Tag Archives: shawls

Spinni + Dawn.

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Here at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop, we’ve long been admirers and stockists of Isager yarns, out of Denmark.

Isager Spinni:

  • lace weight
  • single ply
  • solid and heathered colors
  • 100% Danish wool
  • 328 yards/50 g
  • $12.50 each

Spinni is one of the longest standing yarns made by Isager, a rustic single-ply lace weight wool. Initially developed by Ase Lund Jensen, who handed the company down to Marianne Isager in the 1970’s, the Spinni color palette is informed and inspired by natural, plant-based dyes. Some are dyed on a white base, and others are dyed on a gray base, for a heathered look.

Grace Anna Farrow designed a beautiful series of shawls for Isager Spinni back in 2009, a collection called The Fine Line. They’re striking and modern, full of bold stripes, chevrons, and elegant color combinations. Spinni is a rustic wool with lots of structure, so it holds up to the loose gauge of these patterns, making a lightweight, somewhat translucent fabric.

“Dawn” is a favorite among Farrow’s designs, and calls for four skeins of Spinni; here are some color ideas!

Order online if one of these colorways intrigues you, or if you’d like to see a special combination just for you! We’re happy to help you plan your next project, and can ship your order or hold it here at the shop for local pickup. Thanks for supporting our small business!

Koigu Collector’s Club: Rainbow Mountain.

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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.

Our most recent shipment from Koigu is Rainbow Mountain, another playful variegated colorway. These special skeins are predominantly pale yellow, streaked and spotted with whimsical pops of gold, orange, red, and lime green.

What to make with these pretty skeins? For a small project, try Dawn Henderson’s “Bonfire Socks” and “Block Party Socks,” or Laura Chau’s “Serviceberry Mitts.” For a larger project, Stephen West’s “Syncopation Adoration Shawl” came to mind, since Koigu plays so well with others. Here are a few ideas!

  • Koigu KPPPM: $15.50 each
  • Baa Ram Ewe Titus: $29 each
  • Ewe Ewe Fluffy Fingering: $10 each
  • The Fibre Co. Cumbria Fingering: $22 each

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

Sale of the Week: Shibui Vine and Silk Cloud!

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We’ve decided to keep our doors closed through the month of June, though we’re still virtually open for online orders. As we have done throughout April and May, we’ll have a special sale each week – 15% off a featured yarn, our Sale of the Week!

We have two yarns on sale this week – Shibui Vine and Silk Cloud are 15% off from June 15 – 20!

Vine is a unique combination of 41% paper, 31% cotton, and 28% silk. The texture is notable, too – a flat yarn wrapped in lustrous, overlapping threads.

Silk Cloud is a lace weight blend of 60% mohair and 40% silk, a fuzzy and luminous yarn.

 

They’re very different, Vine and Silk Cloud, but together they make an incredible fabric: Vine is cool to the touch and brings elegant drape, and Silk Cloud brings unmatched softness.

“Torrent” is a textured triangular shawlette knit on the bias, holding Vine and Silk Cloud together. The pattern is available for free when you buy Vine and Silk Cloud here at our shop.

The “Torrent” below was made by Maxine, one of the biggest Shibui fans we know!

 

Hold matching colors of Vine and Silk Cloud together for seamless blending.

Or combine two different colors for high or low contrast marls!

You’ll need 2 skeins of Vine and 1 skein of Silk Cloud to knit a “Torrent” of your own.

  • Vine: usually $20 each; $17 at 15% off
  • Silk Cloud: usually $26.50 each; $22.50 at 15% off
  • Special Julie Hoover shades of Silk Cloud: usually $28.50 each; $24.25 at 15% off

Head to our online order form if you’d like to place an order – it’ll be on sale through June 20. Thanks for all your support!

 

Just a reminder–all sales are final on discounted items; there can be no exchanges or returns. Thanks!

Show and tell: Brooklyn Tweed Loft.

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Time for another round of show and tell! We love to see what you all are making with yarn from our shop, and when I’m able, I take pictures so that I can share those projects here on the blog. Looking over my current collection of show and tell photos, I spotted a handful in Brooklyn Tweed Loft, which has been featured in our BT Sample of the Month throughout March. With its heathered colors and rustic texture, Loft is worth celebrating – here are a few great ways to use it!

Kathryn designed and knit this “Bradshaw” cardigan for her son using Brooklyn Tweed Loft. This lightweight, woolen spun yarn beautifully shows the cables and gives this sweater a classic look. The pattern comes in a wide range of sizes, covering 0-6 months up to 10 years.

Above is Sidney’s “Perch,” designed by Gudrun Johnston, a triangular half hap featuring “old shale,” a classic lace pattern. I’m always pleased by the flecks of color that pop out of Loft when its knit up – in this case, they’re bright and festive against the overall dark brown color of the yarn.

Nancy knit Bristol Ivy’s “Bayard” hat with two shades of Loft, a high contrast color combination that blurs and blends a bit in one-row stripes and slipped stitches.

Thanks to Kathryn, Sidney, and Nancy for sharing their work with us, and thanks to everyone who starts their projects with a trip to the Hillsborough Yarn Shop! We can’t wait to see what comes off your needles next.

Show and tell: Brooklyn Tweed Peerie.

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Time for another round of show and tell! We love to see what you all are making with yarn from our shop, and when I’m able, I take pictures so that I can share those projects here on the blog. Looking over my current collection of show and tell photos, I spotted three in Brooklyn Tweed Peerie, which is currently 10% off as it’s featured in our BT Sample of the Month. With its soft hand, bold colors, and superb stitch definition, Peerie is worth celebrating – here are a few great ways to use it!

Above is Pam’s “Butterfly / Papillon,” a striking shawl decorated with short rows, which she knit using six shades of Peerie.

Emily was in a mood for colorwork one day, and came by the shop to select an open-ended palette of Peerie for hat-making. She wound up knitting two “Lucerne” hats and a “Bousta Beanie,” two of our favorite fingering weight colorwork hat patterns. These are great fun, whether you’re trying stranded knitting for the first time or just in a colorwork mood, like Emily!

Margaretta has worked with Peerie several times now, coming back again and again for the smoothness, bounce, and stitch definition.

This is her “Ensata Scarf,” rich with twisted stitches, texture, and lace, all of which shine in this special yarn.

Thanks to Pam, Emily, 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 can’t wait to see what comes off your needles next. If these talented knitters have inspired you, come by the shop during February to get Brooklyn Tweed Peerie at 10% off!

 

A reminder: all sales are final on discounted yarn. There can be no returns or exchanges. Thanks! 

Hello, Malabrigo Caprino.

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This week, we welcome a brand new yarn from Malabrigo – meet Caprino!

Caprino is a DK weight blend of 80% merino wool and 20% cashmere, and just as you’d expect from those fibers, it’s soft as can be. Each 50 gram skein has 159 yards, enough for a pair of mitts or small hat; 2 skeins makes a larger hat or cowl.

Like many Malabrigo yarns, Caprino comes in a familiar selection of semi-solid, variegated, and speckled colorways.

We think of them as old friends, these colorways – it’s always nice to see the purplish gray of “Plomo,” or the deep navy of “Paris Night,” but equally nice to meet newer shades, like the spotty “Galaxy.” All three of those wound up in my latest project, Andrea Mowry’s “Nightshift” shawl.

I’m having such fun with this simple slip stitch pattern, watching the colors come together, the background shade seeming to shift as the contrast colors change.

I’ve seen lots of knitters make “Nightshift” and “The Shift” cowl, sometimes more than once, and now I totally understand the appeal of the project. We’re pleased to have print copies of these patterns in stock now!

Come by the shop to see and touch Caprino for yourself! You’ll find it in our DK weight section.

Brooklyn Tweed and Shibui Samples of the Month!

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December is here, and with it, new featured samples from Brooklyn Tweed and Shibui!

Our Brooklyn Tweed Sample of the Month is Jared Flood’s “Umaro,” an impressive lace and cable blanket knit with two strands of BT Quarry held together.

Quarry is Brooklyn Tweed’s heaviest yarn, a bulky weight, woolen-spun Targhee-Columbia wool. Each plump 100 gram skein boasts 200 yards, quite a bit for a yarn that knits up at 3-3.5 stitches per inch. It’s what our friend Emily used for her own “Umaro” blanket, below – she brought it in this week for show and tell, and reports that she snuggles underneath it on the couch with her kids all the time. A success!

Our Shibui Sample of the Month is “sequences,” by Lori Versaci, knit with Shibui Drift.

Drift is a treat to work with, a luxurious worsted weight blend of merino and cashmere.

We’re offer a 10% discount on Brooklyn Tweed Quarry and Shibui Drift until the end of the month – come by soon to take advantage and see these beautiful knit items!

Just a reminder–all sales are final on discounted items; there can be no exchanges, returns, or special orders. Thanks!

Westknits Bestknits 3: Shawl Evolution.

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We’re pleased to have Stephen West’s newest book in stock – let’s peek inside Westknits Bestknits 3: Shawl Evolution.

This collection is all about shawls, and the many possible shapes, textures, techniques, and colors they can feature.

Styled with Stephen West’s signature dramatic flair and photographed with a keen sense of movement, Westknits Bestknits 3 is great fun to flip through.

Along with six new designs and seven previously published ones, West shares ideas for creating fades and marling several yarns together for unique color and texture combinations.

Pick up this book if you love to knit shawls and are looking to try brioche, slipped stitch patterns, short rows, and other playful techniques. Look for Westknits Bestknits 3 here at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop!

On our needles: Brooklyn Tweed Ranch.

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One of the perks of working at the shop is knitting with exciting new yarns, sometimes even before they are available on our shelves. For the past couple of weeks behind the scenes, Anne and I have both been working with Ranch 02, the latest small batch, ranch-specific yarn from Brooklyn Tweed. Take a look at what’s been on our needles!

I’ve just completed Jared Flood’s “Tillage Hat,” a new design for BT Ranch 02, and a cousin to his “Tillage” pullover. I chose a light color to be sure all the texture and cables would show well, somewhat uncertain about the stitch definition of a woolen-spun yarn. I needn’t have worried, however, as this 3 ply yarn is nice and round, and shows texture beautifully.

Ranch 02 is great fun to knit with, springy and light in the hand, and makes such a soft, cohesive fabric.

Anne has had both Ranch 01 and Ranch 02 on her needles of late, and chose the same pattern for both. “When In Scotland” is a triangular garter stitch shawl, a lovely project for letting the yarn shine.

For the first shawl, she used Ranch 01, a worsted spun Rambouillet wool in naturally dyed shades.

She used Ranch 02 for the second shawl, and marveled at the difference between the two yarns.

Despite all they have in common – their fiber content, gauge, and number of plies – they differ in spinning method. Ranch 01 is worsted spun and Ranch 02 is woolen spun, making the former heavier and more smooth, and the latter lighter and more squishy. You can learn all about worsted and woolen spun yarns on Brooklyn Tweed’s website; they’ve written at length about how each kind of yarn is produced and what the difference is in the knitted fabric.

Come by the shop to see Ranch 02 and all of Brooklyn Tweed’s offerings – we have every yarn they make, and binders full of their patterns. There’s even some Ranch 01 left on our shelves!

See you at the shop!

Brooklyn Tweed Sample of the Month: Guernsey Wrap.

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Our Brooklyn Tweed Sample of the Month for October is here! Come by this month to see the “Guernsey Wrap.”

Jared Flood’s “Guernsey Wrap” has become Brooklyn Tweed’s best-selling pattern of all time, a now-classic rectangular shawl decorated with bands knit and purl texture patterns.

This version is knit with Shelter, Brooklyn Tweed’s signature worsted weight, woolen-spun yarn. It comes in 45 colors and we’re delighted to report that we have them all in stock. Even better, we’re offering them at 10% off during October!

Come by this month to see it for yourself, and pick a color for a “Guernsey Wrap” of your very own!

Just a reminder–all sales are final on discounted items; there can be no exchanges, returns, or special orders. Thanks!