Tag Archives: merino

Back in stock: Lang Merino+ Color.

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Somewhere in the recent rush of exciting new fall yarns, a big box of Lang Merino+ Color arrived.

This order brought sold-out colors back into stock, along with three new colorways.

Again and again, knitters reach for this yarn when they see it on the shelf, drawn by its unique color combinations and soft, smooth texture.

One 196 yard ball is enough for a hat or pair of mittens, two can make a big, cozy cowl or a cute, quick-knitting baby sweater.

Tom made this baby sweater with Lang Merino+ Color, using Elizabeth Zimmermann’s classic “Baby Surprise Jacket” pattern. It’s a great pattern for self-striping yarns because of its unusual, ingenious one-piece construction; no matter how the stripes fall, they’ll match all across the sweater.

Look for Lang Merino+ Color in the aran weight section here at the shop!

New colors in Ewe Ewe Baa Baa Bulky.

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Last week I unpacked a box from Ewe Ewe featuring four new colors in Baa Baa Bulky.

Ewe Ewe specializes in super-soft superwash merino yarns, and Baa Baa Bulky is the thickest of the bunch. Soft and easy to care for, Baa Baa Bulky is just the thing for frequently-worn accessories, children’s garments, and baby blankets.

We have a small car-seat or stroller-sized baby blanket at the shop made with Baa Baa Bulky, a free pattern when you purchase the yarn from us. It’s nothing but garter stitch and color blocks, simple and soothing to knit. The hardest part may be choosing a trio of colors, especially with new colors increasing the possible combinations. These sweet pastel shades created an opportunity for gradients like the one below, which I find especially pleasing.

 

Look for Baa Baa Bulky in the bulky weight section here at the shop, and come by to pick three shades to make a “Baa Baa Blanket” all your own!

New colors in Fibre Company Tundra.

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Last week brought four new colors in the Fibre Company’s fluffy Tundra, a super soft blend of alpaca, merino, and silk.

Thusfar, all the glorious shades of Tundra have been solid, sometimes flickering with a bit of hand-dyed variation. We were surprised and excited to find two new speckled shades in last week’s box, each with its own related solid color.

Tundra is ideal for luxurious winter accessories, so keep it in mind as quick-to-make gifts begin to top your to-do list. Think “Arctic Circle,” “Tallin,” “Twin Leaf Loop,” for everyone loves a cozy cowl, no?

Look for Tundra in the bulky weight section here at the shop!

Hello, Shibui Birch.

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Our newest fall yarn is here! Meet Shibui Birch.

Birch is a single ply 100% extrafine merino wool yarn, soft as cashmere, dyed in 14 of Shibui’s signature colorways.

Each 50 gram skein boasts 262 yards, an especially large number for a sport weight. With a suggested gauge of 26-28 stitches over 4 inches, Birch is on the lighter end of sport weight, and would probably work well in many patterns calling for fingering weight yarns, too.

Anne has just cast on with Birch, and spends her quiet moments at the shop knitting “Icon,” a stockinette wrap decorated with short-row colorblocks. She’s using the colors Mineral, Velvet, and Ivory, a high contrast combination for a striking geometric motif.

I had “Icon” in mind as I unpacked Birch upon its arrival, arranging the colors this way and that, seeking pleasing trios.

The pattern for “Icon” is free when you purchase Shibui Birch from our shop for the project, but it’s not the only design Shibui’s Shellie Anderson has dreamt up for this new yarn. Come by the shop to see the whole Fall/Winter 2017 pattern collection, and expect a preview here on the blog this coming week!

See you at the shop!

Hello, CoopKnits Socks Yeah! DK.

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We’re excited to announce the arrival of another new fall yarn: meet CoopKnits Socks Yeah! DK!

Socks Yeah! DK is a thicker version of CoopKnits Socks Yeah!, from designer Rachel Coopey. Both yarns are smooth, tightly plied blends of superwash merino and nylon, which make them perfect for sock-making, as the name suggests. To that end, Coopey has so far published one pattern for this new yarn, a two-tone pair of socks called “Bob.”

But soft, easy-care DK weight yarns have plenty of applications beyond socks. Baby and children’s things come to mind, little sweaters like Dani Sunshine’s “Pixie Dust,” tincanknits’ “Peanut” and “Tenderheart,” and all the squeezable toys from Ella Austin’s Dovestone Smallholding collection. Also consider Socks Yeah! DK for everyday accessories, like Churchmouse’s classic “Welted Fingerless Gloves” and “Welted Cowl & Infinity Loop,” or Sarah Young’s “Rikke Hat.” 

Look for more pattern ideas on our “DK weight” Pinterest board, and look for CoopKnits Socks Yeah! DK in our DK weight section here at the shop. See you there!

Dream in Color Pop Up! Club.

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We’re happy to announce that we’re participating in Dream in Color’s Pop Up! Club 2017-18! That means that every two months from August to February, we’re getting a special new colorway from Dream in Color, a Tuscon-based producer of small batch hand-dyed yarns.

Our August shipment features Jilly, a fingering weight superwash merino wool with 440 yards on each 100 gram skein. This tightly spun single-ply yarn is soft and smooth, painted with streaks and speckles.

One skein would make an excellent pair of socks, a small cowl or shawlette. Buy two for a generous shawl, or get here soon and scoop up a sweater’s-worth. Jilly should play well with a variety of fingering weight yarns, and could be worked into a “Find Your Fade” shawl or “Confetti” sweater, to name just a few recent patterns that showcase speckled yarns.

Look for this limited edition Pop Up! Club colorway in the fingering weight section here at the shop!

Back in stock: Fyberspates Scrumptious 4ply/Sport.

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Our big fall order from Fyberspates came in last week, and one of the yarns we restocked in a big way is Scrumptious 4ply/Sport.

Scrumptious 4ply/Sport is a soft, shimmering yarn, made of 55% superwash merino and 45% silk. It’s a bit heavy for a fingering, and a bit light for a sport, hence its fractured name. In our shop, you’ll find it in the sport weight section, but don’t rule it out if your pattern calls for fingering weight yarn; look carefully at the pattern gauge and check to see if it falls in the suggested gauge range of Scrumptious 4ply/Sport – between 24 and 28 stitches over 4 inches.

I recently completed a shop sample in Scrumptious 4ply/Sport, Purl Soho’s “Two-Color Cotton Cowl.” Though I knit it on the recommended needle size, I didn’t get the recommended gauge, so it’s a smaller circumference than the pattern intends. Still, it’s a fabric I like, and still long enough to wrap once or twice around one’s neck, so in this case, not getting gauge worked out perfectly. It was my first time doing two-color brioche, which was much less difficult than I imagined, and I’d definitely recommend it as an introduction to the technique.

With all these colors back on our shelves, there are lots of great color pairings to be had. Come by the shop to pick up a couple of skeins of Scrumptious 4ply/Sport for a cowl of your own!

Hello, Fibre Co. Arranmore Light.

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We’re excited to announce that the newest yarn from Fibre Company is here: meet Arranmore Light!

A thinner version of the popular Arranmore, Arranmore Light is a DK weight tweed, composed of 80% merino, 10% cashmere, and 10% silk. Both Arranmore yarns are spun in a mill that traces its roots to the tweed industry of 19th century County Donegal in Ireland.

Like any classic tweed, Arranmore Light is dotted with flecks of fiber in contrasting colors, and like any Fibre Company yarn, its colorways and fiber content have been thoughtfully fashioned.

Where Arranmore was lofty for its bulky gauge, Arranmore Light has drape for all-seasons garments and precision for cable and colorwork accessories.

Anne knit one such accessory with sample skeins acquired in advance of our order, thanks to Kelbourne Woolens, our US distributor of Fibre Company yarns.

“Candy Darling” is a hat and mitten set in high contrast colors, with stripes in all directions and playful geometric motifs. It’s part of the Kelbourne Woolens Pop Collection for Arranmore Light, inspired by fashion, music, and youth culture of the 1960’s. The Fibre Company themselves have come out with a new pattern collection: Fell Garth II. Look there for more sweaters knit with Arranmore Light and other Fibre Company yarns, and yet more pattern inspiration on our “DK weight” Pinterest board!

Come by the shop to plan your next project, and head straight for the DK weight section to admire Arranmore Light. See you there!

Back in stock: Classy mini-skeins.

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Dream in Color Classy mini-skeins are back in stock!

Dream in Color only occasionally produces these 50-yard mini-skeins of their worsted weight superwash wool, Classy, and the color selection is different every time.

It’s fun to see a mix of new colors and old favorites with each shipment, and even more fun to arrange them in 8-skein combinations for “Technicolor Cowls.”

Nancy Leuer’s “Technicolor Cowl” is a simple but entertaining project with a focus on color.

It’s knit in the round, with stripes of stockinette and reverse stockinette that make a squishy, textured fabric from this springy superwash merino yarn. The pattern is free when you purchase eight Dream in Color Classy mini-skeins for the project.

Look for Dream in Color Classy mini-skeins in the worsted weight section, and have fun picking colors for a “Technicolor Cowl” of your own!

New colors from Isager.

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Some yarn companies create new colors for their existing lines each season, or each year. Isager has never done it that way, instead sticking with a tried-and-true color palette for each yarn that truly has a personality, a voice all its own. Every now and then, however, Isager surprises us with a few new shades, and I’m happy to report that they’ve just expanded both Alpaca 1 and Alpaca 2!

Alpaca 1 is a lace weight yarn made of 100% alpaca which is spun in Peru. Often, Isager patterns pair this yarn with Isager Spinni, Tvinni, Highland, or Alpaca 2, to make thicker fabrics and unique color or fiber blends. Think “Camomille,” “The Fan,” or the “Tokyo” shawl kit.

These 5 new shades are complex heathers, each one composed of several colors blended together before spinning. As such, they appear solid from a distance, but up close reveal a variety of colors – perfect for lace, texture patterns, or simple stripes. These new colors fit right into the existing Alpaca 1 palette, filling spaces we didn’t know were empty, and giving us new ideas for color combinations.

The same can be said for the 5 new shades of Alpaca 2, which seem to call out for inclusion in a “Stole.”

Alpaca 2 is a soft and fuzzy blend of merino and alpaca in a fingering weight, and as I’ve written here on the blog so many times, it’s a real favorite at our shop, year in and year out. If you’ve never used it before, come by the shop to see it in person, pet our “Stole” sample, and see if you’re not moved to cast one on. We’ve got plenty of Isager pattern books to peruse here, too, including the Helga Isager’s newest collection, The Artisan. Our first stack of these books sold out in a flash, but I’m happy to report that they’re now back in stock.

See you at the shop!