Tag Archives: joji locatelli

Dream in Color Pop-Up! Club: September.

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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. September’s new limited edition colorway is here while supplies last!

Dream in Color Smooshy Cashmere:

  • fingering weight
  • 70% superwash merino, 20% cashmere, 10% nylon
  • 400 yards/100g
  • $34 each

This month, dyer Veronica was inspired by the muted antique colors of dried flowers, and she painted some of them on Dream in Color’s aptly-named Smooshy Cashmere.

Shades of green dominate, from pale sage to deep forest, mottled with flecks of yellow, blue and brown.

Smooshy Cashmere is perfect for a special pair of socks, like Dawn Henderson’s “Lyne Socks” or “Autumn Dawn Socks,” but for a larger project as the season slowly turns, a cozy shawl is just the thing. Several months ago, I created colorways for Tamy Gore’s “The Drifter” shawl, and they caused such a stir, I decided to make a fresh batch with this new Pop Up! Club shade.

The rustic woolen-spun Tukuwool Fingering is an intriguing counterpoint to the luxurious Smooshy Cashmere, and the heathered colors play beautifully with these variegated skeins.

Tukuwool Fingering:

  • fingering weight
  • 75% Finnsheep wool, 25% Texel wool
  • 213 yards/50 g
  • $12.50 each

“The Drifter” is decorated with slipped stitches and stripes, and Gore provides instructions for using three shades or two.

If the two-color combinations especially speak to you, check out Joji Locatelli’s “Circle of Friends Shawl,” too!

Get in touch if you’d like to place an order – we can ship these pretty skeins directly to you or hold your purchase here for pickup while our storefront is temporarily closed!

Join us for a Dapple KAL!

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Brooklyn Tweed’s newest yarn, Dapple, has captured our imagination.

Sample skeins acquired in advance of the launch allowed Anne to get it right on her needles, casting on for Gudrun Johnston’s “Kirigami” pullover in Honeycrisp.

Not wanting to miss out on this fun, I’ve decided to cast on with Dapple, too, and selected Anchor and Natural for a “Pātikitiki Hat,” by Francoise Danoy. I can’t wait to see how the striking geometric colorwork comes out in this simple, high contrast combination!

We’re excited to announce an informal Dapple knit-along! How to participate? Simply embark on a project of your choosing with Brooklyn Tweed Dapple, and stitch at your own pace. There will be no deadline, just the camaraderie of working with the same yarn at the same time. Anne and I are here to answer questions as you select your pattern, colors, and needles, and will post our progress along the way.

Anne has already made great strides on her “Kirigami,” and we are both having fun watching it come together. This is a bit of a departure for her in terms of color, which is to say, it’s bold and bright instead of subdued and neutral. She sorted the skeins by value before casting on, making a gradient from light to dark. “Kirigami” is worked in the round from the bottom up, so she cast on the sleeves and body with the darkest skeins, making the sweater lightest at the textured yoke.

What else to knit with Dapple? It substitutes well for BT Arbor, for which there are a great many patterns available, but we’ve come up with all kinds of other projects for Dapple besides. Here are some ideas!

Garments:

Accessories:

Cast on with us this week, or next week, or whenever suits you – knit along at your own pace, and use the hashtag #HYSDappleKAL to share your progress on Instagram!

52 Weeks of Socks.

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Update: We are totally sold out of 52 Weeks of Socks, and Laine has no more copies to sell to us. Good luck on your search!

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We are delighted to announce that we finally have some copies of Laine’s new book, 52 Weeks of Socks!

This is our second batch, actually – the first came and went quickly, every copy spoken for before we could even breathe word of its arrival. This 256 page tome includes 52 patterns for knitting socks and slippers, an astonishingly large collection, and a beautiful one. You can see them all on Ravelry, a virtual way to browse the book; the list of designers is impressive, including Joji Locatelli, Isabell Kraemer, Rachel Coopey, Andrea Mowry, and Caitlin Hunter.

Laine no longer produces their popular knitting and lifestyle magazine, having shifted their focus to book making, but their reputation for pleasing designs and tantalizing photography remains. 52 Weeks of Socks is heavy with inspiring patterns using a variety of techniques, but it is also a beautiful object unto itself.

The book is $47, and while we’re closed to foot-traffic, it’s only available via mail-order. Shipping for this weighty hardcover is $15, but there’s definitely room in the box for a couple of skeins of sock yarn, if you’d like to make the most of it!

We have limited copies of 52 Weeks of Socks available, and Laine has announced that this was their fourth and final printing of the book, so get in touch soon if you’d like to order it from us!

Back in stock, show and tell: Malabrigo.

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Year in and year out, Malabrigo yarns are among the most popular in our shop. Sometimes it feels like we place Malabrigo orders for the shop every week, but not every week yields an order as big as our most recent – this was a sizeable restock, indeed!

Here are bags and bags of Malabrigo Sock, Mechita, Washted, Mecha, Rasta, Caracol, and Nube, waiting to be unpacked.

As usual, knitters and crocheters we know have been busy making shawls and sweaters using Malabrigo yarns – time for some show and tell!

Here is Nancy’s “Kelp Garden Sweater,” which she crocheted using Malabrigo Mechita and CoopKnits Socks Yeah! This incredible sweater won second place at the NC State Fair this year – congratulations, Nancy!

Above is another Mechita project – Anne knit Joji Locatelli’s “Storm” shawl with just one skein, in the pattern’s namesake colorway. She started and ripped out several other shawls with this speckled yarn before landing on “Storm,” which turned out to be just the right pattern, the dropped stitches showing off the painterly yarn just so. 

Below is Cindy’s “Troupe” shawl, knit with Malabrigo Dos Tierras in a playful color combination.

Pam knit this “Dog Star” pullover for her grandson using Malabrigo Rios. This is a favorite sweater pattern of mine, and Anne’s, too – we’ve each made several of these, and seen knitters around us make many more. I love Pam’s color choice, the bright “Cian” blue jumping out against the deep “Paris Night.”

Thanks to the knitters, crocheters, and weavers who bring in their work to show us what they’ve made! You inspire and amaze us, and we can’t wait to see what you get into next.

The shop is currently closed for a Thanksgiving break, but we’ll reopen at our regular business hours on Tuesday, December 3, and look forward to seeing you soon!

New colors in Malabrigo Rios.

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Malabrigo recently released a bunch of new colors in their beloved worsted weight superwash merino, Rios. Meet the Tribeca collection!

Rios is beautifully hand-dyed in rich, memorable colors, soft and springy in the hand, and machine-washable, no less. A superwash worsted weight wool is a versatile kind of yarn, good for garments and accessories alike. We’ve seen it all in Rios over the years – sweaters for all ages, blankets large and small, hats and mitts and cowls and slipper socks and more.

These delicate pastel shades are semi-solid, ideal for showing off texture patterns. Try Tin Can Knits’ “Flax” and “Barley,” Stephen West’s “Dustland,” Joji Locatelli’s “Hipster Shawl,” and Andrea Mowry’s “Nurtured.”

With so many beautiful colors, it’s tempting to combine them, too – for colorful ideas, check out Shannon Cook’s “Bradway,” Lisa Hannes’ “Walk in the Woods,” Jennifer Steingass’s “Fern & Feather,” Andrea Mowry’s “Nightshift,” and Tin Can Knits’ “Banff.”

Come by the shop to pick up some Malabrigo Rios for your next project! See you there.

Show and tell: cables.

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As I hinted in my last show-and-tell post, this group of projects all have one technique in common: cables. Let’s see some of the cabled projects folks are making with yarn from our shop!

Tom knit Irina Anikeeva’s “Cayley Pullover” with Fibre Co. Cumbria Worsted, a smooth blend of merino, masham, and mohair. He carefully measured his gauge and adjusted the sleeve length for a perfect fit – well done, Tom!

Leanne knit Joji Locatelli’s “Sammal” cardigan during a class here at our shop.

Though the pattern called for a lofty fingering weight wool knit somewhat loosely, she was able to substitute Cascade Ultra Pima, a DK weight cotton, and the resulting garment is exactly what she had in mind. Bravo to Leanne for this excellent yarn substitution, and for finding the perfect buttons!

Here is Joanne’s “Swilly,” a cabled scarf designed by Meghan Kelly. She knit it with Fibre Company Arranmore, and reports that it was a quick and fun knit in this soft bulky weight yarn.

Inspired by a recent trunk show, Margaretta recently knit Gudrun Johnston’s “Cetus” hat with Brooklyn Tweed Arbor, a DK weight wool known for its stellar stitch definition. These intriguing stitch patterns show up especially well in a light to medium shade, not too dark to see all the action.

Many thanks to Tom, Leanne, Joanne, and Margaretta for sharing their work with us, and thanks to everyone who starts their projects with a trip to the Hillsborough Yarn Shop! We look forward to seeing all that you create!

Pom Pom Quarterly: Winter 2018.

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The Winter 2018 issue of Pom Pom Quarterly has arrived here at the shop!

Pom Pom is a beautifully designed magazine, carefully put together by writers and editors who clearly love printed matter as much as they love knitwear. This issue is guest edited by none other than Norah Gaughan, who was also featured in the most recent Mason-Dixon Knitting Field Guide. Fans of Norah Gaughan have a lot to be excited about this season!

“The knits in this issue are imagined for the modern heroine,” write the Pom Pom editors, and the designs do evoke strength and drama. They are also highly embellished, whether with whimsical tassels, graphic colorwork, bold cables, bobbles, or gathers.

Many of the designer names in this issue are familiar, the likes of Joji Locatelli, Caitlin Hunter, Andrea Rangel, and Veronik Avery, whose contribution is knit with one of our favorite yarns, Brooklyn Tweed Arbor.

Anna Maltz’s column is always a thought provoking, interesting read, focusing this time on notions of tradition and historicity in knitting. She rightly points out that “Tradition is not inherently good,” and asks instead that we celebrate the ever-evolving nature of our craft, and the talented people that continue to contribute to it with new designs, techniques, and technology.

Come by the shop to get a closer look at this striking issue of Pom Pom!