Tag Archives: show and tell

Hello, Bluestocking.

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Surprise, surprise: I have some new yarn from String Theory to share. Say hello (again) to Bluestocking, a soft, sturdy fingering weight yarn composed of 80% Bluefaced Leicester wool and 20% nylon.

If it seems like we’re ordering from String Theory weekly, it’s because we are. Anne and I love this yarn, and it’s clear you all do, too, at the rate it’s disappearing from our shelves! While Caper Sock has been ordered and reordered several times, we hadn’t shown the same love to Bluestocking until this past week.

Anne started a pair of Bluestocking socks, couldn’t keep her hands off them, and suddenly we were on the phone with the wonderful people at String Theory Hand Dyed Yarn, in Blue Hill, Maine. Much to Anne’s dismay, I suggested we start small, to the tune of six colors. When we sold half of them on the day they arrived, it was clear that I was wrong and Anne was right: Hillsborough Yarn Shoppers have enough love for both Caper Sock and Bluestocking. We ordered more.

I’ve got a skein of the stuff waiting for me at home, and it is torture not to cast on immediately. Care to torture yourself in a similar fashion? Come by the shop and witness the glory of all of String Theory’s yarns. See you there!

Extra Yarn.

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A phrase I’m always delighted to hear at the shop is “I brought some show and tell.” Fascinating things are pulled from purses and knitting bags: projects in progress and recently completed, intriguing patterns, years-old handed-down hand-knits, and sometimes most interesting–books. A knitter brought this one in for show and tell a few weeks ago, and immediately, we knew we had to stock it here at the shop. Then Clara reviewed it, and the point was driven home. We placed the order, and Extra Yarn now lives here with us.

Extra Yarn is a children’s book, but its knitterly subject matter and gorgeous illustrations make it equally appealing to adults.

Come by the shop to flip through this sweet storybook. You’ll find it on the teacart, perfectly at home among the newest grown-up knitting books. See you at the shop!

Washing socks.

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In the past five years or so, knitting has become a part of my daily routine. Whether I’m working on a knitted sample at the shop or spending my evening playing with short rows, stripes, and garter stitch, knitted stitches find their way into my day. My obsession with knitting has brought other routines along with it, like reading knitting blogs and haunting Ravelry. Since I started knitting socks, the biweekly routine of hand-washing my hand-knit socks has become a comforting weekend ritual.

As I ready my socks for washing, I admire my motley collection of brightly-colored, differently-textured knits, some pairs more successful than others. Into a warm water bath they go, along with a drizzle of Eucalan soap, and there they sit for twenty or thirty minutes, while I sip coffee, wash dishes, sweep the kitchen–whatever little tasks need my attention. Once they’ve been bathed, I roll my socks up in a dry towel, give it a squeeze, then lay them out on another dry towel. It’s a bit mundane, this routine, but it pleases me to care for the things I’ve made, and to see all my socks lined up, worn but clean, waiting to be put to use.

That’s what I’ve been up to this weekend, along with casting on for a new sweater and admiring a newly-obtained skein of sock yarn. Hope your weekend was similarly peppered with knitterly delights.

Works completed.

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Satisfaction, to me, is a finished knitting project. Once all the ends have been woven in and the knitted piece has been washed and blocked, I can stand back, admire my work, push aside the urge to point out whatever errors I made, and get ready for the next project. Anne and I have both recently completed samples for the shop, both of which you can see hanging proudly in the front window.

Anne used the Schulana Macaibo yarn to make Little Sister’s Dress, a sweet pattern that’s available as a free download on Ravelry. Like the baby sunhat that Anne was knitting a few weeks ago out of Schulana Tamarillo, this sample shows how differently the yarn knits up than you might have supposed, looking at it in the ball.

Meanwhile, I’ve been working on a brightly colored lace scarf out of SWTC’s Pure yarn, made of 100% soysilk. Pure is one of those yarns that somehow never got swatched, though we’ve had it at the shop for a few years now. I tried my hardest to stretch the yardage of a single skein and managed to get a nice narrow scarf out of just 165 yards. The pattern is Veronik Avery’s Lace Ribbon Scarf, a free pattern from Knitty. I only cast on 26 stitches, though, working two repeats of the lace pattern rather than the suggested five. Like I said: I was trying to stretch a single skein.

Yes, finishing things up is a good feeling, matched only by the excitement of casting on for something new! You can see these and plenty of other sample garments at the shop, and if you have any questions about the yarn or the pattern we used, don’t hesitate to ask. See you at the shop!

Double point work-in-progress tubes.

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It’s been a knitterly gadgets kind of week here at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop. Along with the Fix-a-Stitch, we also received a shipment of double point work-in-progress tubes, or DP Wip Tubes, for those who like to abbreviate.

Like the Fix-a-Stitch, the DP Wip Tube solves a specific problem simply and well. Say you’re knitting a sock on double pointed needles and you want to toss it into your knitting bag. How can you be sure that your live stitches wont accidentally slide off of one of those needles? You could put an individual point protector on each double point, to be sure, or you could carefully fold your sock-in-progress around your needles and hope for the best. The DP Wip Tube offers complete security to your stitches.

Anne is certainly a proponent of the DP Wip Tube, with two in use (and in reach) when our new shipment arrived.

Handy, no? Pick up a set of DP Wip Tubes next time you’re at the shop.

Works in progress: short row edition.

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This month, perhaps more than most, Anne’s desk at the shop has often been crowded by multiple works in progress. She has (ahem) a small handful of projects started, many of which will grow up to be shop samples, showing off particular yarns in patterns for which they are particularly well-suited. At the moment, I have only one project going at the shop, but more at home, lest you think I’m gloating. The impulse to cast on with an exciting new yarn is strong, and succumb to it we do. Here are two of the latest works in progress you’re likely to catch us stitching on in quiet moments at the shop.

Anne is working on a shawl with the wooly, self-striping Kauni yarn, knowing that Nancy’s Wiggle Wrap is not a permanent installation in the shop. When the Wiggle Wrap leaves us, we’ll need something that shows what Kauni can do, and this shawl will do that very well.

The pattern is Wingspan, available as a free download on Ravelry, and it is an excellent example of just one of the many shapes that can be accomplished using short rows.

Myself, I’m at work on a ruffle scarf, another pattern full of short rows, albeit much shorter short rows. These rows are sometimes only 4 stitches long, short enough that I taught myself to knit backwards to save time on turning the needles around between short rows. If the pattern looks familiar, that’s because we already have one ruffle scarf hanging in the shop, which I wrote about on the blog last May. That one was made with two yarns held together, and because of this, it’s fuzzy, dense, and warm. With Spring on its way, and Cascade’s Ultra Pima yarn unswatched, we thought a thinner cotton ruffle scarf was in order.

That’s what we’re up to, or part of what we’re up to, at any rate. What are you working on lately?

More works in progress.

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About a month ago, I posted pictures of two of the works in progress that hang around the shop. Anne and I always have at least two samples for the shop on the needles–one on her needles and one on mine. Because the urge to talk about what we make and what we see others making is strong, we find ourselves talking about these projects at many points throughout the day. When the process is enjoyable, we’ll tell anyone who will listen about how soft the yarn is, how incredible the color. Since I last brought this conversation to the blog, two new works in progress have sprung up.

I’m working on a simple drop stitch scarf with the new Malabrigo Arroyo. This pattern is a particularly good choice for variegated yarns like this, as the elongated stitches highlight a stretch of color in the yarn that would otherwise be distributed differently along the row. We’re used to variegated yarns striping and pooling in stockinette and other texture patterns, but the drop stitch scarf pools differently, purposefully. 
Within three rows, I had the pattern memorized, and since then, it feels like it’s been knitting itself. 
Anne is also working on a scarf, but hers is made from the Swans Island Organic Merino in the fingering weight. The pattern came from our perpetual calendar, 365 Knitting Stitches a Year, a nice resource to turn to when you intend to make a scarf and don’t intend to use a pattern. Flip through the calendar, pick an attractive stitch pattern, cast on an appropriate number of stitches for said pattern, and go until you run out of yarn. A formula for scarf success.
This one will look particularly lovely when it’s blocked, I imagine. I can’t wait to see it. In the meantime, come by the shop to see these two very special yarns in action, and listen to us go on about them. See you soon!

Wiggle Wrap.

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If you’ve been in the shop in the past week, you may have noticed a new sample hanging on the wall. There are many sweaters, shawls, hats, scarves, and bags competing for your attention, of course, so it’s possible you missed this latest knit shawl. It’s quite striking, though, and wont be in the shop forever, so I thought I’d document it here.

The pattern is “Wiggle Wrap,” by Sally Brandl, and it’s knit with two balls of Kauni Effektgarn. One ball is a bright, fiery colorway and the other is dark, with deep blues and purples. The two, themselves self-striping, are striped against one another, creating multiple levels of stripes and gradations of color. The premise is simple but the effect is impressive. I’d like to see one in a pair of neutral colorways, or a black-and-white skein with a wild rainbow skein. Get to work, knitters.

Come by the shop to see the Wiggle Wrap while it’s still here, and check the Kauni Patterns binder for more Kauni inspiration.

(Many thanks to Nancy for lending us her shawl!)

Hello, Alpaca 1.

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When Anne returned from her trip to Denmark in August, she came back with many stories and many knitting ideas. The first one that she realized was simple: a triangular garter stitch shawl in Isager Alpaca 1, a 2-ply lace-weight yarn that at the time, we had just recently ordered in a pretty little spectrum of colors. Anne had seen one like it in Marianne Isager’s shop, and was determined to recreate it as a shop sample here. It may be a simple shawl, a “nothing pattern,” as Anne often describes it, but it has been a huge hit.

The particular combination of this yarn at this gauge makes simple garter stitch look new and somehow complicated. I’ve seen seasoned knitters puzzle over the shawl, asking about the stitch pattern. The texture is truly unusual, stretchy and fuzzy and light. Sometimes I wrap it around my neck like a scarf while I’m rearranging the Alpaca 1 basket, and I must say, it tempts one.

Having nearly run out of Isager Alpaca 1 due to the beguiling nature of the garter stitch shawl, it was time for a reorder at the start of the new year. As I put out the new colors, I felt content seeing them all together again, and daydreamed a bit about which color I’d choose if I were making one myself. What would you choose?

The next time you’re in the market for a mindless knit with exquisite yarn, consider the Alpaca 1 shawl. Try it on next time you’re in the shop and see if you’re not tempted.

2012.

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I spent much of this new year’s eve weekend with a burgeoning pair of socks, made with Malabrigo’s newest yarn, Arroyo. I turned the heel on the first sock, then cast on for the second while watching a movie on new year’s eve. On new year’s day, the socks came with me to a friend’s house, where we talked and laughed and drank tea. This morning as I sipped my coffee, knitted my socks, and listened to a podcast, I had an impulse to photograph the scene, and thought to myself: oh, man. What a blogger thing to do.

It’s been almost a year since I started this Hillsborough Yarn Shop blog, and since then I’ve grown accustomed to that impulse to photograph anything yarn-related, and have often given into it. When people come in showing off amazing work, or Phyllis looks particularly wonderful in a shop sample, or we move some furniture around, I pull out my little camera. When we amass great piles of hats or great piles of yarn, the camera comes out. After a year of moments like these, it seems to make perfect sense to photograph my morning coffee, so long as a sock-in-progress is near. I’m having such fun with the blog, and the beginning of a new year is as good a time as any to thank you all for reading, and for commenting, and for coming into the shop and saying, “You must be Julia, from the blog!” I’m looking forward to another year of documenting the goings-on at the shop. Happy new year, everyone!