Tag Archives: ewe ewe yarns

Sporty + Arroyo + The Shift.

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Ewe Ewe Sporty is back in stock! This sport weight superwash merino has been popular lately, especially for Heather Walpole’s free “Temperature Tee,” so we’re pleased to have refreshed our supply.

Ewe Ewe Sporty:

  • sport weight
  • solid colors
  • 100% superwash merino
  • 145 yards/50 grams
  • $10 each

Sporty is a good fit for Andrea Mowry’s “The Shift,” a cousin of her popular “Nightshift” shawl. “The Shift” is smaller in gauge and in scale, and while it looks like a triangular shawl wrapped around the neck, it’s actually a cowl, which many find easier to wear. You’ll need 200 yards each in three colors, and while there are plenty of tempting combinations in Sporty, I couldn’t resist adding some Malabrigo Arroyo to the mix. These two yarns match in terms of gauge and fiber content, and they bring out the best in one another – here are a few color combinations for “The Shift” cowl!

Malabrigo Arroyo:

  • sport weight
  • hand-dyed, speckled and variegated colorways
  • 100% superwash merino
  • 335 yards/100 g
  • $18.60 each

Order online if one of these colorways sparks your curiosity, 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 all your support through our temporary closure!

Koigu Collector’s Club: New Day.

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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 New Day, a rich variegated colorway. These special skeins are streaked with orange, rust, brown, and gray, with highlights of plum and hints of pale blue. Unpacking it, I was reminded once again of Kelbourne Woolens Perennial, a line of fingering weight solids that plays well with hand-dyed yarns like Koigu.

Tamy Gore’s “The Drifter” is a perfect way to showcase these yarns, a garter and slip-stitch shawl which calls for about 414 yards each in two colors. That means 3 skeins of Koigu KPPPM, at 175 yards each, and 1 skein of Kelbourne Woolens Perennial, at 497 yards each.

Ewe Ewe Fluffy Fingering was also designed as a playmate for multicolored yarns, and has its own unique color palette – here are a few that complement New Day!

KPPPM is $15.50 per skein, Perennial is $26, and Fluffy Fingering is $10. Get in touch if you’d like to place an order – we can ship these pretty skeins directly to you or hold your purchase here for pickup while our storefront is temporarily closed!

Koigu Collector’s Club: Birch.

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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.

Birch is the limited edition colorway this month, a pale celery shade streaked with greens. Dyed on KPPPM, Koigu’s signature fingering weight superwash merino wool, Birch would make a lovely shawl, baby sweater, hat, or pair of socks.

As I’ve written here before, KPPPM plays well with others, and this particular colorway brought to mind some of the solid shades in Ewe Ewe Fluffy Fingering, another superwash merino we carry here at the shop.

Where high contrast combinations are desired, consider these charcoal and forest green shades. Even this light aqua stands out against Birch, where neon yellow and white make a quieter contribution.

What to make with these color combinations in mind? Caitlin Hunter’s “Marettimo,” “Navelli,” “Sipila,” and “Zweig” are all modern colorwork sweaters, calling for hand-dyed fingering weight yarns – Koigu is a natural fit, and we have several others that would work well with it. Check out the patterns on Ravelry, and come by the shop to take a look at the yarn!

See you at the shop!

Mason-Dixon Knitting Field Guide No. 11: Wanderlust.

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The eleventh installment of the Mason-Dixon Knitting Field Guide series is here! Let’s take a peek inside.

Ann Shayne and Kaye Gardiner’s series of Field Guides are pocket-sized booklets focused on a particular theme or knitting technique. The theme of this eleventh Field Guide is Wanderlust, interpreted by designer Wendy Bernard as a choose-your-own-adventure approach to sock knitting.

This little book is all about hitting the road with the ultimate travel project: a pair of socks. Bernard includes instructions for socks from the cuff down or from the toe up, along with a variety of stitch patterns to play with.

We have a lot of tempting sock yarns here at the shop, the likes of CoopKnits Socks Yeah!, Malabrigo Sock, Fyberspates Vivacious 4ply, Ewe Ewe Fluffy Fingering, and of course those tempting limited edition colorways from Dream in Color and Koigu.

Maybe your stash is already bursting with sock yarns you’ve picked up as souvenirs over the years – this book is just the thing to get those yarns on your needles.

Come by the shop to pick up a copy and a skein of sock yarn for your next road trip!

Triangle Yarn Crawl.

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The Triangle Yarn Crawl is a self-guided tour of local yarn shops, where yarn-lovers get together and hop from one shop to the next, shopping, entering raffles, and seeing the full breadth of available fibers. They happen just once a year, and the time has come again: the Spring 2019 crawl is coming up this week, from April 4th – 7th! 

The event includes 9 yarn shops, from Mebane to Rocky Mount to Southern Pines, and everywhere in between. It’s four days long, Thursday through Sunday, giving yarn crawlers time to experience what every shop has to offer, and getting your TYC passport stamped at every shop means you’re entered to win the grand prize raffle!

We’re having our own raffle, too, and the prize features yarns and kits from Shibui, Koigu, Berroco, Kauni, and Brown Sheep, along with a bundle of pattern booklets from Noro. Additionally, we’re giving away TYC totes to the first 5 customers each day of the yarn crawl with a purchase of $25 or more!

A new feature for the 2019 TYC is a free pattern, a blanket square designed by each participating shop. Collect the patterns for all the squares as you go from shop to shop, and all together, you’ll have a baby blanket! Our block features our favorite fiber animal, a sheep, designed by Anne and knit with Ewe Ewe Wooly Worsted; you’ll need just over one skein to make a 10″x10″ block, or pick up three skeins for enough to make two blocks.

Each local yarn shop has something special to offer, and we’re no exception! Visit us during the Triangle Yarn Crawl to enjoy our usual selection of natural fiber yarns along with the following special attractions from April 4-7, 2018:

  • 10% off Ewe Ewe Wooly Worsted
  • 25% off all in-stock books and magazines
  • Triangle Yarn Crawl enamel pins and stitch markers for sale

We’re lucky to live in such a fiber-friendly part of the world, with so many choices available to us, and the Triangle Yarn Crawl is a great time to see all of those choices. Come see us as you’re crawling along!

A reminder: all sales are final on sale items; there can be no exchanges, no returns, nor will we special order. Discount applies only to in-store purchases. Thanks! 

Show and tell: for the home.

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Time for another round of show and tell! I love to take photos of finished projects when folks bring them into the shop to share with us, and to share them here on our blog. I always seem to have a backlog of photos, thanks to the many productive knitters, crocheters, and weavers who frequent our shop. Here’s a batch of show and tell featuring projects made for the home – mostly blankets!

Glen knit this “Ombre Waves Knit Blanket” as a gift for his daughter and son-in-law, using Malabrigo Rios, everyone’s favorite hand-dyed, superwash, worsted weight merino.

Petra wove the overshot table runner below using a cotton yarn in the warp and Brigg’s & Little Sport in the weft. The pattern is intricate and visually mesmerizing, even more so in the bold colors Petra chose – well done, Petra!

Peggy knit Jared Flood’s “Talon Throw” as a gift for her niece, a generous gift indeed.

Peggy used Berroco Ultra Alpaca, a soft and sturdy blend of wool and alpaca, and a staple of our worsted weight section here at the shop.

Berroco Ultra Wool is a staple of our worsted weight section, too, and another great yarn for blanket-making. Elsbeth used Ultra Wool for this striking Purl Soho “Mosaic Blanket.”

Amy knit this colorful blanket for her newest grandchild using Ewe Ewe Wooly Worsted, a squishy superwash merino. The pattern is Svetlana Gordon’s “Hexagon Kaleidoscope Patchwork Knitting,” adapted to include butterfly patches among the flowers.

Thanks to Glen, Petra, Peggy, Elsbeth, and Amy for sharing their work, and to everyone who starts their projects with a trip to the Hillsborough Yarn Shop! We can’t wait to see what you make next.

Show and tell: from the classroom.

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As of today, the shop is closed for a Thanksgiving break. Those of us who work and teach at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop are taking time to be with family and friends, to relax and take note of what we’re grateful for. One thing we are particularly thankful for is the community of makers that has grown in and around the shop, especially through our teachers and their good work in the classroom. With that in mind, here’s some show and tell – knitting projects completed during classes here at our shop.

Here’s Trich modeling her “Ilia” cardigan, a labor of love she completed during a class with Marsha. This intricately cabled garment was designed by Michele Wang for Brooklyn Tweed and knit with their Loft yarn, and Trich did a skillful job knitting it.  

Leslie was among the first in Amy’s class to complete her “Sammal,” a cardigan that looked simpler than it turned out to be for many knitters. She pushed through the short row shaping and textured stitch pattern that was tricky to read on the needles and wound up with a perfectly-fitting garment. Tukuwool Fingering was the suggested yarn and Leslie liked it so much, she came back for more when this sweater was done!

Gwen tried her hand at a few different colorwork techniques during Robin’s class on the “Yipes Stripes Cowl.” I love the colors of Ewe Ewe Wooly Worsted she chose for this project, a mix of brights and pastels that really make the various patterns pop.

Linda knit this “Galloway” cardigan during Amy’s class on the subject, taking one of Jared Flood’s suggested colorways and tweaking it by substituting a bright teal for a medium blue. She knit it with the recommended yarn, Brooklyn Tweed Shelter, and the result is something special, a sweater that fits just how she wanted in colors she loves. Great job on your knitting and steeking, Linda!

Many thanks to our teachers and to all the knitters who challenge themselves to learn something new in classes here at our shop. We love seeing what you make and watching as you grow your skills! Check out our Classes page for information about upcoming courses – you can sign up online if you’d like to attend.

Happy Thanksgiving to all, we’ll look forward to opening the shop again on Tuesday, November 27th.