Tag Archives: shawls

Show and tell: Brooklyn Tweed Peerie.

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Time for another round of show and tell! We love to see what you all are making with yarn from our shop, and when I’m able, I take pictures so that I can share those projects here on the blog. Looking over my current collection of show and tell photos, I spotted three in Brooklyn Tweed Peerie, which is currently 10% off as it’s featured in our BT Sample of the Month. With its soft hand, bold colors, and superb stitch definition, Peerie is worth celebrating – here are a few great ways to use it!

Above is Pam’s “Butterfly / Papillon,” a striking shawl decorated with short rows, which she knit using six shades of Peerie.

Emily was in a mood for colorwork one day, and came by the shop to select an open-ended palette of Peerie for hat-making. She wound up knitting two “Lucerne” hats and a “Bousta Beanie,” two of our favorite fingering weight colorwork hat patterns. These are great fun, whether you’re trying stranded knitting for the first time or just in a colorwork mood, like Emily!

Margaretta has worked with Peerie several times now, coming back again and again for the smoothness, bounce, and stitch definition.

This is her “Ensata Scarf,” rich with twisted stitches, texture, and lace, all of which shine in this special yarn.

Thanks to Pam, Emily, and Margaretta for sharing their work with us, and thanks to everyone who starts their projects with a trip to the Hillsborough Yarn Shop! We can’t wait to see what comes off your needles next. If these talented knitters have inspired you, come by the shop during February to get Brooklyn Tweed Peerie at 10% off!

 

A reminder: all sales are final on discounted yarn. There can be no returns or exchanges. Thanks! 

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.

Brooklyn Tweed and Shibui Samples of the Month!

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December is here, and with it, new featured samples from Brooklyn Tweed and Shibui!

Our Brooklyn Tweed Sample of the Month is Jared Flood’s “Umaro,” an impressive lace and cable blanket knit with two strands of BT Quarry held together.

Quarry is Brooklyn Tweed’s heaviest yarn, a bulky weight, woolen-spun Targhee-Columbia wool. Each plump 100 gram skein boasts 200 yards, quite a bit for a yarn that knits up at 3-3.5 stitches per inch. It’s what our friend Emily used for her own “Umaro” blanket, below – she brought it in this week for show and tell, and reports that she snuggles underneath it on the couch with her kids all the time. A success!

Our Shibui Sample of the Month is “sequences,” by Lori Versaci, knit with Shibui Drift.

Drift is a treat to work with, a luxurious worsted weight blend of merino and cashmere.

We’re offer a 10% discount on Brooklyn Tweed Quarry and Shibui Drift until the end of the month – come by soon to take advantage and see these beautiful knit items!

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

Westknits Bestknits 3: Shawl Evolution.

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We’re pleased to have Stephen West’s newest book in stock – let’s peek inside Westknits Bestknits 3: Shawl Evolution.

This collection is all about shawls, and the many possible shapes, textures, techniques, and colors they can feature.

Styled with Stephen West’s signature dramatic flair and photographed with a keen sense of movement, Westknits Bestknits 3 is great fun to flip through.

Along with six new designs and seven previously published ones, West shares ideas for creating fades and marling several yarns together for unique color and texture combinations.

Pick up this book if you love to knit shawls and are looking to try brioche, slipped stitch patterns, short rows, and other playful techniques. Look for Westknits Bestknits 3 here at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop!

On our needles: Brooklyn Tweed Ranch.

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One of the perks of working at the shop is knitting with exciting new yarns, sometimes even before they are available on our shelves. For the past couple of weeks behind the scenes, Anne and I have both been working with Ranch 02, the latest small batch, ranch-specific yarn from Brooklyn Tweed. Take a look at what’s been on our needles!

I’ve just completed Jared Flood’s “Tillage Hat,” a new design for BT Ranch 02, and a cousin to his “Tillage” pullover. I chose a light color to be sure all the texture and cables would show well, somewhat uncertain about the stitch definition of a woolen-spun yarn. I needn’t have worried, however, as this 3 ply yarn is nice and round, and shows texture beautifully.

Ranch 02 is great fun to knit with, springy and light in the hand, and makes such a soft, cohesive fabric.

Anne has had both Ranch 01 and Ranch 02 on her needles of late, and chose the same pattern for both. “When In Scotland” is a triangular garter stitch shawl, a lovely project for letting the yarn shine.

For the first shawl, she used Ranch 01, a worsted spun Rambouillet wool in naturally dyed shades.

She used Ranch 02 for the second shawl, and marveled at the difference between the two yarns.

Despite all they have in common – their fiber content, gauge, and number of plies – they differ in spinning method. Ranch 01 is worsted spun and Ranch 02 is woolen spun, making the former heavier and more smooth, and the latter lighter and more squishy. You can learn all about worsted and woolen spun yarns on Brooklyn Tweed’s website; they’ve written at length about how each kind of yarn is produced and what the difference is in the knitted fabric.

Come by the shop to see Ranch 02 and all of Brooklyn Tweed’s offerings – we have every yarn they make, and binders full of their patterns. There’s even some Ranch 01 left on our shelves!

See you at the shop!

Brooklyn Tweed Sample of the Month: Guernsey Wrap.

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Our Brooklyn Tweed Sample of the Month for October is here! Come by this month to see the “Guernsey Wrap.”

Jared Flood’s “Guernsey Wrap” has become Brooklyn Tweed’s best-selling pattern of all time, a now-classic rectangular shawl decorated with bands knit and purl texture patterns.

This version is knit with Shelter, Brooklyn Tweed’s signature worsted weight, woolen-spun yarn. It comes in 45 colors and we’re delighted to report that we have them all in stock. Even better, we’re offering them at 10% off during October!

Come by this month to see it for yourself, and pick a color for a “Guernsey Wrap” of your very own!

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

Back in stock: Kauni Effektgarn.

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While we like to keep a decent supply of Kauni Effektgarn on hand, our stock had dwindled recently. Where there was usually a nice selection of colors, from quiet neutrals to bold brights, there were just four or five balls of yarn looking lonesome in their cubby. A shipment arrived this week that brightened up that cubby and indeed, the shop – Kauni Effektgarn is back in stock!

Kauni is a sport-weight, self-striping wool, unique even among its fellow self-striping yarns at the shop for its long stretches of color.

This kind of yarn lends itself to patterns shaped with short rows, like “Wingspan,” “Dreambird,” and “Bermuda Scarf,” where the changing color highlights the construction of the piece.

Kauni Effektgarn is also often used in mosaic knitting and stranded colorwork, like the “Dovetail Shawl” and “Autumn” cardigan. Double knitting and brioche can work nicely with this yarn, too – see the “Rainbow Scarf” and “Humboldt Scarf.”

One of the simplest ways to use Kauni Effektgarn is also one of the most appealing – stripes. When you go back and forth between two different self-striping colorways, you get a mesmerizing stripes-on-stripes effect. So many wonderful patterns use Kauni this way – check out the “Wiggle Wrap,” “Color Wave Shawl,” and “Point Beach.”

We’re thrilled to have these Kauni colors back in stock, and to see what kinds of projects you’ll dream up for them! See you at the shop!

Show and tell: colorful shawls.

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We love seeing what folks are making with yarn from our shop. When we choose the yarns we want to carry, test driving them in swatches and discussing their qualities, we’re thinking always of how our clientele might use them. Our knitters and crocheters come up with projects even lovelier than we can foresee, however – let’s look at some show and tell!

Elsebeth knit this mosaic and lace shawl with Fyberspates Vivacious 4ply, a fingering weight yarn that’s hand-dyed in painterly, low-contrast colorways. The pattern is “Laurelie,” by Lisa Hannes.

Here’s another Lisa Hannes design, “Right Around the Corner,” knit by Cindy. Though the pattern calls for fingering weight yarn, Cindy chose Fibre Co. Arranmore Light, a DK weight, preferring the cohesive fabric it makes at this gauge.

Tom knit this textured shawl with Brooklyn Tweed Ranch 01, a naturally-dyed Rambouillet wool with sharp stitch definition. The pattern is “Bradway,” by Shannon Cook.

Below is Robin’s “Entrelac Shawl,” knit with Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball Starke 6, a self-striping yarn.

She taught a class here at our shop on this project, an unusually delicate example of entrelac, knit loosely for maximum drape.

Linda knit this “Efflorescent” shawl during a class here at our shop, following Felicity Ford’s pattern but adding a clever lining and closure at the neck.

She knit it with Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift, a fingering weight wool that’s perfectly suited to steeked colorwork projects like this one.

Thanks to Elsebeth, Cindy, Tom, Robin, and Linda for sharing their shawls with us! Keep an eye out for even more show and tell soon.

Show and tell: Shibui.

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Time for another round of show-and-tell! I’m always collecting photos of the beautiful finished pieces knitters and crocheters bring in to share with us, garments that started their lives as HYS yarns. Going over recent photos, I spotted project after project made with Shibui yarns, proving once again that they’re some of the best-loved yarns in our shop. Let’s have a look at what folks are making with them!

Cindy knit this striking shawl with Shibui Lunar, a lace weight blend of merino and silk. The pattern is Melanie Berg’s “The Miller’s Daughter,” a shawl in three colors, alternating lace sections with garter stitch stripes.

Astrid has been working with Lunar, too, and used it to make Inbar Rofman’s intricate “Agate Lace Shawl.”

Back in May, “Torrent” was our Shibui Sample of the Month, and inspired lots of knitters to cast on for shawls of their own with Rain, Shibui’s DK weight cotton.

Above is Sidney’s “Torrent,” looking crisp and seasonless in the Ash colorway, and below is Mary’s, knit with Shibui’s limited edition shade for this year, Riviera.

Maxine was taken with the Riviera colorway, too, and selected Fern and Vine in that summery shade to knit her “Amos” tee.

Thanks to everyone who shares their projects with us, whether at the outset, after all the ends are woven in, or somewhere along the way. We can’t wait to see what you make next!

Show and tell: Shibui.

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Time for another round of show-and-tell! I’m always collecting photos of the beautiful finished pieces knitters and crocheters bring in to share with us, garments that started their lives as HYS yarns. With Shibui yarns featured and discounted for tomorrow’s Local Yarn Store Day, I thought I’d share a group of projects made with some of these special yarns.

Michele knit this “Nasreen” top with Shibui Staccato held double to get the gauge she needed with the yarn she loved. Always pushing herself to try different knitting techniques and a big fan of stripes, this pattern spoke to her, and she made good use of the Staccato she had stashed away.

Shibui has a lot of fans, and Cindy is among the most ardent admirers we know. Here she is in her “Quicksilver” shawl, knit with Shibui Echo.

Astrid designed this intricate lace shawl with Shibui Silk Cloud, a lace weight mohair and silk blend. Look for her pattern, “Blue Winter Flower,” on Ravelry!

Maria visited our shop from out of town last year, and picked up some Silk Cloud for a “Gradient” cowl. We were touched that she thought of us when she was in town again last month, bringing the finished piece to show us, no less!

Last but not least, our own Anne has finished a Shibui project this week, “Amos.”

This summer tee is knit with Shibui Vine and Fern, and is even more striking in person. Look for it hanging on the wall here at our shop!

Thanks to everyone who shares their projects with us, whether at the outset, after all the ends are woven in, or somewhere along the way. We can’t wait to see what you make next!

Come by tomorrow, Saturday, April 27th, to celebrate Local Yarn Store Day with 15% off all in-stock Shibui!

 

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