Tag Archives: dk weight

Shibui Sample of the Month: Tempo.

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November is here, and with it, a new Shibui Sample of the Month! We offer a 10% discount on Shibui yarn purchased for our featured sample until the end of the month.

This month’s sample is “Tempo,” a two-color cowl knit with Shibui Maai. Maai is a DK weight blend of alpaca and merino, soft and lofty due to its chainette construction. This yarn has tremendous elasticity, making it a pleasure to work with and to wear. The colorwork effect is achieved through slipped stitches, a technique that requires using only one color of yarn per row.

Come by the shop this month to see “Tempo” and get Shibui Maai at 10% off to make one of your own!

 

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

Fibre Company Trunk Show: the Borrowdale Collection.

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We’re so excited to announce that we’ve just received a Trunk Show featuring Fibre Company Lore. Come by the shop to see the Borrowdale Collection!

Lore is the newest yarn from Fibre Company, a woolen spun, DK weight, 100% Romney lambswool. It has a rustic look and texture at home in hard-wearing, workaday garments, and is sturdy enough to last a lifetime when cared for.

We just got six new colors in last week, making our Lore selection complete!

The Borrowdale Collection was designed with everyday adventures in mind, and the garments featured here are as practical as they are beautiful, rich with cables and texture and color. All of these patterns are available on Ravelry, or here at the shop as Ravelry In-Store Sales.

Hurry in to admire the Borrowdale Collection Trunk Show, try some sweaters on for size, and plan one for yourself. We’re offering a 10% discount on Lore during the show, too – all the more reason to stop by and admire!

A reminder: all sales are final on discounted items; there will be no exchanges or returns. Thanks!

Hello, Shibui Echo.

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Shibui’s new yarn is here! Meet Echo.

Echo is a DK weight blend of 48% fine merino wool and 52% silk noil, where each ply is only one of those fibers. The two strands of silk noil stand out against the merino for a slightly marled look, just a bit of texture in the knit fabric.

Echo comes in 14 rich colors, ranging from delicate neutrals to bold jewel tones. Many of these colors will be familiar to those who have worked with Shibui yarns before, as these same colors appear in most of their yarns.

There are two brand new shades here, however – Deep Water and Dusk – and they are now available in many other favorite Shibui yarns, as well. More on that soon!

Like all Shibui yarns, Echo is designed to make beautiful fabric on its own, but also to play well with other yarns, making a unique fiber and color blend. Each Shibui yarn brings its signature characteristics to the table, and the Shibui design team has created some exciting new patterns with these pairings in mind. Echo and Silk Cloud makes for plush, fuzzy knits, as in “Didion,” while Lunar brings drape and shine in “Woolf,” and Cima brings elasticity and a bit of a halo in “Plath.”

Check out the full Fall/Winter 18 Collection on Ravelry, and look for Echo in the DK weight section here at the shop!

Hello, Fibre Co. Lore.

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We’re happy to announce that our first new line of yarn for autumn has arrived, from one of our favorite purveyors – meet Lore, from the Fibre Company!

Lore is a woolen spun DK weight yarn, composed of 100% Romney lambswool. It’s somewhat robust for a DK weight, knitting up comfortably between 5 and 5.5 stitches per inch in stockinette stitch. With it’s toothy texture, Lore is not the softest fiber in our shop, but it’s sturdy and full of character, just the kind of yarn I love most.

Woolen-spun yarns are lofty and especially warm for their weight, due to the air trapped between their jumbled fibers. They have a rustic look and texture at home in hard-wearing, workaday garments, and are sturdy enough to last a lifetime when cared for. 

The design team at the Fibre Company has been hard at work on a large pattern collection for Lore called Borrowdale. It features 20 garments and accessories knit with Lore, and one crocheted cowl. These pieces were designed with everyday adventures in mind, and though they’re practical, they’re also beautiful, rich with cables and texture and color.

We have a Borrowdale lookbook here at the shop with photos and details about each design, but the patterns themselves are available on Ravelry. See them in action in the Fibre Company’s Online Trunk Show, a video narrated by company founder Daphne.

“Galleny Force” is the pullover I’ve begun swatching for with Lore, though with as many large yarn shipments as we’ve had this week, I can’t say I’m making much progress – still and all, I’m delighted to have this yarn on my needles.

Look for Fibre Company Lore in the DK weight section here at our shop!

Kelbourne Woolens Scout Collection Trunk Show!

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An exciting new trunk show has come to decorate our walls for a couple of weeks. Hurry in before August 26 to see the Kelbourne Woolens Scout Collection!

The Scout Collection is composed of six garments knit with Kelbourne Woolens Scout, a springy DK weight wool that is well suited to texture, color, lace, and cable patterns.

Most of these patterns were designed by Kate Gagnon Osborn, with one contribution each from Courtney Kelley and Meghan Kelly; the three of them make up the Kelbourne Woolens team. They’ve made their patterns available through Ravelry rather than in print, an effort to diminish the company’s paper usage.

We also have another mini trunk show of sorts – local designer Emily Walton has just published a brand new pattern for Scout, and we’re showing her samples! Below is “Olivia Twisted,” a clever hat with twisted stitches and a bit of texture, perfect for showing off Scout’s heathered shades.

Give Scout and all the other Kelbourne Woolens yarns a try at this Sunday’s Yarn Tasting – we still have some spaces available! It’s an opportunity to sample yarn before you buy it, to brainstorm pattern ideas and color combinations with other knitters, and to spend a pleasant morning at the shop sipping mimosas – sign up to join us!

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

New colors in Brooklyn Tweed Arbor.

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Brooklyn Tweed recently released four new shades in Arbor, and we’re happy to have them here at the shop!

Brooklyn Tweed Arbor is a 3-ply DK weight yarn composed of 100% Targhee wool. Like Brooklyn Tweed Vale and Peerie, it’s worsted-spun, and skein-dyed in solid colors at the organically-certified Saco River Dyehouse in Maine.

Worsted-spun yarns are more durable and dense than their woolen-spun counterparts, and have sharper stitch definition for crisp cables, lace, and texture patterns. Targhee wool spun in this manner has an abundance of one of my favorite yarn characteristics: elasticity. Garments knit with Arbor should wear well and look sharp for years to come.

I love seeing how these four shades fit seamlessly into the existing Arbor palette, and I’m looking forward to seeing them combined in multicolor projects, like Andrea Mowry’s “Tincture” or Shannon Cook’s “Atmen.” If you’re seeking a small one-color project, consider Emily Greene’s “Shear,” a textured hat designed specifically to showcase these new shades.

Come to our shop to plan your next project, and look for Brooklyn Tweed Arbor in our DK weight section!

Cottons, old and new.

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Summer begins this week, and summer weather is well underway. Hot days like these find many of us reaching for cool plant fibers, rather than fuzzy wool. With that in mind, we’ve restocked several of our best-selling cotton yarns and added a couple of new ones, too.

Cascade Ultra Pima and Ultra Pima Fine are 100% mercerized cotton in DK and sport weights, respectively. They’re economically priced, shiny and smooth, and come in a rainbow of colors.

We’ve had lots of crocheters and knitters use these yarns for making Knitted Knockers, which we’re still collecting here at the shop so our friend Ana can take them to the UNC Cancer Center. 60 Quick Cotton Knits has many other project ideas, too – scarves, wraps, tops, bags, and more.

Cascade’s Nifty Cotton is new to our shop, an aran weight cotton that can be machine-washed and dried, one without a mercerized lustre. That matte quality makes the yarn “thirstier,” more absorbent, and thus, ideal for making dishcloths.

 

BC Garn Alba is another new addition, a fingering weight organic cotton in a pleasing array of colors. It’s been popular right off the bat because of its appearance in the latest issue of Pom Pom Quarterly; Lia Moya’s “Judoka” bag is knit with this soft, smooth yarn. Interested in making one of your own? Check out Marsha’s upcoming class on the subject!

Come by the shop to take a peek at these and other popular plant fiber yarns, like Shibui Fern, Twig and Reed, Isager Bomulin and Japansk Bomuld, and Berroco Modern Cotton. See you there!

Hello, Kelbourne Woolens Scout.

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It’s been only a couple of months since Kelbourne Woolens debuted their very first yarn, Andorra, and already we’re welcoming their second! Meet Scout.

Scout is a DK weight 2ply wool in heathered colorways, with a generous 274 yards on each 100 gram skein.

It knits up at a gauge of 20-22 stitches over 4″ using US 5-7 needles, so it may be suitable for patterns calling for light worsted weight yarn as well as DK.

The Kelbourne Woolens design team has concocted a batch of patterns for Scout that show it off in a variety of contexts: cables, knit/purl texture patterns, lace, and colorwork, looking modern and traditional all at once – a Kelbourne Woolens trademark.

As ever, my interest is particularly piqued by the colorwork designs, Kate Gagnon Osborn’s “Ballard” hat and “Ranier” pullover. Those patterns had me looking for two-color pairs in Scout; three of my favorite combinations are pictured above.

Look for Scout in the DK weight section here at the shop!

Hello, Semilla.

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Earlier in the month, we welcomed BC Garn to the fold here at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop. We now stock two yarns from this Danish company; Loch Lomond got a proper introduction on the blog, and now it’s time to meet Semilla.

Semilla is a 100% organic wool. This means it’s been certified by the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS), so we can be confident that it’s produced safely and responsibly, from the fiber to the dye.

Each 50 gram ball has 175 yards, and the suggested gauge is 5.5 stitches per inch on a US 6, which is why it’s found a home in our DK weight section here at the shop. It’s very round and smooth for a 2ply yarn, in part because of its tight twist. These qualities give Semilla nice stitch definition for texture patterns, cables, and lace.

One ball of Semilla would make a nice pair of mitts, like Churchmouse’s evergreen “Welted Fingerless Gloves.” While we’re thinking Churchmouse, consider also their “Easy Folded Poncho” and “Welted Cowl & Infinity Loop,” either of which is a good fit for Semilla.

Though it’s hand-wash only, this soft organic wool is a nice choice for baby things, too – think tincanknits’ “Dog Star,” “Peanut,” and “Clayoquot Toque.”

Look to our “DK weight” Pinterest board for more pattern ideas, and come by the shop to see Semilla for yourself!

Candy Darling.

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One of the great pleasures of our work here at the shop is making samples that show how our yarns knit up, and that hopefully inspire our customers in their own creative projects. When it was time to make a sample in Fibre Co. Arranmore Light, it was easy to decide what to make. Colorwork is one of Anne’s favorite knitting techniques, so “Candy Darling” stood out from the Kelbourne Woolens Pop Collection.

“Candy Darling” is a three-color hat and mitten set in high contrast colors, with stripes in all directions and playful geometric motifs. The hat pattern includes instructions for three different color arrangements, so that you can make good use of three skeins of Arranmore Light – there’s enough yardage among them for at least three hats.

And three is just how many “Candy Darling” hats Anne knit this fall. The first was a sample for the shop – look for it on a hat-stand in our DK weight section – and the next two went to her granddaughters.

Left to right: Arranmore Light in Malin Head, Slieve Sunset, and St. Clare.

Often when I’m selecting multiple colors for a knitting project, I look at them through the black and white filter on my camera. This grayscale effect shows the contrast in the value of the colors, and how they relate to one another. For example, “Candy Darling” is shown in black, hot pink, and white, a punchy combination of dark, medium, and light.

Here are a variety of other color combinations in Arranmore Light that have similar spreads of dark, medium, and light.

Left to right: Arranmore Light in Meara, Odhran, and River Esque.

Left to right: Arranmore Light in Ciaran, Cronan, and St. Clare.

Left to right: Arranmore Light in Ruari, Bradan, and St. Clare.

Left to right: Arranmore Light in Kinnego Bay, Orla, and Narin Beach.

 

This is just a starting place, of course – there is so much to choose from, and the great fun in colorwork projects is seeing how they all come together as you knit. Come by the shop to start a “Candy Darling” trio all your own!