wildflowers.

A skein like this would make a great “Starshower,” “Pebble Beach Shawl,” “Sockhead Slouch Hat” or “Sockhead Cowl,” all patterns that do well with variegated yarn. Look for more pattern ideas on our “Fingering weight” board over on Pinterest.

You’ll find this limited edition colorway in the fingering weight section here at our shop, and hurry in if you want to snag one – these special Dream in Color shades don’t last long!

Hello, Bamboo Pop.

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We’re excited to announce that two new yarns have just arrived, well-suited to the warm weather of the season. Say hello to Universal Bamboo Pop and Bamboo Pop Sock!

Both Bamboo Pop and Bamboo Pop Sock are smooth, soft, plant fiber yarns, composed of bamboo and cotton.

Bamboo Pop is a DK weight, with a suggested gauge of 5.25 – 6 stitches per inch on needles between US 5 and 7. It’s composed of 50% cotton and 50% bamboo, plant fibers that are lustrous and have beautiful drape. These qualities make Bamboo Pop ideal for summer accessories and tops. Consider Churchmouse’s “Simple Tee,” Shellie Anderson’s “Nova,” or Courtney Kelley’s “Sonora.”

Bamboo Pop Sock is a fingering weight yarn, composed of 55% bamboo, 37% cotton, and 8% nylon – an addition that gives the yarn enough elasticity to make socks. It comes in self-patterning colorways, for simple knitting and fun results.

Come by the shop to plan your warm-weather knitting! We look forward to seeing you there.

Dream in Color Pop Up! Club: April.

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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. April’s new limited edition colorway was somewhat delayed, but we’re pleased to announce that it’s here while supplies last!

Dream in Color Bonny is the featured yarn this month, a soft and squishy base of 2ply superwash merino. April’s colorway pairs ivory and pastels with bold streaks of blue, fuschia, and orange.

We also got in some special Dream in Color BFL Cash & Silk for Local Yarn Store Day this past Saturday.

The variegated Grand Canyon Centennial colorway pairs beautifully with any of these semi-solid shades for a “Riotous” or “Magical Thinking” shawl.

You’ll find these limited edition colorways in the fingering weight section here at our shop, and hurry in if you want to snag one – these special Dream in Color shades don’t last long!

Roadside Beanie kits.

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The shop is buzzing with excitement about the “Roadside Beanie,” Shetland Wool Week’s featured pattern for 2019. Nancy will be teaching a class on it, and we’ve just made up kits in several colorways with Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift.

The pattern shows the hat in four different Shetland yarns, including one in Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift. I’ve made up several kits in the suggested Shetland Spindrift colorway, another in shades similar to the Jamieson & Smith colorway, and two more of Anne’s design – shades of gray with pops of blue or purple.

Come by the shop to pick out a kit, or select your own color combination – we keep over 100 shades of Shetland Spindrift in stock, so the possibilities are plentiful.

See you there!

New marls in Brooklyn Tweed Shelter and Loft.

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Brooklyn Tweed just released two new marled shades in Shelter and five in Loft, and we’re delighted to have them here at the shop!

“Marled” means that each ply of the yarn is a different color, making a candy cane twist of the two.

They knit up looking flecked and pleasantly irregular, and if the two colors within the marl are close in value, they might appear blended from a distance, as in the photo below – this shows Shelter in the color Narwhal, which is composed of Fossil and Sweatshirt.

Shelter has had three marled colorways up to this point, all neutrals. You can see them at work in BT patterns like “Atlas,” “Mason,” “Mossbank,” and of course Andrea Mowry’s “The Weekender,” the subject of our current informal knit-along.

The two new shades are Caraway, an earthy mix of Hayloft and Truffle Hunt, and Amaranth, a fiery combination of Cinnabar and Long Johns.

Loft hasn’t had any marled colorways until this week, and these new additions sent me back to the BT pattern archive, looking for designs that would do well in marled colors.

Consider “Redford,” “Benton,” “Eternity Scarf,” and “Kelpie,” as a starting place – there are so many incredible patterns for Loft!

 

Jared Flood has also designed a new brioche hat for Loft, “Skipp,” which is free when you purchase 2 skeins of Loft from our shop before April 30th. He’s included options for single- and two-color brioche, as well as two different fits, watchcap and slouchy.

 

You’ll find Shelter in our worsted weight section and Loft in our fingering weight section. See you at the shop!

 

 

 

Back in stock, show and tell: Shetland Spindrift.

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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. This weekend brought another big box of Shetland Spindrift our way, a classic fingering weight 2-ply shetland wool.

We usually keep around 110 colors in stock, an awe-inspiring selection that we display in big trays, so you can see them all clearly. Because the yarn is so well-suited to stranded colorwork knitting, Jamieson’s makes a staggering 220 colors, and we are happy to special order any of them for you if you don’t see what you’re looking for on our shelves.

We have several patterns in stock for Shetland Spindrift, like Sandy Blue’s “Autumn Tam” and “Midnight Sun Tam,” Churchmouse’s “Wee Wooly Sheep,” and Janine Bajus’s “Redbud” vest.

This yarn is also popular for Gudrun Johnston’s “Bousta Beanie,” a featured pattern for Shetland Wool Week in 2017. This year’s SWW pattern also calls for Shetland Spindrift, and we’re busy putting kits together to make it – more on that soon!

Now for a bit of show and tell – here’s Nancy’s “Efflorescent” shawl, knit with Shetland Spindrift as a sample for a class she offered here at the shop last year. The pattern is from Felicity Ford’s KNITSONIK Stranded Colourwork Playbook, which is bursting with colorful inspiration, along with techniques and patterns. Nancy has graciously lent us the shawl for display, so you can see this work of art in person at our shop.

Kathryn wove this incredible guitar strap on an inkle loom, using Isager Bomuld and Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift.

Kate came in recently wearing her newest sweater, Leila Raabe’s “Stasis” pullover, knit with Shetland Spindrift in the colors Eggshell and Teviot, a charming combination. She made a few modifications for a perfect fit and is rightfully pleased with the outcome – well done, Kate!

Thanks to Nancy, Kathryn, and Kate for sharing their handiwork, and to everyone who starts their projects with a trip to our shop! Look for Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift in the fingering weight section  – we can’t wait to see what you make with it!

New Arne & Carlos sock yarns.

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We have not one, but two new sock yarns designed by Arne & Carlos!

Both are sturdy superwash wool and nylon blends from Schachenmayr Regia, self-patterning yarns just perfect for sock-making.

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, stripes or faux fair-isle colorwork come out as you knit, entertaining you as you knit even the simplest of projects.

The Mountains & Fjords colorways come in 100 gram balls, each with 459 yards, enough for an average adult pair of socks.

The Pairfect Kids Color, however, comes in 60 gram balls, with only 276 yards – perfectly sized for children’s feet.

Furthermore, Pairfect yarns are designed to make an identical pair of socks, and do so by marking the beginning of the color repeat with a yellow starter thread.

Look for these Arne & Carlos colorways in the fingering weight section here at the shop, and check out our upcoming Churchmouse Basic Socks class if you’re not yet a sock-knitter!