Show and tell: anniversary edition, part 1.

Posted by Julia on October 15, 2014

This week, as we celebrate the shop’s anniversary, we also celebrate the community of knitters and crocheters who have supported us over the years. We always love to see what you’re making with HYS yarns, and I love to take photos of your beautiful finished pieces to share here on the blog. I’ve amassed a big stack of them over the past couple of months, enough for three blog posts! Here’s the first batch.

Karen knit this “Yipes Stripes Cowl” in a class here at the shop, using five colors of Plymouth Galway in shades of orange, brown, and green. Then she used her leftovers to knit another. And another! With each cowl, Karen rearranged the color placement, showing just how different the same five colors can look depending upon how they’re laid out.

One of the great things about being in a class is that you can see up close how the same project looks in different colors and yarns. Sherri was in the same “Yipes Stripes” class with Karen, and knit this cowl with five shades of Mirasol Qina, a soft blend of alpaca and bamboo.

This next project also came out of a class here at the shop, one that focused on knitting fair isle tams. Check out Judy’s beautiful “Midnight Sun Tam,” knit in Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift!

Katherine is a gifted knitter, crocheter, and teacher here at the shop. She recently brought in a new sample for an upcoming class, the “Summer Dawn” cowl, crocheted in Fibre Company Meadow and Savannah.

Perfect for beginning crocheters looking for a next step, Katherine’s upcoming “Summer Dawn Crochet Cowl” class will teach how to crochet in the round and read crochet symbols and charts. Read all about it on our “Classes” page, where you can sign up if you like!

Thanks to everyone who starts and shares their projects here at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop; we feel so honored to be a part of your creative process!

Back in stock: Ultra Alpaca and Ultra Alpaca Fine.

Posted by Julia on September 30, 2014

These mighty big boxes arrived from Berroco last week, with over 30 pounds of Ultra Alpaca yarns in each one. New colors made up some of the weight, as did some old favorites; the rest was a new yarn entirely, but that’s for another post. The unpacking, sorting, storing, and displaying took Anne and I most of a day!

Good old Ultra Alpaca. This 50%/50% blend of wool and alpaca is a classic, with the structure and elasticity of wool and the drape, halo, and softness of alpaca.

It comes in reasonably-priced, 100 gram hanks with 219 yards each; enough yarn to make a small scarf, a hat, or a pair of mittens. Ultra Alpaca comes in a wide range of colors, from fun brights to classic neutrals; I’ve always particularly admired the heathered shades.

Ultra Alpaca is a great sweater yarn, too, as Mindy here can attest. A bit of show and tell: Mindy came in the other day, having heard about our big Berroco shipment, to show off her very first sweater, knit during a “Start Your First Sweater” class here at the shop. She used Ultra Alpaca in a heathered charcoal and a friendly top-down seamless cardigan pattern from our pattern binder. Look at the fabulous result!

We also got new colors in Ultra Alpaca Fine, a fingering weight blend of wool, alpaca, and nylon. Its fiber content and gauge suggest socks, but Ultra Alpaca Fine is equally at home in larger garments, and especially shines in openwork scarves and shawls.

The alpaca content gives it a bit of a fuzzy halo, something to keep in mind if you’re planning a project that requires sharp stitch definition–those fuzzy fibers can obscure delicate texture patterns a bit. That said, those fuzzy fibers also give the finished fabric softness and warmth.

Come by the shop to see all the new colors in Berroco Ultra Alpaca and Ultra Alpaca Fine, and keep them in mind for sweater, sock, and shawl-making this fall. Stay tuned for the newest Berroco yarn, or come by the shop to see it before it hits the blog!

Summer show and tell.

Posted by Julia on August 24, 2014

It’s time again for show-and-tell! Here are a few of the projects we’ve seen at the shop so far this summer. Summer knitting means something different to every knitter. Some folks put down their needles and hooks all summer long, but others stitch summer garments, sweaters for fall, smaller pieces that travel well, lightweight lace shawls, and more.

Here’s Ruth in her “Mix No. 19,” a color-blocked tunic knit with two strands of Shibui Silk Cloud held together throughout. In black and dark gray, this lustrous, fuzzy yarn makes an elegant garment.

Jorah came by the shop recently with show and tell: a pair of cabled socks he knit with some String Theory Bluestocking in “Java,” a rich brown colorway.

Betty recently completed this “Sonetto Shawl” with Isager Alpaca 2.

Our sample “Sonetto” is made in two colors, but one solid color makes an equally beautiful shawl, especially in such a soft and delightful yarn.

I recently finished my “Sonora,” a Courtney Kelley pattern featured in our recent Fibre Company Summer Sweaters Trunk Show. I used Berroco Maya, and knit a size that gave me about 3″ of negative ease instead of the 2″ of positive ease that the pattern suggests. As a result, it fits me snugly instead of loosely, exactly what I had in mind.

Last weekend, Amy brought in her “Baby Surprise Jacket” knit in Malabrigo Arroyo, a sample for her upcoming class on Elizabeth Zimmermann’s classic pattern. Come by the shop to see it for yourself, and act quickly if you’d like to take one of the last remaining spaces in the class!

Molly has been knitting sweaters for all her grandchildren this summer. Here’s a pair for her granddaughters, modified from a Debbie Bliss pattern so that they could be knit in the round instead of in pieces. She used a variety of DK weight superwash yarns from Sublime and Debbie Bliss, letting her girls choose the colors. I love the results!

Thanks to everyone who starts and completes their projects at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop! We feel so lucky to be part of your creative process.

Shibori felting with Alchemy yarns.

Posted by Julia on August 9, 2014

Gina Wilde is the mind behind Alchemy’s rich colors, a dyer and designer who dreams up interesting uses for the yarns she paints. We always look forward to her color consultations at TNNA–here she is back in May, helping us select harmonious colors in all four Alchemy yarns we ordered.

Many of her designs use a shibori felting technique, where Alchemy Sanctuary and Silken Straw are knit together, then thrown in the washing machine to felt. Sanctuary, a blend of merino wool and silk, felts into a velvety fabric, while Silken Straw stretches out and softens. The combination of the two in one garment yields unique textures and shapes, and adds an exciting, transformative final step to the knitting process. Last year, I tried shibori felting for the first time, knitting a “Simple Shibori Cowl” in bright, warm shades of Sanctuary and Silken Straw.

We’ve seen lots of beautiful color combinations come together for this project; Mary knit these two “Simple Shibori Cowls,” which were featured on the blog for show and tell.

Our new shades of Sanctuary and Silken Straw make for even more fun combinations. Here are a few I put together; I can’t wait to see what other knitters will come up with!

Earlier this spring, Anne finished her “Widsom Wrap,” a much larger shibori project.

The “Wisdom Wrap” calls for one shade in Sanctuary and four in Silken Straw. We’ve restocked Anne’s colorway, a beautiful mix of purple, greens, and dark brown.

Of course, I couldn’t resist putting a few other “Wisdom Wrap” colorways together, this time with a bit of glitter from Sparky.

Come by to select colors for a “Wisdom Wrap” of your own, or search for other shibori felting patterns on the HYS Pinterest page. See you at the shop!

Show and tell: Shibui and more.

Posted by Julia on July 9, 2014

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. Time for another round of show-and-tell!

Conny keeps her hands and needles busy, and has started and completed two shawls this past month with yarns from our shop. This one is Judy Marples’ “Sonetto Shawl,” knit in Mirasol Tupa.

Conny also knit up this feather and fan shawl using Jade Sapphire Silk/Cashmere held together with Shibui Silk Cloud. Both yarns are lace weight, but the Jade Sapphire is variegated while the Shibui is solid. The combination makes the overall color of the piece more cohesive and gives it depth.

Emily has also been knitting with Shibui yarns, mixing colors and seeing what happens. She brought in this lace scarf that she made with not two, but three yarns held together: two shades of Shibui Cima and one Silk Cloud, all in green.

It’s always a bit of an experiment to hold yarns together; how will the colors behave? Which one will be dominant, or will they blend to look solid? I love seeing the before and after like this, and I’m amazed at how well these three greens play together.

Debbie brought in this chevron striped baby blanket, knit in Berroco Modern Cotton, the first of three baby blankets on her current to-knit list. Modern Cotton is a great choice for a blanket–soft, washable, and affordable–and Debbie’s color combination is just lovely.

I finished this shop sample recently, “Mix No. 26,” a scarf knit with two strands of Shibui Pebble held together. The chevron pattern looks like stranded colorwork, but is in fact a slip stitch pattern, so that only one color is at work on any given row. Come by the shop to see it for yourself; there are so many enticing colors to choose from in Pebble!

Ruth wore her “Diamanten” shawl in last Sunday, a beautiful lace garment knit with Shibui Cima and Grignasco Kid Seta held together throughout. I was sorry to miss this shawl in action, but Anne snapped this photo for me so I could share it here on the blog. Well done, Ruth!

Thanks to everyone who starts and shares their projects at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop! We feel lucky to be surrounded by such creative people.

Work in progress: Charlie’s sweater.

Posted by Julia on July 5, 2014

Here on the blog, I like to share finished projects that started their lives as HYS yarns. The works in progress are often just as interesting, however, shining a light on the process that we all love so well. Here’s one such project.

Some months ago, Polly came in wanting to knit a sweater for a good friend’s grandchild. She had a specific vision for the sweater, so specific that she had no choice but to design the thing herself. Thinking, “the sun rises and sets with Charlie,” she got to work.

Armed with Ann Budd’s Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns, she selected four shades of Ewe Ewe Wooly Worsted and got swatching. Budd’s book gives a range of projects in a range of sizes and gauges, making it a good source for a “blank slate” type of sweater pattern, ready to be embellished. She charted out the text and the sun on graph paper, then knit them in as intarsia motifs, centering them within the total number of stitches on the front of the sweater.

Her last step before piecing the sweater together was to crochet the rays of the sun onto the front. She emailed us this picture of the finished garment, washed and ready for giving.

Thanks, Polly, for sharing your process with us!

On needle-felting.

Posted by Julia on May 13, 2014

Last week, as she prepared for a trip to New York for her granddaughter’s birthday, Anne began a new project.

Our sweet Romney Ridge Farm needle-felting kits caught her eye, and thinking of her granddaughter, Anne began crafting these little woolen critters.

The kits come with roving, felting needles, and detailed instructions to make the animals pictured.

In just one afternoon, Anne transformed these little puffs of wool roving into one songbird, then another, and finally a sheep.

If this kind of creature-creating appeals to you, come by the shop to pick up a needle-felting kit of your own. As Anne can attest, it’s quick, easy, and intuitive, even if you’ve never needle-felted before. See you at the shop!

Show and tell: baby things and cowls.

Posted by Julia on April 23, 2014

Paula knit this baby vest in Swans Island Organic Washable DK, a semisolid merino wool, making for a brighter version of the sample “Cabled Vest” that hangs at the shop. The pattern is from Susie Haumann’s All You Knit Is Love, a sweet booklet of baby things designed for Isager yarns. Much as we adore Isager yarns, we’re all about yarn substitution here at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop–a buttery soft machine-washable yarn in the same gauge as the pattern is a perfect fit for this baby sweater.

Margaretta has been one busy knitter lately. She recently knit this “Baby Surprise Jacket” following Elizabeth Zimmermann’s classic pattern as written in the updated Knitting Workshop.

She chose yarns in colors that reminded her of Maine, striping one shade of Dream in Color Classy with two shades of Malabrigo Rios. Sometimes, knitters worry about whether or not they’re allowed to mix different brands of yarn in one project, and this little sweater is proof that you needn’t worry. Are the yarns identical? No, but they are comparable, and the result is a seamless transition from one yarn to the next–a perfect sweater.

Of course she had some leftovers, so she knit a little hat to go with, the “Boston Whaler Hat,” to be exact. It’s a Ewe Ewe pattern that Anne has made several times; you may have seen the pink and purple sample at the shop. I love these little green whales, and I particularly love the tubular cast-on Margaretta used to start the ribbing, a technique she found in Leslie Ann Bestor’s Cast On, Bind Off.

Here is Margaretta’s “Mix No. 23” double-knit cowl (did I mention she’s been a busy knitter lately?). Rather than the two strands of Shibui Cima that the pattern calls for, Margaretta used one strand of Cima and one strand of Silk Cloud in the striking color combination of Mineral and Ash.

The result is a shimmering, fuzzy fabric, a delight to wrap around one’s neck, no doubt. Bravo, Margaretta!

I have a cowl to share, too–the “One Skein Zigzag Cowl” from our informal Knit-Along, knit in the brand new Ewe So Sporty yarn. Come by the shop to see it for yourself, and get a hands-on sense of how this yarn knits up.

This is neither a baby thing nor a cowl, but remarkable show-and-tell nonetheless: Anne recently finished her “Mix No. 19,” a tunic knit with Shibui Silk Cloud held doubled throughout. Light as a feather and soft as can be, this is one luxurious top. It’s a simple knit with thoughtful details, like folded hems on the body, neckline, and armholes.

Thanks to the knitters, crocheters, and other fiber artists who start their projects at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop, and who share their work with us! We’re lucky to be surrounded by inspiring stitches every day.

More show and tell: sweaters and vests.

Posted by Julia on March 26, 2014

As promised, here’s a second installment of show and tell, all sweaters and vests that started as yarns at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop.

Beth and her husband came in to show off the sweater she knit for him in Plymouth Tweed. After solving a sizing conundrum and learning how to install a zipper, Beth was delighted to successfully complete this handsome sweater. Well done!

Becky recently completed this beautiful vest using Noro Silk Garden Lite, a dk weight self-striping blend of silk, mohair, and wool. She used Sirdar’s “Collared Waistcoat Vest” pattern, which is shown in a solid-color yarn, making her own colorful finished piece a particularly exciting reveal. She was especially careful about her seaming, and her attention to detail shows.

Here is a vest of a smaller size, “Onslow’s Vest” knit in the bulky weight Cascade Eco +. Margo attended Anne’s recent class on the subject, perfecting her fair isle technique and conquering steeks along the way. She sized it up so that it should fit a small child rather than the pattern’s intended recipient (a teddy bear), taking advantage of the larger gauge that a heavier yarn makes possible, and repeating a few motifs for added length.

Show and tell: accessories.

Posted by Julia on March 24, 2014

I’ve seen so many amazing finished garments come through the shop since I last wrote a “show and tell” blog post, especially on the recent Triangle Yarn Crawl, to which so many shoppers wore their handmade best. I can’t always have my camera handy to document the projects that knitters and crocheters create with yarn from the Hillsborough Yarn Shop, but of late, I’ve collected enough for two posts. Here’s the first batch, all accessories.

Here, Emily models her “Daylily Scarf,” knit in String Theory Selku. Looking at her exquisite lace knitting, you’d never guess that Emily learned to knit less than a year ago, in one of Marsha’s Beginning Knitting classes here at the shop. Since then, she has tackled not only this gorgeous scarf and several others, but also fingerless mitts, cable-knitting, and at least one sweater, with plans for more.

Judy was intrigued by Katia Paper when she found it at the shop, and bought a couple of skeins to experiment with. She came back with this crocheted hat, self-designed and perfect for keeping the sun out of one’s eyes–a perfect use for this unusual yarn.

Anne has a recently-completed accessory to share, too–“Yipes Stripes,” a colorful cowl knit in Ewe Ewe Wooly Worsted. There are all kinds of knitting techniques tucked into this one little project, from a turned hem to two- and three-color braids, with stripes and slipped stitches in between. Designer Ann Weaver is teaching a class on this cowl at TNNA this summer, and I’m looking forward to attending it. In the meantime, Anne has already knit the thing, and will send me off to class with questions for the teacher.

Thanks to all of you who share your finished pieces with us! Stay tuned for more show and tell this week–all sweaters and vests.