Tag Archives: wool

LYS Day 2023: Casapinka colorways from Dream in Color!

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Happy Local Yarn Store Day! Come by the shop tomorrow, Saturday, April 29, for 25% off featured yarns and 50% off select books – you can read all about those sales on our recent blog post.

Each year on Local Yarn Store Day, designer Casapinka releases a pattern to celebrate. This year, it’s “Kitation,” an asymmetrical triangular shawl in two colors. Get a coupon code for a free download when you buy two 400 yard skeins of any fingering weight yarn at our shop this Saturday!

“Kitation,” by Casapinka, photo © Casapinka

Dream in Color dyer Veronica has created new colorways especially for Casapinka’s LYS Day 2023 pattern, and we’re delighted to have them here at our shop!

Each bundle includes 2 skeins of Dream in Color’s signature luxury fingering weight yarn, Smooshy Cashmere.

Dream in Color Smooshy Cashmere: fingering weight, 70% superwash merino, 20% cashmere, 10% nylon, 400 yards in each 100g skein; $68 for LYS Day pair

These LYS Day pairs will also work well for Casapinka’s “Breathe and Hope,” “Ric Rac,” and “Albuquerque Sunset” shawls.

We only have two of each pair, so hurry in if you want to claim one! Thanks for supporting our shop on LYS Day and every day, we love being your local yarn store!

Back in stock + new colors: Brooklyn Tweed Dapple!

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Dapple is Brooklyn Tweed’s DK weight blend of organic cotton and merino, a soft and fluffy yarn that’s been very popular around here. We’re delighted to report that five new colors just arrived, and we restocked others, too!

Brooklyn Tweed Dapple:

  • DK weight
  • woolen-spun, tonally dyed
  • 60% merino wool, 40% organic cotton
  • 165 yards/50 g
  • $15.25 each

Dapple is tonally dyed, meaning skeins in the same colorway differ from one another even in the same dye lot. Some are lighter, some are darker, some almost look marled! This isn’t immediately apparent when looking at one skein of Dapple at a time, so I’ve laid out big groups in a few colorways to give a better sense of the variety.

You can see each color laid out this way on our first Dapple blog post, and we’re happy to show you all the skeins we have in a given color when you’re here shopping in person.

The balance of cool, soft cotton and bouncy wool makes Dapple ideal for transitional spring garments and accessories. Here are some pattern ideas!

Click here for more pattern ideas, and look for Brooklyn Tweed Dapple in the DK weight section here at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop!

Weekend Hat.

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Margaretta recently brought in a bit of show and tell that captivated us – here’s her “Weekend Hat,” another simple but clever pattern by PetiteKnit.

Margaretta knit her “Weekend Hat” with Isager Jensen and Silk Mohair held together throughout, a perfect balance of structure and softness. As in PetiteKnit’s “Oslo Hat – Mohair Edition,” there are 3 layers of fabric at the brim, making for a super cozy hat. The “Weekend Hat” also features a few rows of double knitting at the fold to keep it in place, a nice detail.

I couldn’t resist putting a few more “Weekend Hat” color combinations together in Jensen and Silk Mohair…

…and then the new shades of Kelbourne Woolens Scout caught my eye, and I found some beautiful Silk Mohair matches for that yarn, too!

If any of these combinations catch your eye, you can order them online for local pickup or shipping, or come by the shop to put your own colors together – we can’t wait to see what you dream up! Look for Isager Jensen and Kelbourne Woolens Scout in the DK weight section, and Isager Silk Mohair in the lace weight section. See you at the shop!

Dream in Color Pop-Up Club: assigned pooling, April 2023.

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Dream in Color’s Pop-Up Club is back! Every month, we’re getting a special new colorway from Dream in Color, a Tucson-based producer of small batch hand-dyed yarns. There’s a special theme this time: assigned pooling, a clever way of showing off hand-dyed yarns like these. Aprils new limited edition colorway is here while supplies last!

What is assigned pooling? As designer Dawn Barker describes on her blog, assigned pooling is a technique where “different stitches are assigned to the color changes within the skein. In other words, knit the background color of the yarn using one stitch and then stop and make a special texture stitch when the accent color occurs.”

Dream in Color Smooshy Cashmere:

  • fingering weight
  • 70% superwash merino, 20% cashmere, 10% nylon
  • 400 yards/100g
  • $34 each

April’s special colorway is mostly terracotta, pink, and copper, with a bold streak of seafoam blue that pops up regularly as you knit through each skein. Dream in Color dyer Veronica is knitting a “Tangerine Twilight” shawl using this colorway – take a peek in the photo below!

Curious about what else you can do with assigned pooling? Check out these patterns!

Look for Dream in Color Smooshy Cashmere in the fingering weight section here at our shop!

Back in stock: Kelbourne Woolens Scout.

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We recently unpacked a box full of Kelbourne Woolens Scout, the soft and sturdy wool that’s become a staple in our DK weight section.

Kelbourne Woolens Scout

  • DK weight
  • 2ply, worsted spun
  • 100% wool
  • 274 yards/100 grams
  • $18 each

This order brought us some new colors as well as old favorites, rounding out Scout’s color palette in a satisfying way. We now have over two dozen shades!

This soft yet unfussy DK weight wool works up beautifully in everything from colorwork and cables to simple stockinette – keep scrolling for a fresh batch of pattern ideas!

Garments:

Accessories:

Look for Kelbourne Woolens Scout in the DK weight section here at our shop – we’re open from 11:00 am – 5:30 pm, Tuesdays – Saturdays; masks required for entry. You can also order online for local pickup or shipping – just use our online order form!

Oslo Hat, No-Mohair Edition.

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I just finished up another new sample for the shop, PetiteKnit’s oh-so-popular “Oslo Hat – Mohair Edition,” though mine doesn’t contain any mohair to speak of.

For this hat, I paired Kelbourne Woolens Perennial and Fyberspates Cumulus, a brushed alpaca that emulates mohair’s fuzzy halo. These two alpaca blends are each very soft in their own right, but together are impossibly cuddly – you must touch this hat for yourself!

My sample “Oslo Hat – Mohair Edition” blends Perennial in Raspberry with Cumulus in Plum – here are a few more color ideas.

The simplicity of PetiteKnit’s “Oslo Hat – Mohair Edition” lends itself to variegated yarns, too, which are softened when held together with a fuzzy lace weight yarn – here are a few color ideas pairing Koigu KPPPM with Cumulus!

Look for Cumulus in our lace weight section and Perennial and KPPPM in our fingering weight section – we’re open 11am-5:30pm, Tuesdays-Saturdays. We do require masks for entry – thanks for your cooperation, see you at the shop!

Back in stock with new colors: NFC Organic Studio Sock.

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Our most recent order from Neighborhood Fiber Co. was full of vibrant colors, speckles, and variegated shades, brightening our NFC Organic Studio Sock cubby considerably!

Anne and I had fun selecting colorways we’d never seen before, along with those that have become favorites.

Neighborhood Fiber Co. Organic Studio Sock:

  • fingering weight
  • hand-dyed
  • machine washable
  • 100% organic merino wool
  • 400 yds/4 oz
  • $34 each

Organic Studio Sock is perfect for knitting socks, of course, but also great for sweaters and shawls – here’s one that Wendy made, Lesley Anne Robinson’s “Studio Sampler.”

Robinson’s design moves through garter stitch, stripes, and brioche, keeping things interesting with a variety of stitch patterns and color combinations. Pick three shades that excite you and have fun watching them interact as you knit – they can be high or low contrast, from the same color family or not. Here are a few combinations I came up with!

Look for Neighborhood Fiber Co. Organic Studio Sock in the fingering weight section here at our shop! We’re open from 11am – 5:30pm, Tuesdays – Saturdays; masks are required for entry. Online ordering is still available for local pickup or shipping – thanks for shopping with us!

Hello, NFC Organic Studio Worsted!

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We’re excited to introduce you to the newest yarn here at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop – meet Neighborhood Fiber Co. Organic Studio Worsted!

Neighborhood Fiber Co. Organic Studio Worsted:

  • fingering weight
  • hand-dyed
  • machine washable
  • 100% organic merino wool
  • 200 yds/4 oz
  • $34 each

Like the Organic Studio Sock we’ve come to love, Organic Studio Worsted is a soft, sturdy, tightly plied organic merino wool that’s machine washable for easy care. We’ve selected a dozen variegated and speckled colorways to liven up our worsted weight section!

What to knit with Organic Studio Worsted? Easy care worsted weight wools are some of the most versatile yarns we know of, here are a few pattern ideas…

Come by the shop to see NFC Organic Studio Worsted for yourself! We’re open from 11am-5:30pm, Tuesdays-Saturdays; masks required for entry. Hope to see you soon!

Koigu Collector’s Club: Patchwork.

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The Koigu Collector’s Club continues! Each month, we’ll receive 21 skeins of KPPPM in a limited edition color dyed especially for a select group of local yarn stores that carry Koigu. KPPPM is a fingering weight superwash merino, hand-dyed in vibrant colors by mother/daughter team Maie and Taiu Landra on their farm outside of Toronto, Canada.

Koigu KPPPM:

  • fingering weight
  • hand dyed, variegated
  • 100% superwash merino wool
  • 175 yards/50 g
  • $15.50 each

This month’s limited edition shade is Patchwork, a sweet mix of dusty pinks and purples.

I’ve been keeping an eye on Stephen West’s Year of Socks 2023, and his recent “Painting Triangles Socks” pattern brought Koigu to mind – how about using Fibre Co. Amble for a main color, and KPPPM for the contrast colors?

West’s socks are shown with 3 contrast colors, but the socks look just as good with 1 or 2 – here are a few color combinations!

Look for Koigu KPPPM in the fingering weight section here at the shop, along with Fibre Co. Amble and more – see you there! We’re also taking online orders for local pickup or shipping.

Assigned pooling colorways, new from Dream in Color Pop-Up Club!

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We’re excited to announce a new season of Dream in Color’s Pop-Up Club! Every month, we’re getting a special new colorway from Dream in Color, a Tucson-based producer of small batch hand-dyed yarns. There’s a special theme this time: assigned pooling, a clever way of showing off hand-dyed yarns like these. February’s new limited edition colorway is here while supplies last!

What is assigned pooling? As designer Dawn Barker describes on her blog, assigned pooling is a technique where “different stitches are assigned to the color changes within the skein. In other words, knit the background color of the yarn using one stitch and then stop and make a special texture stitch when the accent color occurs.”

Assigned pooling patterns by Dawn Barker, photo © Dawn Barker

Dream in Color Smooshy Cashmere:

  • fingering weight
  • 70% superwash merino, 20% cashmere, 10% nylon
  • 400 yards/100g
  • $34 each

February’s special colorway is mostly turquoise and purple, with a bright streak of neon yellow that pops up regularly as you knit through each skein. Dream in Color dyer Veronica is developing a bandana cowl pattern specifically for this colorway – take a peek in the photo below, and keep an eye out for the pattern!

Curious about what else you can do with assigned pooling? Check out these patterns!

Look for Dream in Color Smooshy Cashmere in the fingering weight section here at our shop!