Hello, Mountain Fusion Teton.

Posted by Julia on December 11, 2013

Just in time for last-minute holiday gift-making, we received 6 new colors in Mountain Fusion Teton, a bulky weight merino wool.

Mountain Fusion Teton is the result of a collaboration between two small US yarn companies: Mountain Meadow Wool, of Buffalo, Wyoming, and Mountain Colors, of Corvallis, Montana. This springy, colorful yarn is 2 ply, where one ply is thick and the other is thin.

This gives a pretty consistent texture with plenty of color interest, not to mention enough yarn in one skein to create a hat or cowl in an afternoon. The pattern for this simple hat is printed on the Mountain Fusion Teton yarn label; also consider “Thorpe,” or the “Drop Stitch Cowl,” both of which are available as free downloads from Ravelry.

Come by the shop to pick up a skein or two of Mountain Fusion Teton, and you’ll have cozy winter accessories in no time, whether for yourself or for someone yarn-worthy. See you at the shop!

Back in stock: String Theory Merino DK.

Posted by Julia on November 10, 2013

Last week, we had the pleasure of unpacking a large box from String Theory which was stuffed full of their Merino DK.

Having knit two cowls, a sweater, and a pair of mitts with String Theory Merino DK, I’m clearly a fan of the stuff. It’s soft and smooth, with excellent stitch definition, springy and dependable in the hands, and expertly hand-dyed in rich, memorable colorways. Our Purl Ridge Cowl is shown in “Earthquake,” a variegated colorway with more hidden hues than one might notice at first.

Whenever we get more Merino DK in stock, I’m tempted to start another project.

This time, it was Anne who gave in and cast on with String Theory Merino DK. Looking for just the right yarn for this year’s trio of hats for her grandchildren, Anne settled on Merino DK for all the reasons listed above, along with one other: Merino DK is machine-washable, perfectly suited to children’s hats.

Enjoying the yarn, and knitting on a deadline, Anne has likely finished this second hat by now, and I expect to see the start of a third soon enough.

Come by the shop to see our new selection of colors in Merino DK, and check out String Theory’s other yarns, as well. See you there!

Hello, Cima.

Posted by Julia on November 4, 2013

Last week, I gave a brief introduction to Shibui here on the blog–their yarns, patterns, “mix” concept for combining yarns, beautiful coordinated colorways, and luxury fibers. This week, I wanted to give each of the three Shibui yarns we carry a chance to shine. Today: say hello to Cima.

Cima is a lace weight yarn composed of 70% superbaby alpaca and 30% fine merino wool, boasting 330 yards on each 50 gram skein. It’s a 2-ply yarn, tightly plied so that it almost resembles a string of pearls.

I fell in love with this double-knit cowl when I saw it displayed at Shibui’s booth at TNNA. As we talked with the people at Shibui, choosing colors and learning about the yarns, I idly petted the cowl, admiring the drape of the fabric, the reversible design. By the time the yarn arrived at the shop, I was ready to pick out colors to knit one myself. The Mix No. 23 pattern calls for two strands of Cima held together throughout, making a sport weight gauge. Double knitting creates two layers of fabric at once, so I had a lot of stitches on my needles, but the yarn was so pleasant to work with, and the pattern so clearly written, that I sped right through it.

For my Mix No. 23, I used Cima in “Caffeine” and “Suit.” It was hard to choose just one pair of colors, though–the Shibui color palette is nuanced and unusual, and I loved pairing them up in hypothetical cowls.

Beginning in January, we’re offering a class on double knitting that teaches this very pattern. If you’re interested in learning the technique and making the cowl along the way, consider Amy’s “Double Knitting” class–you can read all about it, sign up and prepay on our website.

There are plenty of other things to make with Shibui Cima, of course, and Shibui’s own pattern line is a great place to start looking for inspiration. Shibui patterns often call for Cima to be held double, or even triple, combining colors in interesting ways, often to achieve a gradient effect. One of their free patterns, Kinetic, uses two strands and two colors in this way; you can download the pattern from the Shibui website.

Cima is also lovely on its own, held singly, anywhere lace weight yarn is called for. To that end, our “Lace Weight Shawls” binder is worth flipping through, along with our collection of lace-themed books. Follow us on Pinterest for more Cima pattern ideas; our “Inspiring Stitches” board is a collection of patterns and projects that make good use of yarns that are available at HYS.

Keep your eye on the blog for more on Shibui yarns and patterns, and come by the shop to become acquainted with these yarns in person!

Hello, Meadow.

Posted by Julia on October 12, 2013

We’re delighted to announce that Meadow has arrived! This newest yarn from the Fibre Company is featured in our upcoming Fibre Company Yarn Tasting, as well as our current trunk show: the Allium Collection, 8 shawls and scarves knit in this delicious yarn.

Meadow, like many Fibre Company yarns, has an unusual and carefully-crafted fiber composition: 40% merino wool, 25% baby llama, 20% silk, and 15% linen. Each of these fibers brings its own unique characteristics to the yarn in terms of drape, texture, and color, and the result is a lightweight fabric that is soft to the touch and holds its shape even at a looser gauge than is suggested on the ball band. It’s between a lace and a light fingering weight, with a generous 545 yards in each 100 gram skein.

We also have all 8 patterns from Grace Anna Farrow’s Allium Collection, which use Meadow in a variety of techniques, from simple garter or stockinette stitch to stripes, short rows, lace, and colorwork.

Usually, when we order a brand new yarn for the shop, we begin with a small selection of colors. When it came to Meadow, we couldn’t help ourselves–we had to have every single color the Fibre Company makes. One of them is missing from this photoshoot because we sold out of it as soon as it arrived, but don’t fret, it’s on order!

Come by the shop to see Meadow and all the other Fibre Company yarns we carry, and do so before October 20th to play dress-up with the trunk show!

Hello, Malabrigo Nube.

Posted by Julia on September 24, 2013

Two new releases from Malabrigo in a row! This time, it’s not yarn at all, but unspun fleece for spinning or needle-felting. Meet Nube, soft merino wool roving in your favorite Malabrigo colorways.

We have four colors in stock: Azules, Aguas, Arco Iris, and Archangel.

Spinners and needle-felters, come by to see Malabrigo Nube in all its glory! Look for our small roving collection by the window in the front room, near our new button display. See you at the shop!

New from the Fibre Company.

Posted by Julia on September 20, 2013

About a year ago, we introduced Acadia, a beautiful and unique dk weight yarn from the Fibre Company, a small yarn company out of Pennsylvania. We were dazzled by their array of natural fiber yarns when we saw them at TNNA, but limited ourselves to just one yarn in a small selection of colors, not knowing if our knitters and crocheters would fall for the yarn as hard as we did. In a quick succession of reorders that brought more and more new colors and project ideas to the shop, it became clear that the Fibre Company would be heartily embraced at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop. We allowed ourselves to go a little further this year, bringing in three additional Fibre Company yarns. The first two are here, and the third is expected in early October. Say hello to Fibre Company Savannah and Canopy Worsted!

Savannah is a sport weight blend of 50% wool, 20% cotton, 15% linen, and 15% soya, which is spun and dyed in the US. The wool content gives elasticity to all those plant fibers, and each fiber takes the dye a little differently, giving the colorways a rustic heathered look. We think Savannah is a perfect blend of fibers for our Southern climate, suitable for all-seasons garments and accessories.

Canopy Worsted is a light worsted weight blend of 50% baby alpaca, 30% merino wool, and 20% viscose from bamboo.

This blend of fibers makes for a lustrous, drapey fabric that still has great stitch definition for texture patterns.

Anne and I both worked on a Canopy Worsted swatch, and neither of us wanted to put it down. Yours truly has already acquired a sweaters’ worth, and put everything aside to cast on for said sweater. That said, Canopy Worsted is also well-suited to smaller accessories like scarves, cowls, hats, and shawls. For a more structured garment, like fingerless mitts, consider going down a needle size or two for a sturdier fabric.

We’re still suckers for Acadia, too–the Fibre Company made four new colors for Fall, all in neutral shades, and we ordered two bags in each color. They fill out the ever-growing Acadia spectrum nicely.

Come by the shop to see all these new yarns from the Fibre Company, and to plan your next project. We’re planning some exciting events featuring the Fibre Company in the coming weeks–stay tuned!

Hello, Malabrigo Mecha.

Posted by Julia on September 18, 2013

A new Malabrigo yarn is always exciting. We know so many knitters and crocheters who turn to Malabrigo yarns again and again for their beautiful colorways, soft fibers, and good value. Meet the newest Malabrigo yarn: Mecha.

Mecha is made of superwash merino wool, a bulky weight yarn with 130 yards on each 100 gram skein. It’s a soft and fluffy single ply, which means it’s also a bit fuzzy. The superwash process helps the yarn to resist felting, but single ply yarns are still more likely to pill than plied yarns; not a problem with a gentle pill remover like the Lily Brush.

I’m the lucky knitter who got to make a shop sample with Mecha. I went hunting for a pattern in the Kira K Designs binder and found two great choices: a twisty knit scarf, and a rippled crochet cowl.

It was a tough choice, but I landed on the Twist Scarf, a pattern that called for exactly 130 yards of bulky weight yarn–a perfect match for Mecha.

I love the way it came out; the knitting was simple and fast, and the scarf is long enough to be worn a few different ways.

The pattern is available as a Ravelry In-Store Pattern Sale, which means that you buy it from us and we’ll print a copy for you, but a digital copy is also saved in your email or Ravelry pattern library.

Ashley, a crocheter with an affinity for Malabrigo yarns, picked up a few skeins of Mecha last week when it first arrived. After playing with it a bit, she discovered that two qualities make it perfect for children’s toys: Mecha is both super soft and superwash. Sitting at the shop, she whipped up a soft stuffed ball with a rattle inside in under 15 minutes. A set of these in different sizes would make a great baby gift, and a quick one. Ashley used the Ideal Crochet Sphere pattern, which is available as a free download on Ravelry. Lucky for us, she left this ball with us as a sample for the shop. Thanks, Ashley!

Come by the shop to check out Mecha and all our other Malabrigo favorites. See you there!

Back in stock: Swans Island.

Posted by Julia on September 8, 2013

Along with the brand new Swans Island Organic Washable DK, we also recently stocked up on our supply of Swans Island Organic Merino in both fingering and worsted weights. At market, Melissa from Swans Island showed us these two Dyer’s Choice Limited Edition colors, Orchid and Plum, and Anne, with a slight swoon, immediately ordered them in fingering weight.

They fit nicely into the now somewhat amazing palette of rosy pinks and reds that we currently have in stock in this yarn.

Aside from those two, the other colors we ordered were familiar ones, favorites that find their way into HYS shopping bags again and again, destined for lacy shawls and scarves, cozy cowls, and special sweaters.

Meanwhile, we also doubled our stock of Swans Island Organic Merino Worsted, filling in missing colors and making sure we had enough for the Fall season.

Swans Island Organic Merino are some of the squishiest, softest merino yarns around, and the natural dyes make for truly unique and beautiful colorways. Each skein is a thing of beauty, and the result of loving, hard work by the skilled craftspeople of Swans Island Blankets. If you haven’t treated yourself to a skein of it yet, consider doing yourself the kindness. One 525 yard skein in fingering weight is enough for a scarf or shawlette, and one 250 yard skein in worsted weight is plenty for a hat and mitts, or decent-sized cowl or scarf. Look to the Swans Island pattern binder for ideas and inspiration for how to use that special skein. See you at the shop!

Hello, Swans Island Organic Washable.

Posted by Julia on September 6, 2013

For three years now, we have visited the Swans Island booth at TNNA to place orders for their exceptionally soft merino yarns which are hand-dyed in Maine. Many of our knitters have made sweaters, shawls, hats, and mitts with these yarns, then come back for more, telling us how nicely they behave on and off the needles. When we arrived at market this year to find that Swans Island had created a machine-washable yarn, we knew we had to have it.

Swans Island have made this dk weight yarn machine-washable using a new-to-the-US process called Ecowash^®, which coats the yarn with an organic compound rather than stripping the scales from the fiber. This helps to prevent felting and gives the Swans Island Organic Washable a softer hand than many other superwash wools.

I knit a little baby vest for the shop using a few skeins we picked up at market, thinking how perfectly suited this yarn is to heirloom baby knits: buttery soft, minimally processed, organic, yet still machine-washable. I alternated skeins to keep this subtly semi-solid shade from pooling, and I’m glad I did; one skein was slightly darker than the other, and working back and forth between the two balls of yarn was a painless way to blend them.

The pattern is “Cabled Vest,” from Susie Haumann’s All You Knit is Love, a collection of knits for babies ages 0-18 months. The pattern calls for two Isager yarns held together, but the gauge is 5.25 stitches per inch, which is perfectly achievable using a single strand of dk weight yarn.

Besides baby things, Swans Island Organic Washable is perfect for adult garments as well as accessories. Its round shape and plump, springy quality give it excellent stitch definition for cables and other texture patterns. One 140 yard skein is plenty for a pair of Welting Fantastic Mitts, and another two will make a matching cowl. A Ravelry search sorting by gauge, looking only at patterns calling for dk weight yarns, kept me daydreaming for longer than I’d like to admit, scrolling through patterns for sweaters, shawls, and socks.

Look for the Swans Island Organic Washable yarn in the second room of the shop, sharing the spotlight with Alchemy and Smooshy with Cashmere. It’s an exciting time to visit the shop, as there seem to be new yarns arriving every week. See you there!

Wisdom Wrap, in progress.

Posted by Julia on September 2, 2013

Right before we left for market in June, Anne started knitting a Wisdom Wrap, one of Gina Wilde’s shibori felting designs for Alchemy Yarns. We’d seen (and played dress-up with) a Wisdom Wrap at market the year before, and kept it in mind all year.

It’s an unusual piece, but simple to construct. The first step is to make long stretches of i-cord with Sanctuary, a luxuriously soft blend of merino and silk. Then stitches are picked up along the length of the i-cord and knit up into garter stitch rectangles using Silken Straw.

The end result is a kind of i-cord scaffolding, which frames the Silken Straw color-blocks. When the knitting is done, the Wisdom Wrap is ready to be felted, just like the Simple Shibori Cowl. The Sanctuary i-cord shrinks and felts, looking almost like a velvet rope, and the Silken Straw rectangles soften and stretch out. It’s a bit of a leap of faith, but having seen the finished wrap at market and tried it myself on a smaller scale with the cowl, we feel confident that a successful shibori transformation awaits. In the meantime, Anne is hard at work on the wrap, working lengths of i-cord in between blocks of garter stitch–soothing knitting.

Besides the meditative knitting process, one of the major joys of an Alchemy project is choosing from their outstanding, vibrant color palette. Though she was picking from a smaller selection, before our colors numbered in double digits as they do today, Anne put together a beautiful colorway for her Wisdom Wrap, which calls for one shade in Sanctuary and four in Silken Straw.

In selecting colors for a Wisdom Wrap, one strategy is to begin with the Sanctuary, which comes in variegated colorways. From there, you can use the same colorway in Silken Straw, and then pull out three solid colors in the Silken Straw that appear in the variegated color you’ve chosen. Anne is using Sanctuary in color “Dark Star,” and Silken Straw in “Dark Star,” “Jungle Juice,” “Citrine,” and “Coco Rosie.” As I was arranging the Silken Straw in its basket, I couldn’t help but play the Wisdom Wrap game, putting potential colorways together, sometimes following the strategy I just laid out, sometimes not.

I could play this game all day. Come in to plan a Wisdom Wrap of your own!