Tag Archives: malabrigo

Show and tell at a distance.

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Since we closed our doors to walk-in visits back in March, we’ve seen a lot less of our community, and though it’s the right thing to do in terms of safety, we sure miss seeing all of you! We also miss the inspiring works-in-progress and finished projects you’d bring in for show and tell. Fortunately, we can still see your creations from a safe distance – we’ve had some folks send photos, and others bring their knits with them when they pick up their orders outside the shop! Let’s have a look.

Amy made this “Juneberry” shawl with Brooklyn Tweed Arbor, a DK weight Targhee wool yarn whose sharp stitch definition does this pattern justice.

Katherine used Malabrigo Rios to knit this “Scalloped Shawl,” which looks just lovely in this pastoral setting. Rios has been more popular than ever, and we’re doing our best to keep it in stock in spite of production delays and backorders!

 

Sue has a fondness for Rios, too – she’s been keeping herself busy knitting hat after hat with this soft and squishy yarn! Here are some of the patterns she’s used, all free downloads from Ravelry:

Yet another project in Malabrigo Rios is above, at right – Margaretta’s second (or third, or fourth? I’ve lost count!) “Umaro” blanket. She made the one on the left with Berroco Ultra Wool DK.

Here’s another of Margaretta’s projects, a “Furrow Cowl” knit with Austermann Merino Silk.

Nancy was the first of many to order yarn from us for “Katie’s Kep,” the Shetland Wool Week hat for 2020. We helped her pick colors of Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift, and it’s delightful to see how beautifully they came together in the finished hat.

 

Thanks to Amy, Katherine, Sue, Margaretta, and Nancy, for sharing your work with us! We can’t wait to see what comes off your needles next, and encourage anyone working with yarn from our shop to send photos or bring along your projects when you’re picking up an order. Stay in touch, and keep stitching!

Shibui Haven + Malabrigo Caprino.

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As soon as we saw Shibui Haven, another DK weight merino/cashmere blend came to mind – Malabrigo Caprino. Though these yarns have gauge, fiber content, yardage, and texture in common, they have such different looks simply because of how they’re dyed.

Malabrigo Caprino:

  • DK weight
  • hand-dyed, variegated, speckled, and semi-solid colorways
  • 80% merino, 20% cashmere
  • 159 yards/50 g
  • $18 each

I’m intrigued by the contrast between Shibui’s austere solids and Malabrigo’s wild hand-dyed shades, and I think they’d play beautifully together.

Here are a few pattern ideas for Haven and Caprino:

Eager to get these squishy cashmere yarns into your hands and onto your needles? Order online for local pickup or shipping!

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!

Rios + Nightshift!

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Malabrigo Rios is back in stock! We received this colorful bundle today after a long delay and couldn’t be happier to see it.

Malabrigo Rios is a hand-dyed, worsted weight, superwash merino wool, and it’s one of the most popular yarns at our shop. Each 100 g skein has 210 yards and costs $15.40, and its versatility means we’ve seen it used for sweaters, hats, shawls, socks, capes, blankets, cowls, scarves, mittens, and more. Recently, Andrea Mowry’s “Nightshift” has been a popular use for Rios, so I thought I’d make up some “Nightshift” colorways!

I named these five combinations with the concept of “shifting” in mind, thinking of the way the colors change as they interact with one another, but also thinking more abstractly about change itself.

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!

Nightshift.

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The knitters and crocheters who populate our shop are a diverse bunch, with all kinds of projects on their hands – any given week could find us suggesting yarns for striped shawls, intarsia cowls, granny square blankets, and all kinds of sweaters. When someone asks “What’s popular?” or “What’s everyone making around here?” I usually don’t know where to begin. Every once in a while, however, a particular pattern seems to appear on everyone’s needles.

Right now, that popular pattern is Andrea Mowry’s “Nightshift.” This triangular shawl is decorated with bands of a simple slip stitch pattern, the background and foreground colors changing every so often. It’s trimmed with an attached i-cord edging, then finished off with a clever striped i-cord bind off.

I made one with Malabrigo Caprino, selecting a variety of dark, medium, and light colors. It was fun to watch how they interacted with one another, sometimes popping out in high contrast, other times receding when the color values were close.

Joanne and Sue have “Nightshifts” going in Caprino, too – I love seeing the variety that’s possible even when these knitters were choosing from the same small selection of colors!

Emily recently finished her “Nightshift,” also made with Caprino, and models it here, though she plans to gift it to a friend in need.

We’ve also had folks reach for worsted weight yarns to make “Nightshifts,” a natural choice since that’s what the pattern calls for. Nancy and Pam both used Malabrigo Rios for their shawls, below:

Andrea Mowry has more than one “Shift” pattern, of course – below is Toya’s “Shiftalong” hat in progress, and the next item on her to-knit list is “The Shift” cowl. She’s using Malabrigo Arroyo and Caprino for both projects, combining semi-solids with speckles.

I can’t wait to see these projects complete, and all the other “Nightshifts” I know are underway out there. Happy stitching to all of you, and special thanks to those who shared their projects on the blog today!

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.

Winter scents from Harmony Farm Candles.

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We’re delighted to have a shelf full of Harmony Farm Candles again!

Harmony Farm Candles is run by our friend Erin in nearby Mebane, North Carolina. Erin hand-pours her candles in small batches using 100% US-sourced soy wax, with no added dyes. Their scents are fresh and bright, but not overwhelming – “delightfully fragranced,” as she puts it.

The three newest scents on our shelves are meant to evoke the season – Sweet Peppermint, Winter Wonderland, and the beloved Wintergreen.

Tuck a candle in with a few skeins of yarn, a special set of needles, or a yarn bowl this holiday season. As gifts, these candles are always warmly-received, and they’re a great little addition to a gift certificate.

Look for Harmony Farm Candles in our gifts section!

Back in stock, show and tell: Malabrigo.

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Year in and year out, Malabrigo yarns are among the most popular in our shop. Sometimes it feels like we place Malabrigo orders for the shop every week, but not every week yields an order as big as our most recent – this was a sizeable restock, indeed!

Here are bags and bags of Malabrigo Sock, Mechita, Washted, Mecha, Rasta, Caracol, and Nube, waiting to be unpacked.

As usual, knitters and crocheters we know have been busy making shawls and sweaters using Malabrigo yarns – time for some show and tell!

Here is Nancy’s “Kelp Garden Sweater,” which she crocheted using Malabrigo Mechita and CoopKnits Socks Yeah! This incredible sweater won second place at the NC State Fair this year – congratulations, Nancy!

Above is another Mechita project – Anne knit Joji Locatelli’s “Storm” shawl with just one skein, in the pattern’s namesake colorway. She started and ripped out several other shawls with this speckled yarn before landing on “Storm,” which turned out to be just the right pattern, the dropped stitches showing off the painterly yarn just so. 

Below is Cindy’s “Troupe” shawl, knit with Malabrigo Dos Tierras in a playful color combination.

Pam knit this “Dog Star” pullover for her grandson using Malabrigo Rios. This is a favorite sweater pattern of mine, and Anne’s, too – we’ve each made several of these, and seen knitters around us make many more. I love Pam’s color choice, the bright “Cian” blue jumping out against the deep “Paris Night.”

Thanks to the knitters, crocheters, and weavers who bring in their work to show us what they’ve made! You inspire and amaze us, and we can’t wait to see what you get into next.

The shop is currently closed for a Thanksgiving break, but we’ll reopen at our regular business hours on Tuesday, December 3, and look forward to seeing you soon!

Hello, Malabrigo Rite.

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We recently celebrated our 13th year in business here at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop, a milestone we could not have reached without your support. In Jewish communities, 13 years marks a coming of age, a bar or bat mitzvah. For our own bat mitzvah year, we did something extra special, something so exciting, we’ve had a hard time keeping it under wraps!

We asked our friends at Malabrigo to create a special colorway for our 13th anniversary, and here it is, after months of planning: meet Rite.

Since March, we’ve emailed back and forth with Antonio at Malabrigo, dreaming up color combinations and anxiously awaiting his photos of trial skeins and swatches. The final colorway is a variegated mix of grey and blue, two of Anne’s favorite colors, and mine, too. It’s flecked with dashes of teal, Antonio’s brilliant contribution, and one that makes our colorway unique.

We have Rite in both Rios and Sock, our best-loved Malabrigo yarns. Both are super soft, superwash merino, plied for durability and stitch definition. It was positively flying off the shelves over our Anniversary weekend, but we still have plenty in stock! You’ll find Rios in the worsted weight section and Sock in the fingering weight section, and plenty of project ideas on our Pinterest boards. Naturally, we’ve been knitting with Rite ourselves – more on that soon!

See you at the shop!

New colors in Malabrigo Rios.

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Malabrigo recently released a bunch of new colors in their beloved worsted weight superwash merino, Rios. Meet the Tribeca collection!

Rios is beautifully hand-dyed in rich, memorable colors, soft and springy in the hand, and machine-washable, no less. A superwash worsted weight wool is a versatile kind of yarn, good for garments and accessories alike. We’ve seen it all in Rios over the years – sweaters for all ages, blankets large and small, hats and mitts and cowls and slipper socks and more.

These delicate pastel shades are semi-solid, ideal for showing off texture patterns. Try Tin Can Knits’ “Flax” and “Barley,” Stephen West’s “Dustland,” Joji Locatelli’s “Hipster Shawl,” and Andrea Mowry’s “Nurtured.”

With so many beautiful colors, it’s tempting to combine them, too – for colorful ideas, check out Shannon Cook’s “Bradway,” Lisa Hannes’ “Walk in the Woods,” Jennifer Steingass’s “Fern & Feather,” Andrea Mowry’s “Nightshift,” and Tin Can Knits’ “Banff.”

Come by the shop to pick up some Malabrigo Rios for your next project! See you there.