Tag Archives: wool

Hello, Shibui Lunar.

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Shibui’s newest yarn is here! Meet Lunar.

Lunar is a shiny lace weight blend of 60% extrafine merino wool and 40% Mulberry silk. Each 50 gram skein boasts 401 yards, enough for a good-sized scarf or cowl; just two or three skeins is plenty for a shawl.

Shibui yarns are designed for mixing together, two or three strands at a time, to create bespoke fiber and color blends. Lunar is a lovely addition to their already robust selection of lace weight yarns, and can be used anywhere lustre is desired and Cima or Pebble is called for.

Shellie Anderson, Shibui’s in-house designer, has developed several patterns already for Lunar as part of the Spring/Summer 2017 Collection. “Milan,” pictured above, is a garter ridge pullover knit with Lunar alone.

 

“Crete” is another new pattern which finds Lunar paired with Twig. This bias scarf begins and ends with Twig, and uses Lunar and Twig together during the body of the piece for a bit of transparency on either end. It’s this kind of simple-yet-clever detail that we’ve come to expect from Shibui, along with elegance. This pattern is the subject of their upcoming knit-along, and is free when you purchase Shibui yarns for the project.

Marsha is offering a class on “Crete,” for new knitters who want help learning to increase, decrease, work with two strands of yarn together, and practice pattern reading. Head to our Classes page to read more about it and sign up, if you like!

The rest of the Shibui SS17 pattern collection features other well-loved Shibui yarns like Rain and Cima.

Come by the shop to see all the new designs and plan a project with Lunar!

Back in stock: Shibui Twig.

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Spring is here, and at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop, that means favorite lightweight yarns must be restocked. With this change of season in mind, we recently more than doubled our supply of Shibui Twig.

Twig is a slightly textured blend of 46% linen, 42% recycled silk, and 12% wool. Each 50 gram skein has 190 yards, and it knits up at a sport or dk weight gauge into an open, draping fabric.

Twig has a crisp feel and a plant fiber’s tendency to stretch rather than cling, qualities that make it ideal for warm weather garments and accessories like Shibui’s “Slope” and “Tier,” or Churchmouse’s “Simple Tee.” If you like a little more elasticity, consider holding Twig together with Cima or Pebble, as in Shibui’s “Apex” or Julie Hoover’s “Wintour”.

Look for more pattern ideas on our sport weight Pinterest board, and look to our sport weight section for the yarn itself. See you at the shop!

Back in stock: Isager Alpaca 2.

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Isager Alpaca 2 is a staple here at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop. Year in, year out, we aim to have every available color on the shelf in the fingering weight section, for there is a steady demand for this fuzzy blend of merino and alpaca. A big box of the stuff arrived yesterday, bringing some bestselling colors back into stock.

Our seasoned “Stole” sample has hung on the wall for years now, yet it regularly catches the eye of knitters seeking a soothing, repetitive project, one that’s easy to execute, but with elegant results.

We’ve seen all manner of Stole variations, and whether they’re knit in the original nine shades or a kaleidoscope of unique combinations, slimmed down into scarves or expanded into blankets, everything seems to work.

I still get a kick out of watching knitters select their colors, moving the skeins this way and that, stepping back and squinting for perspective.

I still get a kick out of playing that color game myself, some afternoons, especially quiet afternoons as I’m unpacking a box of Isager Alpaca 2.

If a ribbed rectangle isn’t your idea of a good time, check out these other colorful fingering weight patterns, where Isager Alpaca 2 would be equally at home:

Look for more ideas on our Fingering weight Pinterest board, and come by the shop to play the color game and plan your next project!

New colors in Fyberspates Scrumptious 4ply/Sport.

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We’ve stocked Fyberspates Scrumptious 4ply/Sport for a while now in a limited number of colors. As interest grew in this a shimmering blend of merino and silk, we decided it was time to expand our selection.

We got in a nice bunch of brights and jewel tones to complement our neutrals and pastels, and were pleased to find that they play well together.

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.

Look for pattern ideas on our Fingering and Sport weight Pinterest boards, and come by the shop to see this pretty stuff in person!

Hello, Malabrigo Dos Tierras.

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We’re excited to announce that Malabrigo’s newest yarn has arrived: meet Dos Tierras!

Though those vibrant hand-dyed colors look like classic Malabrigo, Dos Tierras is something new and distinct: a DK weight yarn with Peruvian baby alpaca blended into their well-loved Uruguayan merino wool.

Each 100 gram skein has 210 yards, enough for a pair of mitts, hat, or small cowl.

Look for pattern ideas on our “DK weight” Pinterest board, and look for Dos Tierras in the DK weight section here at the shop!

Hello, Fibre Company Luma.

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Meet Luma, the newest yarn from the Fibre Company!

Luma is a smooth DK weight blend of 50% merino wool, 25% organic cotton, 15% linen, and 10% silk. This balanced combination of elastic animal fiber and cool plant fiber is ideal for year-round wear, especially in our warm North Carolina climate.

The design team at Kelbourne Woolens have created a small collection of garments for Luma, exactly the kind of seasonless sweaters that suit this lightweight yarn. Print copies are coming to the shop soon, but you can take a peek at them online now. For more pattern ideas, look to our DK weight board on Pinterest, and also to patterns calling for the now-discontinued Fibre Company Savannah, which Luma replaced.

Look for Luma in the DK weight section here at the shop!

New colors from Baa Ram Ewe.

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The folks at UK yarn company Baa Ram Ewe dreamed up three new colors for their Titus and Dovestone DK yarns, and I’m happy to report that we now have them on our shelves here at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop!

Dovestone DK is a dk weight blend of 50% bluefaced leicester, 25% masham, and 25% wensleydale wools, all sourced and spun in the UK. It’s a nice big 100 gram hank with 252 yards, plenty for a hat, pair of mitts, or small cowl.

For pattern ideas, look to Carol Feller’s Dovestone Hills booklet, Kate Davies’ Buachaille, and our “DK weight” board on Pinterest. I think Dovestone DK is a particularly good sweater yarn; I made an “Epistrophy” cardigan with it absolutely loved the combination of pattern and yarn. Also consider Isabel Kraemer’s “Ready for fall” pullover, Churchmouse’s “Library Vest,” and tincanknits’ “Clayoquot” pullover.

The two yarns take the dye differently, coming out heathered in Dovestone DK, but bright and clear in Titus.

Titus is a fingering weight blend of 50% wensleydale wool, 30% alpaca, and 20% bluefaced leicester wool.

There’s plenty of pattern inspiration for Titus to be found on our “Fingering weight” Pinterest board, of course, and we’ve seen some beautiful Titus projects here on the blog over the years.

Come by the shop to see the full range of colors in Baa Ram Ewe Titus, Dovestone DK, and Dovestone Natural Aran. See you there!

Hello, West Yorkshire Spinners.

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Allow me to belatedly introduce one of our new fall/winter yarns, one that had the misfortune of arriving at a particularly busy moment, and whose blog post was put off for far too long. We’re happy to announce that we now carry DK weight Bluefaced Leicester wools from West Yorkshire Spinners!

West Yorkshire Spinners is a yarn company in the UK, and like Baa Ram Ewe, their focus is on producing high quality yarns from British wool, and revitalizing the textile industry in their home of Yorkshire.

Above is their Fleece Bluefaced Leicester DK, undyed 100 gram hanks of smooth, soft wool. It comes in three natural shades, reminiscent, of course, of the sheep themselves. Each skein has 244 yards, enough for a hat, cowl, or pair of mitts. Two skeins will make a nice shawl – consider “Parkin.”

WYS also makes a dyed version of this wool, the simply-named Bluefaced Leicester DK. It comes in 50 gram balls with 122 yards, and my first thought on seeing them was that they ought to be paired with a contrasting shade of Fleece Bluefaced Leicester DK for some colorwork or stripes.

A “Fancy Hen” was where I started brainstorming, having loved the one I knit for my niece and the one Anne knit for her granddaughter. Pick two or three colors between the dyed and the undyed Bluefaced Leicester DK yarns and try one of the following:

Look for these WYS in the DK weight section here at the shop. See you there!

Hello, Brooklyn Tweed Arbor.

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Brooklyn Tweed yarns are now available at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop! We’re starting with Shelter, Loft, and Arbor, and introducing each one on the blog this week. Today, meet Arbor.

Brooklyn Tweed Arbor is a 3-ply DK weight yarn composed of 100% Targhee wool. It’s Brooklyn Tweed’s newest yarn, and their biggest departure from what has so far been a line of woolen-spun heathers – Arbor is worsted-spun, and skein-dyed in solid colors at the organically-certified Saco River Dyehouse in Maine.

All 30 of these subtle, intriguingly-named colors are now on our shelves.

Worsted-spun yarns are more durable and dense than their woolen-spun counterparts, and have sharper stitch definition for crisp cables, lace, and texture patterns.

Targhee wool spun in this manner has an abundance of one of my favorite yarn characteristics: elasticity. Garments knit with Arbor should wear well and look sharp for years to come.

Brooklyn Tweed’s first round of patterns for Arbor are perfect examples of how well this yarn behaves in cables and texture patterns. Here are a few that caught my eye:

All of these Brooklyn Tweed patterns (and so many more!) are available as Ravelry In-Store Pattern Sales, where you purchase the pattern here at the shop and a digital copy is saved in your email and/or Ravelry pattern library. We’ll print a copy for you, too, so you can head right home and cast on.

Look for more ideas on our DK weight Pinterest board, and look for Brooklyn Tweed Arbor in the DK weight section here at the shop. See you there!

Hello, Brooklyn Tweed Loft.

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Brooklyn Tweed yarns are now available at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop! We’re starting with Shelter, Loft, and Arbor, and introducing each one on the blog this week. Today, meet Loft.

Brooklyn Tweed Loft is a fingering weight, woolen-spun Targhee-Columbia wool. Loft is named for one of its best qualities, and like Shelter, it’s somewhat delicate, but especially warm for its weight.

We have all 37 colors of Loft in stock, a playground for the eyes. Like Shelter, these shades are created by dyeing the fiber in 16 vibrant solids, then blending them, two or three at a time, into intricate heathers.

Ever since Clara Parkes reviewed Loft back in 2011 and described it as “pretty much perfect,” I’ve been anxious to get my hands on it. Now that it’s here at the shop, I’ve been combing through years of my favorites on Ravelry, considering which Loft pattern I’d most like to start with. Here are some of the many:

You can tell from this selection that I have a special fondness for stranded colorwork, and while Loft is especially well-suited to that technique, it’s just as happy to render lace or texture patterns, along with simple stockinette. Case in point: Anne has her eye on “Hellebore,” by Michele Wang, a pullover with stockinette body and cabled sleeves. In fact, she has already eagerly knit a swatch, and all that’s left is to choose a color – a fun, hard decision with so many beautiful shades at our fingertips.

All of these Brooklyn Tweed patterns (and so many more!) are available as Ravelry In-Store Pattern Sales, where you purchase the pattern here at the shop and a digital copy is saved in your email and/or Ravelry pattern library. We’ll print a copy for you, too, so you can head right home and cast on. Look for more Loft pattern inspiration on our Fingering weight Pinterest board!

Look for Brooklyn Tweed Loft in the fingering weight section here at the shop. See you there!