LYS Day 2024: special shades from Koigu!

Happy Local Yarn Store Day! Come by the shop tomorrow, Saturday, April 27, for 25% off featured yarns and 50% off select books – you can read all about those sales on our recent blog post.

Koigu sent us something special for LYS Day: 3 new Koigu Collector’s Club Colors!

Koigu KPPPM:

  • fingering weight
  • hand dyed, variegated
  • 100% superwash merino wool
  • 175 yards/50 g
  • $15.50 each

Each of these limited edition colorways was inspired by Maie Landra’s original paintings and dyeing method. Maie is one of the co-founders of Koigu and designed the original Koigu colours back in the 80s and 90s.

Brave New World, painting by Maie Landra

Brave New World, limited edition Koigu colorway for LYS Day 2024

Analog, painting by Maie Landra

Analog, limited edition Koigu colorway for LYS Day 2024

Connection, painting by Maie Landra

Connection, limited edition Koigu colorway for LYS Day 2024

Pair Brave New World, Analog, or Connection with a fuzzy lace weight yarn and you have the makings of a soft and lovely “Sophie Scarf” or “Oslo Hat – mohair edition,” – here are a few color ideas!

Come by the shop tomorrow, April 27, to celebrate LYS Day and shop our sale! Koigu KPPPM and Isager Silk Mohair will both be 25% off, along with six other featured yarns, one in each gauge section.

Thanks for supporting our shop on LYS Day and every day, we love being your local yarn store!

 

A reminder: all discounted yarns are final sale, no returns or exchanges. Discount applies only to in-stock items, no special orders. Thanks for understanding!

LYS Day 2024!

We’re looking forward to Local Yarn Store Day, this Saturday, April 27th. Come to our shop on LYS Day for 25% off featured yarns!

LYS Day is about celebrating brick-and-mortar yarn shops and appreciating all that they offer. Here at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop, we are proud of our selection of high quality yarns, books and tools, and our customer service. Our mission is to provide knitters and other fiber artists with quality materials and help connect them with the knowledge they need to make things they’re proud of.

All the yarn in our shop is sorted by gauge, with sections marked Lace weight, Worsted weight, Bulky weight, and so on. We hope this makes it easier to sort through our robust selection to find the yarn that’s right for your project! For LYS Day, we’re offering 25% off one featured yarn in each gauge section:

You can read about all our featured yarns on the links above, and look for the yellow signs to find them here at the shop on LYS Day!

Come by the Hillsborough Yarn Shop this Saturday to celebrate LYS Day and get some great deals! We’re open from 11 am – 5:30 pm; see you at the shop!

 

A reminder: all discounted yarns are final sale, no returns or exchanges. Discount applies only to in-stock items, no special orders. Thanks for understanding!

Koigu Collector’s Club: Paradise Tanager.

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.

Koigu KPPPM:

  • fingering weight
  • hand dyed, variegated
  • 100% superwash merino wool
  • 175 yards/50 g
  • $15.50 each

This month’s limited edition shade is Paradise Tanager, a cream colored base streaked and speckled with purple, pink, and aqua. Here’s the brightly colored songbird that inspired it!

We have so many yarns that could pair well with this shade, whether you’re seeking high or low contrast, solid or variegated, smooth or fuzzy.

What to make? Here are some pattern ideas for mixing many colors!

Look for Koigu KPPPM in the fingering weight section here at our shop, along with many others! We’re here from 11am – 5:30pm, Tuesdays – Saturdays; masks required for entry.

Koigu Collector’s Club: Pine Grosbeak.

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.

Koigu KPPPM:

  • fingering weight
  • hand dyed, variegated
  • 100% superwash merino wool
  • 175 yards/50 g
  • $15.50 each

Pine Grosbeak is a fun mix of pink and red, with little streaks of dark gray, cream, and orange – just like the bird it’s named for.

We have two samples at the shop made with Koigu KPPPM, Anne’s “Pressed Flowers Hat” and my “Sophie Scarf.”

Anne knit the “Pressed Flowers Hat” above with Koigu KPPPM and Neighborhood Fiber Co. Capital Luxury Sport, a soft and springy blend of merino, cashmere, and silk. Here are a few fresh color combinations for this project using Pine Grosbeak as the contrast color.

I knit my “Sophie Scarf” holding Koigu KPPPM together with Sandnes Garn Tynn Silk Mohair for a fuzzy blended effect. I can never resist pairing Koigu with mohair, so here are two more ideas!

Koigu looks great in a “Holden” shawl, like this one that Edie knit, featured on our recent show-and-tell post. You could even make a gradient “Holden,” matching Pine Grosbeak with four other Koigu Collector’s Club shades we have in stock.

Look for Koigu KPPPM in the fingering weight section here at our shop, along with many others! We’re here from 11am – 5:30pm, Tuesdays – Saturdays; masks required for entry.

New from Koigu!

We have all kinds of new goodies from Koigu this week, hand-dyed in vibrant colors by mother/daughter team Maie and Taiu Landra on their farm outside of Toronto, Canada.

First up, Koigu Paint Cans, five-color mini-skein sets packed up like a tiny pail of paint. Each 25 g mini skein has 87 yards of KPPPM, Koigu’s signature fingering weight merino wool, for a total of 435 yards per Paint Can. That’s just right for a pair of “Zig Zag Mittens” or “Paint Box Mittens” – scan the QR code on the side for more colorful pattern ideas!

For even more fun with mini-skeins, we have Koigu Pencil Boxes, which have 10 x 25g minis, or 870 yards total. That’s enough to knit a “Davenport,” “Rising” or “Grevillea Shawl,” or crochet a “Salsa” or “Juniper Cowl.”

We also got our monthly batch from Koigu’s Collector’s Club, 21 full sized 50 g skeins of KPPPM in a limited edition color, dyed especially for a select group of local yarn stores that carry Koigu.

Painted Bunting is the color, a vibrant mix of neon green and cobalt blue, with streaks of marigold and cream. Stripe it into a “ZickZack Scarf,” slip stitch it into a pair of “Pressed Flowers Socks,” or pair it with mohair for a fuzzy “Sophie Scarf” – we carry many yarns that play well with Koigu!

Look for all our Koigu Collector’s Club colorways in the fingering weight section here at our shop, and check out the Paint Cans and Pencil Boxes in our gifts section. Thanks for shopping local this holiday season!

Show and tell: openwork.

As you may have read in our most recent newsletter, the shop will be closed for our usual Thanksgiving break from November 22 – 27. Feel free to place online orders or email inquiries during that time, but know that we won’t be monitoring our inbox until we’re back in the shop on November 28! We wish you all a peaceful and safe holiday.

In the meantime, let’s enjoy some show and tell!

As I was going through recent photos, I spotted a theme: openwork! Here are some beautiful projects adorned with eyelets.

Above is Edie’s “Holden” shawl, knit with Koigu KPPPM. It’s great to see lace knit up with variegated yarn! Pattern by Mindy Wilkes.

Teresa knit this delicate “Salty Air Tee” with Isager Bomulin, a good example of how lace looks in plant fiber yarns – in a word, lovely! Pattern by Samantha Guerin.

Anne jumped on the “Ranunculus” bandwagon, and knit the sweater above as a gift for a lifelong friend. She held Brooklyn Tweed Ranch 03 together with Fibre Co. Meadow, a low contrast combination that gave just a little dimension to the color and texture of the knitted fabric. Pattern by Midori Hirose.

Lace looks great in thicker yarns, too, showing off the stitch patterns at a larger scale and proving that openwork can be cozy. Above is Ruth in her “Elah” cardigan, knit with worsted weight Kelbourne Woolens Germantown. Pattern by Isabell Kraemer.

Margaretta is a prolific lace knitter – I’ve lost track of how many “Umaro” blankets she’s made! The one above is a baby blanket, knit with worsted weight Berroco Ultra Wool. Pattern by Jared Flood.

The shawl below is also one of Margaretta’s, “Sakura,” knit with Brooklyn Tweed Loft. Pattern by Leila Raven.

Thanks to Edie, Teresa, Anne, Ruth, and Margaretta for sharing their work with us! We love to see what you make with our yarns, and can’t wait to see what comes off your needles next.

Koigu Collector’s Club: Ammonite.

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.

Koigu KPPPM:

  • fingering weight
  • hand dyed, variegated
  • 100% superwash merino wool
  • 175 yards/50 g
  • $15.50 each

Ammonite is a quiet variegated colorway with a surprising variety of hues mixed in – from a distance it reads pale green, but look closely, and you’ll see a whole rainbow!

Pair Ammonite with a fuzzy lace weight yarn and you have the makings of a soft and lovely “Sophie Scarf” or “Oslo Hat – mohair edition,” – here are a few color ideas!

I love the way a strand of lace weight mohair mutes a variegated yarn, bringing new texture and movement to the colors in the knitted fabric.

Here’s my finished “Sophie Scarf”, knit with Koigu KPPPM in Hoof Mushroom and Sandnes Garn Tynn Silk Mohair in 6315.

And here are more Tynn Silk Mohair pairings for all kinds of Koigu colors!

Look for Koigu KPPPM in the fingering weight section here at the shop, and check out the lace weight section to see Sandnes Garn Tynn Silk Mohair, Isager Silk Mohair, and Fyberspates Cumulus!

Hello, Sandnes Garn Tynn Silk Mohair!

Another new yarn from Sandnes Garn! Meet Tynn Silk Mohair.

Sandnes Garn Tynn Silk Mohair:

  • lace weight
  • 57% mohair, 15% wool, 28% silk
  • 233 yards/25g
  • $14 each

Tynn Silk Mohair is soft and shiny, lightweight with a fluffy texture, and often used in tandem with heavier yarns. It pairs beautifully with other Sandnes Garn yarns, of course, like the fingering weight Sunday and DK weight Double Sunday, but is sure to play well with all manner of yarns here at our shop – we can’t wait to see what folks make with it!

I’m working on a PetiteKnit “Sophie Scarf” holding Tynn Silk Mohair with Koigu KPPPM. I love the painterly way they blend together, the solid color and fuzzy halo of Tynn Silk Mohair muting the variegated Koigu a bit. Bailey and I came up with a bunch of other combinations that I’ll share on the blog soon – keep an eye out for that in the next few days, or come by the shop to create your own colorway!

You’ll find Sandnes Garn Tynn Silk Mohair in the lace weight section here at HYS – hope to see you at the shop soon!

Koigu Collector’s Club: Tourmaline.

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.

Koigu KPPPM:

  • fingering weight
  • hand dyed, variegated
  • 100% superwash merino wool
  • 175 yards/50 g
  • $15.50 each

Tourmaline is a saturated golden orange colorway, with little streaks of olive, red, and pink.

There are so many fun ways to use variegated hand-dyed yarns like Koigu KPPPM – here are a few ideas!

Pair it with another fingering weight yarn in a contrasting color

Hold it together with an alpaca or mohair yarn

Look for Koigu KPPPM, Malabrigo Ultimate Sock, and NFC Studio Sock in the fingering weight section here at the shop, and check out the lace weight section to see Isager Bouclé, Silk Mohair, and Fyberspates Cumulus!

Koigu Collector’s Club: Azurite.

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.

Koigu KPPPM:

  • fingering weight
  • hand dyed, variegated
  • 100% superwash merino wool
  • 175 yards/50 g
  • $15.50 each

Azurite is a saturated mix of blue and purple, with lively streaks of aqua, lavender, and lime.

As soon as Amy Christoffers released her new “Pressed Flowers Socks” pattern, my mind went to Koigu – Anne used it in her “Pressed Flowers Hat” earlier this year, and the variegated yarn was perfect in this floral mosaic pattern.

“Pressed Flowers Socks,” by Amy Christoffers, photo © Amy Christoffers

Here are “Pressed Flowers Socks” color combinations pairing Azurite with Kelbourne Woolens Perennial, one of our go-to solid sock yarns.

I couldn’t stop there, of course – it’s too fun to play the color game!

If any of these combinations speaks to you, you can order online for local pickup or shipping. Prefer to shop in person? Look for Koigu KPPPM in the fingering weight section here at our shop, along with many others! We’re here from 11am – 5:30pm, Tuesdays – Saturdays; masks required for entry.