Zigzag Cowl Knit-Along.

Posted by Julia on March 19, 2014

Last Spring, we had two Knit-Alongs at the shop: first we knit up the summery “Gemini” tee, and then we made “Hexagonal Market Bags.” Halfway through March, sick of freezing rain and snow, we’ve decided we’re ready for another warm-weather Knit-Along. Inspired by the latest new yarn at the shop, Anne, Rosi and I have both cast on for the “1-Skein Zigzag Cowl,” a pattern by Heather Walpole for Ewe Ewe.

I’m knitting one in Ewe So Sporty, the sport weight superwash merino for which the pattern was written. The yarn is tightly-plied and full of elasticity, well-behaved on my Addi Turbo needles and resulting in a pleasing stretchy fabric.

Thinking Spring, Anne chose Tahki Cotton Classic for her Zigzag Cowl, a dk weight mercerized cotton. Like Ewe So Sporty, Cotton Classic has sharp stitch definition, but like all plant fibers, it lacks elasticity, which will make a lightweight, gently draping fabric. Just the thing for decorating and warming your neck on a moderately chilly day.

Rosi’s cowl is made in Mirasol Nuna, a sport weight blend of merino wool, silk, and bamboo. These fibers combine to be quite soft, a little fuzzy, and a little shiny, and make a relaxed, luxurious fabric.

I’m excited to see how these three different yarns behave in the same pattern. Want to make a “1-Skein Zigzag Cowl” of your own? Join us in this informal Knit-Along. The pattern is available at the shop in print or as a Ravelry In-Store Pattern Sale, where we’ll print a copy for you and save a digital copy to your email or Ravelry pattern library. Any sport or dk weight yarn should do; we have a nice selection of colors in Ewe So Sporty, Tahki Cotton Classic, and Mirasol Nuna, along with all manner of other yarns in those gauges. I’d love to see Zigzag Cowls in Malabrigo Arroyo, Fibre Company Savannah, Mountain Meadow Wool Cody, or String Theory Selku, to name a few. Come by the shop to see all the choices, and to see how Anne, Rosi, and I are progressing on our cowls. We’ll also be posting on the Ravelry HYS group with any lessons learned along the way, just as we did while we were making our Gemini sweaters and market bags. 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, 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!

Argosy scarf.

Posted by Julia on May 29, 2013

A new knit scarf has arrived at the shop, knit by Amy as a sample for one of her upcoming classes. Here’s Argosy!

Argosy is a free pattern from Knitty, which Amy knit in Noro Silk Garden Lite, a self-striping DK weight blend of silk, mohair, and wool. Argosy is a great way to show off the kind of self-striping yarns that Noro is known for.

It’s knit on the bias, which results in diagonal stripes when using a self-striping yarn. It makes a gently draping, light fabric, in part because of the light-weight yarn and in part because of the lacy patterning.

Amy’s Argosy Scarf class focuses on a particular pattern, but our classes always teach any special techniques that are required for whatever pattern students will be knitting. These techniques will serve you well not only in making the pattern at hand, but also in future knitting endeavors. Sign up for the Argosy Scarf class and you can expect to learn how to do the cable cast-on, how to cast on stitches in-line, how to do yarnovers and decreases, and how to read a lace knitting chart.

Learn more about the Argosy Scarf class on our website’s “Classes, etc” page, where you can sign up and prepay to ensure your place in class. Come by the shop during our Going to Market Sale to pick up Noro Silk Garden Lite at a 25% discount, and to admire this scarf in person!

New from Mountain Meadow Wool.

Posted by Julia on May 10, 2013

Last week, two enormous boxes arrived at the shop from Mountain Meadow Wool in Wyoming. Inside, there were new colors in Cody, along with four new yarns from MMW: Lilura, Dubois, Powder River, and Mountain Fusion Teton. At the Mountain Meadow Wool Yarn Tasting, we invited attendees to swatch with four MMW yarns and also to flip through color cards to see the many other yarns they produce. Some were drawn to delicate fingering weight yarns, some favored brilliantly colored bulky weights, and others were wooed by Cody, the first MMW yarn we’ve stocked here at the shop. We made a slew of special orders that reflected our yarn tasters’ desires and preferences, which meant bringing all these new yarns to the shop in just a few colors. Those of you who couldn’t make it to the yarn tasting can now get a sense of which MMW yarns our HYS knitters loved best, and see them in person at the shop.

Lilura is a fingering weight blend of US-sourced merino wool and North American alpaca, a round, smooth, 3-ply yarn with fabulous stitch definition and a lovely soft hand. The base yarn is a pale, heathered oatmeal color (pictured above on the right), and any hand-dyed colorways are dyed on top of that natural color. The result is a warmer, more subdued color than could be achieved by dyeing stark white fiber. We had a spare skein in the natural color hanging around after the yarn tasting, which I used to knit up the Rustling Leaves Beret from Coastal Knits.

Each stitch was a delight; I’ll surely be coming back to this yarn for a bigger project. The Rustling Leaves Beret lives at the shop now with all the newest MMW yarns; come by and take a look.

Dubois is also fingering weight, a pebbly 2-ply merino wool. One knitter at the yarn tasting ordered this to make a slouchy cabled hat, a perfect fit for this soft and springy yarn, but it’s equally well-suited to lace shawls, scarves, or perhaps a light-weight sweater.

Powder River, a dk weight blend of merino wool and alpaca, caught the eye of two knitters who plan to use it for a set of Welting Fantastic Cowl + Mitts. I’m flattered by their pattern selection, and can’t wait to see how this gorgeous yarn makes up in my design. Like Lilura, the base yarn is a light beige color, giving this blue shade extra depth and interest.

Mountain Fusion Teton is the result of collaboration between Mountain Meadow Wool and Mountain Colors, a bulky weight merino wool yarn. We have two colors in stock, both of which fall comfortably into the red category. One has orange and fuschia highlights, while the other leans towards burgundy and plum, but both are 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 in an afternoon.

Anne knit this up as soon as it arrived, working from a hat pattern provided on the yarn’s label. The only change she made to the pattern was to switch from ribbing to stockinette after an inch or two; the pattern as written makes a fully ribbed hat. Come by the shop to see it, and remember Mountain Fusion Teton when winter gift-giving is upon us and a hat in an afternoon sounds like a lifesaver.

Last but certainly not least, we did get four new colors in Cody, a bouncy sport weight 2-ply merino wool. This brings our current color selection to 16, a wide range of natural and hand-dyed colorways.

Come by the shop to see all these new yarns from Mountain Meadow Wool, and to admire the many colors and textures that this incredible US yarn company creates. See you at the shop!

Hello, String Theory Merino DK.

Posted by Julia on March 27, 2013

The recent publication of my Welting Fantastic Cowl + Mitts led to an increased interest in String Theory Merino DK, specifically, in the Garnet colorway. When it vanished from the yarn tree in the DK weight corner, Anne and I did a quick inventory and talked ourselves into a Merino DK order. “We’ll have to get more Garnet,” we told one another, “and wouldn’t it be nice to have Merino DK in Charcoal? And Pewter?” It doesn’t take much for us to call String Theory; we love everything about their yarn, from ordering to unpacking to photographing to knitting to wearing it.

The box arrived yesterday, and it was a pleasure to unpack. This squishy, soft, superwash merino wool is perfect for so many projects–hats, mitts, scarves, shawls and other accessories, and sweaters for adults and children alike. I enjoyed every stitch of my Welting Fantastic Cowl and Mitts, and I’m sure I’ll use the Merino DK again when my next project wants between 5 + 6 stitches per inch from a yarn that holds its shape and has great stitch definition.

We couldn’t resist ordering just a few more colors of String Theory Caper Sock. Here are a few lighter colors, to brighten up the String Theory sock yarn cubby. From left to right: Pewter, Atlantis, Light Teal, and Mead. If you haven’t yet tried this soft-and-sturdy blend of superwash merino, cashmere, and nylon, consider Caper Sock for your next fingering weight project.

Come by the shop to see all the String Theory yarns. See you there!

Welting Fantastic.

Posted by Julia on March 8, 2013

I’m happy to announce that I’ve recently published two new patterns of my own design: the Welting Fantastic Cowl and Welting Fantastic Mitts.

Though the patterns were only published this past weekend, I’ve had the knitting done for months, which I spent wearing this set on a near-daily basis. Both are made in String Theory’s Merino DK yarn, a semisolid superwash merino yarn, though different needle sizes make this one yarn into two quite different fabrics.

The cowl is knit on US size 6 needles, which makes a cohesive but gently draping fabric: exactly what you’d want hanging around your neck. The mitts, on the other hand, are knit using US size 3 needles, making a more dense fabric with greater elasticity: exactly what you’d want for fingerless mitts, which are meant to hold their shape rather than stretch out and drape.

I loved working with Merino DK, but there are so many other yarns that would be equally lovely for this project. Here are a few that I think would make beautiful Welting Fantastic Cowls or Mitts:

(From left to right: Mountain Meadow Wool Cody, Fibre Company Acadia, Green Mountain Spinnery Sylvan Spirit, and Sincere Sheep Luminous.)

Each of these yarns would give the Welting Fantastic Cowl and Mitts a different look, of course; the Merino DK is plump and round, and thus, has a particular kind of sharp stitch definition that really makes the Welting Fantastic pattern stand out and look crisp. The tweedy quality of the Acadia and the pebbly 2-ply texture of the Cody may detract a bit from the stitch pattern, but you wont come close to losing it entirely, and you’ll get to experience the singular joy that working with each of those yarns brings.

If you’re feeling inspired to create Welting Fantastic Cowls or Mitts of your own, please do visit my pattern store on Ravelry, and also know that we’re happy to offer them at the shop as in-store Ravelry pattern sales. That means you can get your pattern and yarn all in the same place, have us print the pattern for you, and still have a copy of the PDF saved in your Ravelry library. A win-win, I’d say.

See you at the shop!

Gemini Knit-Along.

Posted by Julia on March 3, 2013

Looking towards Spring, Anne and I have cast on for short-sleeved pullover sweaters. We are each making Gemini, a tee knit seamlessly in the round from the top down.

Designed by Jane Richmond and available for free on Knitty, Gemini is written for Katia Linen, a dk weight blend of cotton and linen. I’m making up a sample Gemini in the yarn called for, and Anne is substituting with Mirasol Samp’a, an organic cotton.

In choosing an appropriate substitute for Katia Linen, we wanted to be sure that Anne would be able to get the gauge that the pattern calls for, and that the resulting fabric would behave similarly to the fabric that Katia Linen creates. That means picking a plant fiber, like cotton, linen, hemp, tencel, or bamboo, as all of those fibers have a tendency to stretch and drape. Richmond’s design takes that into account, and she suggests that the knitter pick a finished size about 4″ smaller than their own bust size. In an elastic fiber, like wool, 4″ of negative ease would make for a snug fit, but in a plant fiber, which lacks elasticity, it means a nice, easy fit, not too loose and not too tight.

Want to make a Gemini of your own? Join us in this informal Knit-Along. We have a nice selection of colors in both Katia Linen and Mirasol Samp’a, and even more when you consider the many other good substitutes that are available: Elsebeth Lavold Hempathy and Cotton Frappe, Cascade Ultra Pima, Berroco Pure Pima, Queensland Haze, Tahki Cotton Classic, Sublime Organic Cotton DK and Soya Cotton DK, Katia Degrade, and many more. Come by the shop to see our Geminis-in-progress and we’ll help you find the perfect yarn to knit your own spring top.

Hello, Linen Concerto.

Posted by Julia on January 15, 2013

Consider this Part 2 of our most recent shipment from Plymouth: a new yarn called Linen Concerto.

Linen Concerto is a slightly textured dk weight blend of rayon, linen, and cotton. It’s perfect for making lightweight garments–shawls, scarves, tees, and tanks–and for those who are sensitive to animal fibers like wool and alpaca. Linen Concerto is soft to the touch and promises to drape beautifully, as rayon and linen often do. We got it in three neutral colors and two bright multicolors.

Come by the shop to check it out!

New colors in Acadia.

Posted by Julia on January 3, 2013

The Fibre Company’s gorgeous Acadia has become quite popular at the shop. After a month and a half of life here, the Acadia basket was missing two colors, and looking quite sad indeed. When Anne and I reordered those colors, and others we were low on, we figured, why not get a few new colors, as well?

This dk weight blend of merino wool, alpaca, and silk is tweedy-looking and soft to the touch, perfect for scarves, shawls, hats, mitts, and other accessories. I’ve been daydreaming about making a sweater in Acadia–that would be a treat.

Come by the shop to see the new Acadia palette!