New from Habu.

Posted by Julia on September 30, 2013

We always stop by the Habu Textiles booth at TNNA, and this year was no exception. We’d made a note before going to market that we could use a few new colors in their one-of-a-kind Silk Stainless yarn, which translated into Anne gathering an armful of colorful cones as Habu founder Takako Ueki jotted down color numbers. The new colors of Habu Silk Stainless arrived a week or so ago, settling in with the few colors we’d already had in stock. Our new selection is vibrant and tempting, and I thought they deserved a bit of fanfare here on the blog.

It’s Silk Stainless that makes the Kusha Kusha Scarf such an intriguing project. It’s knit on a variety of different needle sizes, sometimes holding a fine lace weight merino along with the Silk Stainless, and when the knitting is done, the piece is lightly felted in hot, soapy water.

Habu used to sell kits for the Kusha Kusha Scarf, but has since offered the pattern for free via the Purl Bee. This frees you up to choose your own color combinations, which sometimes feels like half the joy of knitting in the first place. We don’t stock the Habu Super Fine Merino that the pattern calls for, but we have so many other lace weight yarns to choose from that would be equally interesting in this project. They’ll all behave a little differently, I suspect, which should be fun to experiment with. I had fun putting these hypothetical combinations together.

Don’t limit yourself to Kusha Kusha scarves, however; Silk Stainless can also be put to good use in sweaters and knitted or crocheted jewelry. We’ve even had a weaver experiment with a few cones of the stuff on her loom. Come by the shop to see our sample Kusha Kusha Scarf and our new selection of Habu Silk Stainless. See you there!

Habu N-86 2/26 Cashmere.

Posted by Julia on August 16, 2012

The first of our orders from TNNA have begun to arrive, and this one was met with a gasp of excitement from Anne: N-86 2/26 Cashmere, from Habu Textiles.

N-86 2/26 Cashmere may not be a romantic name, but the yarn itself is lovely, a lace weight 100% cashmere that works well held single- or double-stranded. It is ideal for shawls and scarves, or any project where a delicate, soft texture is desired. When Anne fell head over heels in love with it at market, we selected a small spectrum of neutral shades, from dark charcoal to ivory.

We also ordered a few new colors in A-20/21 1/20 Silk Stainless, a lace weight yarn made of stainless steel wrapped in silk. A-20/21 1/20 Silk Stainless is one of the yarns used in the popular Kusha Kusha scarf kit from Habu Textiles. For those who want the yarn on its own, we now have six colors available.

Find Habu N-86 2/26 Cashmere and A-20/21 1/20 Silk Stainless in a prominent place in the second room of the shop, where the lighter weight yarns live.

Kusha Kusha.

Posted by Julia on August 23, 2011

The Kusha Kusha scarf gets a lot of attention at the shop. This is in part because of its unusual, organic-looking shape, almost like a strand of kelp. Another reason to take note of this scarf is its fiber content. Kusha Kusha is knit with two strands of lace weight yarn held together, one of which is 100% merino wool, the other of which is stainless steel wrapped in silk. The stainless steel gives memory to the yarn and the resulting fabric, so that you can crinkle it up or stretch it out and it holds its shape.

The Kusha Kusha scarf comes as a kit from Habu Textiles, complete with the pattern and a cone of each yarn. We’ve carried these kits at the shop for some time, but our supply was getting low. When we reordered this past week, we got many more colors than we’d ever had before, a spectrum of elegant pairings.

Make sure to take a look at this unusual scarf the next time you’re in the shop. If you’re curious to see what others have done with this kit and pattern, check out the Kushua Kusha Love group on Ravelry. See you at the shop!