Tag Archives: show and tell

Shenandoe Farm.

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Perhaps if you’ve been in the shop sometime in the past two weeks, you’ve noticed a new little nook I created for locally produced and dyed yarns.

The local yarns live in the Noro corner, above the Noro. Here, you’ll find a lone skein of local llama yarn, a bit of handspun, and a sock- and dk-weight yarn dyed locally by The Unique Sheep. Those local yarns we’ve had for some time now. It was the introduction of a brand new local yarn that inspired this grouping.

Shenandoe Farm, right here in Orange County, is home to the angora goats that helped produce the beautiful undyed yarn pictured above. Their wool was shipped off to Michigan to be mixed with a bit of cotton and mill-spun. To me, this is some of the most exciting new yarn we’ve received in a long time. It’s rustic looking, pleasant to work with, and fuzzy without shedding. The skeins vary some in color, thickness, yardage, and weight: something to keep in mind when you’re planning a project. That very uncertainty, though, requires you to try out different needle sizes and work a swatch before casting on–a blessing in disguise. This is wonderful stuff to experiment with.

To me, the yarn said, honeycomb cables, and so that’s what I did. What you see above is about half a hat. I only get to work at it during the slow moments at the shop, but it’s growing quickly anyway. Come by the shop to give those cables a nice squeeze, and to admire the fiber that our corner of the world produces.

Marion and Marian show off.

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One of the great joys of knitting, besides knitting itself, is seeing what other people are knitting. It’s a large part of why Ravelry exists, and it’s one of my favorite parts of my job at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop. Not only do I get in on the knitting plans as they’re being made, but I also often see the finished product, proudly brought in to show off. I always get to ooh and ahh, and touch the finished sweaters, scarves, and hats. Sometimes I get to take a picture, too.

You may know Marion as our magic loop sock teacher. She does more than just socks, though. She’s pictured above in her recently completed February Lady Sweater, knit with Briggs & Little Sport held double. Marion is quite the sweater knitter–check out her class on the Vogue Sleeveless Tunic on the shop website.

Meanwhile, Marian keeps coming in with incredible lace shawls. Her latest: a capelet from the Spring/Summer 2010 issue of Vogue Knitting, knit with Lana Grossa Chiara. The photo doesn’t do this sparkly shawl justice. 

Thanks for sharing your knitting with us, ladies! 

Of mice and monkeys.

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For the past few weeks, Anne and I have been knitting animals. We worked on them during the quieter moments at the shop, and so they lingered, unfinished, for some time. Then, over the weekend, one mouse and one monkey emerged, knitted and stuffed, their features embroidered. You should see us morph into children as we hug our finished products, using tiny voices and giggling. Knitted animals are irresistible that way, it turns out. Anne’s mother can attest to this, as well. No one is immune to the charms of a handknit monkey.

Anne designed this monkey for Averette of Purple Crow Books, a wonderful local bookstore on King Street in Hillsborough. Averette did the knitting and Anne did the finishing, and now the completed monkey sits in the window at the Purple Crow. In his lap is the children’s book on which he was based, It’s A Book, by Lane Smith.

Back at the shop, the mouse remains. Phoebe goes with a children’s book that bears her name, Phoebe’s Sweater, by Joanna Johnson. It’s a sweet story about a mouse whose mother knits her a sweater, accompanied by knitting patterns for a matching child-sized sweater. Or, if you’re the animal-knitting type, a mouse-sized sweater, and a stuffed mouse to wear it.
Look for Phoebe near the baby pattern books in the yarn shop, where you’ll find many other stuffed animals to knit, if you’re so inclined. Stop by Purple Crow Books, too, especially if you haven’t yet had the pleasure of doing so.

Michelle and Chloe.

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Last Saturday, master knitter Michelle came into the shop with a dress-form (named Chloe) wearing her latest finished object, an intricately cabled pea coat from Shirley Paden’s Knitwear Design Workshop: The Comprehensive Guide to Handknits. It blew us all away, to the point that I could not resist asking to take their photo for the blog. Witness:
Michelle, who has been knitting for eleven years, completed this sweater as a senior project. (I’m thinking A+. Just saying.) Go find Michelle and this incredible sweater on Ravelry, where her pictures are gorgeous and you can admire the perfect fit, the perfect seams, and the crazy amount of work that went into it.

Andrea knits socks.

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My friend Andrea has been a sometime knitter for a few years now, completing a scarf here, a patchwork blanket there, but focusing primarily on her animation projects (a subject worthy of an entire blog; go there and see this if animated wool peaks your curiosity). Recently, however, she has taken up knitting in a more serious, dare I say, obsessive way. Since October, she has produced a handful of hats, a pair of colorwork mittens, two sweaters, a pair of self-designed fingerless gloves, and now she’s knitting socks, too. First, she made these, with Lang Jawoll sock yarn:
Which warmed her feet while she made these, from Berroco’s Ultra Alpaca Fine:

Only a handful of days later, those socks, too, were completed, making room for the next pair:

These socks are made from two shades of gray Jawoll yarn, made sporty with stripes of reenforcement thread in contrasting colors. All three pairs of socks are riffs on a simple Ann Norling pattern for beginner sock-knitters. I’d never been particularly interested in knitting socks until Andrea made it look so easy, and so good. For those of you feeling similarly inspired, we still have a couple of copies of that Ann Norling pattern, and plenty of sock yarn. Come by the shop and check it out.

Cascade 220 Superwash Sport.

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********* As of December 15th, 2015, we no longer have any Cascade 220 Superwash Sport in stock. *********
Allow me to introduce you to my favorite yarn of the moment. Simple, sturdy, yet soft, and suitable for most any project: Cascade 220 Superwash Sport. A few weeks ago, we had only a handful of colors. I’d just begun a pair of socks in a light heathered gray when I overheard Anne on the phone, saying, “Yes, I’d like a bag of every color. Except gray.” Every color?
Oh yes. Every color. To me, this yarn suggests complicated fair isle sweaters, striped socks, many-colored hats and mittens… first, though, I had to finish my gray socks.

 

The completion of these socks brings mixed feelings. On the one hand, it’s a success to have finished a pair of socks, where before I’ve been plagued by second sock syndrome. On the other hand, it’s impossible to ignore that they are simply too big. Looks are deceiving: the socks appear to be the right size, yet they lack the negative ease that makes socks fit snugly, and so they feel oddly loose. I thought I’d try to shrink them in the wash, because, hey, it’s machine washable yarn, but it’s probably not machine dry-able. Bad news for my socks, good news for consumers of Cascade 220 Superwash Sport: the socks emerged from the dryer in exactly the same state they had entered it. This yarn is superwash, indeed.
Back to daydreaming about colorwork, then. Also, trying my hand at fingering-weight socks, which I’ll show off here soon…