What’s winding.

Posted by Julia on March 6, 2017

Back in December, we rearranged the front room at the shop a bit, moving the ballwinder from the teacart, shifting a few shelves, and adding a new table. That table houses the swift and ballwinder, a dedicated winding station right by the front window, which does double and triple duty as a window display and a naturally-lit spot for blog photography.

A rainbow of CoopKnits Socks Yeah! getting wound and ready for sock-knitting.

The table came from Anne’s mother’s apartment in New York, where it had been living for many decades before it moved south with Phyllis herself. It’s the perfect shape and size for our space, but it also came, importantly, with good memories for Anne of her mother cutting out patterns there to sew her clothes. Take a close look at its surface next time you’re here at the shop, and you can see dotted lines in the wood from her tracing wheel.

Just as Phyllis began sewing projects on this table, so do we begin knitting and crochet projects here, with that important first step: winding the yarn.

Getting wound up and ready to knit a shop sample in Brooklyn Tweed Arbor.

Yarns that come in twisted hanks need to be wound into a ball before use, a task that some knitters find pleasure in, but others consider a chore. We have a swift and ballwinder here at the shop to make quick work of that task, and we’re happy to do it for you. Now that the winding station is such a pleasing place to be, I often find myself photographing the yarns that pass through it, admiring the clever and sturdy design of Nancy’s Knit Knacks Heavy Duty Ballwinder. These photos are some of my personal favorites, and they’ll look familiar if you follow us on Instagram.

Winding Brooklyn Tweed Shelter, a “Hadley-Pullover”-to-be.

As I wind yarn at the shop, I’m frequently joined by customers and passers-by, looking on from the worsted weight section or the sidewalk, just enjoying the simple pleasure of the spinning swift and the growing ball of yarn.

Isager Alpaca 2 and Shibui Staccato getting wound and ready to become a “Find Your Fade” shawl.

Come by the shop to plan your next project, and leave with your yarn ready to use right away. See you there!

Anne’s gifts-in-progress.

Posted by Julia on August 16, 2016

“What are you working on?” is knitters’ small talk, a question Anne and I encounter and ask many times a day here at the shop. Today, we’ll pose the question to Anne herself, taking a rare peek in her personal knitting bag.

Just how much does a large Binkwaffle dumpling bag hold? If you pack as skillfully as Anne, no less than seven works in progress in various stages of completion!

Anne is a tremendously generous knitter who loves clothing her family in handknits, and she’s also a project manager. That means she’s already planned her holiday gift-knitting for the year, completed the first piece (a twirly skirt for her eldest granddaughter), and started on the next few. The sweater above is for her husband, a “Honeycomb Pullover” in Rowan Pure Wool Worsted.

These two skeins of Swans Island All American Sport are destined to become colorwork gloves for her husband. The socks below are for her grandsons, in Colinette Jitterbug and Noro Silk Garden Sock. She’ll work on both pairs at once, switching back and forth between the blue and striped socks until they’re completed. Also note how she stores them safely in DP Wip Tubes, so none of those tiny stitches slide off the needles!

These two skeins of Baa Ram Ewe Dovestone DK will grow up to be a cuddly “Fancy Hen” for Anne’s youngest granddaughter, who gets lots of handknit hand-me-downs, but still deserves something all her own.

Quick to knit and easy to wear, hats and cowls are go-to gifts for many knitters, and Anne has one of each in progress. The hat above was knit in the discontinued Shibui Merino Alpaca, and sits nearly finished with just one lingering question: does it need a pom-pom? The cowl below is a bit of a teaser, since all I can say is that the yarn it’s made of is coming to the Hillsborough Yarn Shop later this Fall. More soon!

(Outside of this particular knitting bag, she also has three sample sweaters going for the shop… more on those another time.)

Are you dreaming of handmade holiday gifts for your friends and family? Follow in Anne’s footsteps and start now, so you’re not limited to late nights, super-bulky yarns and tiny accessories towards the end of the year!

Our new ballwinder.

Posted by Julia on September 1, 2015

Yarns that come in twisted hanks need to be wound into a ball before use, a task that some knitters find pleasure in, but others consider a chore. We have a swift and ballwinder here at the shop to make quick work of that task, and we’re happy to do it for you. For years, our heavy duty ballwinder from Nancy’s Knit Knacks has served us well, smoothly winding miles of yarn into neat little cakes that can be pulled from the inside or outside end.

It was starting to slow down a couple of weeks ago, so we sent it in to be refurbished and asked for a big upgrade: a power base. Our ballwinder is now motorized, rather than hand-cranked, which requires much less of our attention.

For a long time, we’ve had a no-winding-on-Saturday policy, taking the swift and ballwinder down for our busiest day of the week. It was hard to be tied to the ballwinder when phones and questions needed answering, yarn needed fetching from the inventory room, and a line was forming at checkout. Our new motorized ballwinder makes it easier for us to multitask, which means we’re now happy to wind yarn purchased at our shop anytime, even on Saturdays! Come by the shop to plan your next project, and leave with your yarn ready to use right away. See you there!

Nancy’s Knit Knacks.

Posted by Julia on March 29, 2015

We recently ordered some knitterly notions from Nancy’s Knit Knacks, filling in where supplies had dwindled.

The WPI Tool Kit is a clever gadget for measuring the number of wraps-per-inch of any given yarn.

This is a handy way to estimate the gauge of an unlabeled yarn, or determine if one yarn may be substituted for another. In this way, it’s useful for spinners, knitters, and crocheters; for weavers, it can help determine the sett of a woven fabric.

Each WPI Tool comes with a Wraps Per Inch Knit-Kard, explaining how to use the tool and how to interpret the WPI you measure.

We also replenished our supply of DP WIP Tubes, for secure storage of works-in-progress on double-pointed needles.

This Perfect Notion Case is new for the Hillsborough Yarn Shop; it has 6 compartments to hold your stitch markers, point protectors, cable needles, and other small notions.

Come by the shop for all the notions you need to get organized and make the most of your projects. See you there!