Tag Archives: worsted weight

Hello, Germantown Unicorns!

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We’re pleased to have a special new limited edition yarn from Kelbourne Woolens – meet Germantown Unicorns!

Kelbourne Woolens Germantown Unicorns:

  • worsted weight
  • marled
  • 100% wool
  • 220 yards/100g
  • $16 each

Germantown Unicorns are made from mill ends in the spinning process, combining two shades of Germantown for a unique marl.

Each skein is enough for a hat, and the folks at Kelbourne Woolens have designed one for every month of the year. Even better, every one of these patterns is free to download from Ravelry – look there for “January,” “February,” “March,” “April,” “May,” “June,” “July,” “August,” “September,” “October,” “November,” and “December.” This collection shows Germantown’s versatility in a variety of techniques, from ribbing and texture to cables and lace to stripes and colorwork.

These colorful new skeins got me thinking about Andrea Mowry’s “Nightshift” again, that ever-popular slip-stitch shawl – mixing up the Unicorns with solid shades of Germantown makes for exciting new combinations! Here are a few ideas.

Pick your favorite colors and order online for local pickup or shipping!

Hello, Heather’s Heathers.

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We’ve got some of Ewe Ewe’s new Heather’s Heathers!

Ewe Ewe Heather’s Heathers:

  • worsted weight
  • heathered colors
  • 100% superwash merino
  • 95 yards/50 g
  • $10 each

These new shades are variations on Ewe Ewe’s classic solids, with depth of color coming from gray fiber blended into the white base yarn. The difference between the heathers and solids is especially striking when they’re sitting next to their Wooly Worsted cousins.

Washable worsted weight yarn like Heather’s Heathers is useful for so many kinds of projects – hard-wearing hats and mittens, slipper socks, blankets, baby things, and so on. Five colors is exactly what’s needed for Ann Weaver’s “Yipes Stripes Cowl” – check out some more color combinations in Wooly Worsted here on our blog!

Order online for local pickup or shipping – thanks for all your support!

Koigu Collector’s Club: Comfy Cozy and Admit One.

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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. This month, we got not one, but TWO new colorways!

Koigu KPPPM:

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

Comfy Cozy is dyed on KPPPM, Koigu’s classic fingering weight merino that we’ve come to know so well throughout the Collector’s Club.

Koigu Sparkle:

  • fingering weight
  • hand dyed, variegated
  • 94% merino wool, 6% lurex – silver metallic
  • 164 yards/50 g
  • $15.50 each

Admit One is a playful pastel colorway with streaks of brighter shades and a silver shimmer. It’s dyed on Sparkle, Koigu’s metallic cousin to KPPPM.

What to make with all these Koigu Collector’s Club colorways? Just as we have two new colorways, we also have two pattern suggestions with color combinations – Anne and I each had an idea this time, and we both happened to pair up Koigu with a Brooklyn Tweed yarn!

Ankestrick’s new “Sydvester” pullover caught Anne’s eye, an intriguing slip stitch pattern combining fingering and worsted weight yarns. She suggests Brooklyn Tweed Shelter and Koigu for this project, her interest piqued by the interplay of rustic heathers and playful variegates.

I had Francoise Danoy’s “Ocean Pathways Cowl” in mind for the following combinations.

For this pattern, I selected three shades of Koigu KPPPM or Sparkle for the contrast colors, and a darker shade of Brooklyn Tweed Peerie for the background color.

Order online to snag any of the Collector’s Club colorways pictured above, with or without their Brooklyn Tweed counterparts! They’re all available for local pickup or shipping while supplies last.

Show and tell: HYS Hat Club!

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Before we get into today’s show and tell, a reminder: the shop is closed for a Thanksgiving break from November 25 – 30. We’ll be back in the shop for phone calls, emails, and pickups on Tuesday, December 1. Feel free to place orders during our closure, but know that we won’t be monitoring our inbox until December 1 – thanks for understanding! Enjoy the holiday.

We’re two months into the HYS Hat Club, a subscription of thoughtfully curated hat projects for knitters. It’s been so fun selecting patterns, yarns, and colors for our members, but even better to see their completed hats! Let’s take a look.

Pat’s “Gault,” knit with BT Arbor in Seaglass.

October’s pattern was “Gault,” by Jared Flood, a textured hat knit with two skeins of Brooklyn Tweed Arbor. This design was just published in BT’s new Terre: Verdant collection, a group of patterns inspired by the lush vegetation of a well-tended garden.

Cassie’s “Gault,” knit with BT Arbor in Norway.

Beth’s “Gault,” knit with BT Arbor in Humpback.

Arbor’s wooly softness and elasticity is ideal for making hats, and its excellent stitch definition shows Flood’s waffle texture pattern with precision.

Emily’s “Gault,” knit with BT Arbor in Firebrush.

November’s pattern was, fittingly, “November Hat,” by Meghan Kelly, a cable and twisted stitch hat knit with 1 skein of Kelbourne Woolens Germantown.

Beth’s “November Hat,” knit with KW Germantown in Tan.

Germantown is a yarn with history, a recreation of a classic wool that had been produced in Germantown, PA, under a few different brand names since the mid-to-late 19th century. Made of 100% North American wool, Germantown is a worsted spun yarn with a smooth texture, soft hand, and nice elasticity.

Pat’s “November Hat,” knit with KW Germantown in Persian Red.

Thanks so much to Pat, Cassie, Beth, and Emily for sharing their HYS Hat Club projects with us! If you’d like to join the HYS Hat Club for Quarter 2, starting in January, keep an eye out – we’ll be announcing the signup period early in December.

Wishing everyone a happy Thanksgiving! We know it will be a very different holiday this year for most of us; hope it finds you safe and sound, with time for stitching.

New colors in Berroco Ultra Wool.

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We recently got a big bundle of new colors from Berroco in yarns across their line of machine-washable wools – Ultra Wool DK, Ultra Wool (worsted weight), and Ultra Wool Chunky. Today, I’m sharing new colors, project ideas, and color combinations in the worsted weight Ultra Wool – let’s take a look!

Berroco Ultra Wool:

  • worsted weight
  • 100% superwash wool
  • 219 yards/100g
  • $12 each

These pastels fill out the already large Ultra Wool color selection, and makes for rich color combinations.

Here are some two-color projects for worsted weight yarn:

The colors above are a snapshot of what we have on hand right now, but it changes from day to day; Berroco Ultra Wool comes in over 80 colors, which you can see on the Berroco website. If there’s a color you’d like that you don’t see in our photos here, ask us and we may be able to order it for you!

Order online for local pickup or shipping, and keep an eye out for an upcoming post on Ultra Wool Chunky!

Washted + Rios + Nightshift!

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Our recent Malabrigo Rios restock has us thinking about Andrea Mowry’s “Nightshift” again, that popular slip stitch shawl that still seems to be on everyone’s needles. We’ve seen several knitters make it using Rios and Washted, another Malabrigo yarn.

Malabrigo Washted:

  • worsted weight
  • single ply
  • hand-dyed
  • 100% superwash merino
  • 210 yards/100g
  • $16 each

Flashback to Pam’s “Nightshift” in progress – look closely and you can see she’s used both plied and single ply yarns.

The combination of plied Rios and single ply Washted makes for intriguing texture along with exciting color – here are a couple of ideas!

Order online if one of these colorways sparks your curiosity, or if you’d like to see a special combination just for you! We’re happy to help you plan your next project, and can ship your order or hold it here at the shop for local pickup.

Malabrigo Rios is here!

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Malabrigo Rios is back in stock! We recently received a big box of some of our favorite colors, along with a couple we hadn’t seen before. The photos below show every color we have on our shelf right now, but place your orders quickly if there’s something here you’re interested in – Rios is one of the most popular yarns at our shop, and it sells fast!

Malabrigo Rios:

  • worsted weight
  • hand-dyed in variegated and semi-solid colorways
  • 100% superwash merino wool
  • 210 yards/100g
  • $16 each

Lisa Hannes is an avid designer of shawls, and I noticed two in her portfolio that recommend Malabrigo Rios – “Interlude” and “Ice Cream Shawl.” I’ve put together some color combinations with these shawls in mind, though there are so many other possibilities!

Order online if one of these colorways sparks your curiosity, or if you’d like to see a special combination just for you! We’re happy to help you plan your next project, and can ship your order or hold it here at the shop for local pickup. Thanks for all your support through our temporary closure!

Wooly Worsted + Yipes Stripes Cowl.

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Along with our recent Ewe Ewe Sporty restock, we also replenished our supply of Wooly Worsted. This plush worsted weight superwash merino is a staple here at our shop, whether for baby blankets, children’s sweaters, or accessories for all ages.

Ewe Ewe Wooly Worsted:

  • worsted weight
  • solid colors
  • 100% superwash merino
  • 95 yards/50 g
  • $10 each

Anne has used Wooly Worsted many times – here’s her “Yipes Stripes Cowl,” designed by Ann Weaver.

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. All these ways of playing with color make for an engaging knit. Want to make a “Yipes Stripes Cowl” of your own? Here are some colorways to choose from!

Order online if one of these colorways sparks your curiosity, or if you’d like to see a special combination just for you! We’re happy to help you plan your next project, and can ship your order or hold it here at the shop for local pickup. Thanks for all your support through our temporary closure!

Rios + Nightshift!

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Malabrigo Rios is back in stock! We received this colorful bundle today after a long delay and couldn’t be happier to see it.

Malabrigo Rios is a hand-dyed, worsted weight, superwash merino wool, and it’s one of the most popular yarns at our shop. Each 100 g skein has 210 yards and costs $15.40, and its versatility means we’ve seen it used for sweaters, hats, shawls, socks, capes, blankets, cowls, scarves, mittens, and more. Recently, Andrea Mowry’s “Nightshift” has been a popular use for Rios, so I thought I’d make up some “Nightshift” colorways!

I named these five combinations with the concept of “shifting” in mind, thinking of the way the colors change as they interact with one another, but also thinking more abstractly about change itself.

Order online if one of these colorways sparks your curiosity, or if you’d like to see a special combination just for you! We’re happy to help you plan your next project, and can ship your order or hold it here at the shop for local pickup. Thanks for all your support through our temporary closure!

Sale of the Week: Kelbourne Woolens Germantown!

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Though we’re keeping our doors closed during May, we’re still virtually open for mail orders, and we want to offer something fun during this uncertain time. Throughout May, we’ll have a special sale each week – 15% off a featured yarn, our Sale of the Week!

Our next Sale of the Week is 15% off Kelbourne Woolens Germantown, from May 8 – 14!

Germantown is a yarn with a story to tell, a recreation of a classic wool that had been produced in Germantown, Pennsylvania, under a few different brand names since the mid-to-late 19th century. In this current form, Germantown is a worsted spun yarn with a smooth texture, soft hand, and nice elasticity, composed of 100% North American wool.

The Kelbourne Woolens team see this yarn as a classic basic wool for beginners as well as more advanced stitchers – easy to work with, with good stitch definition, but at a reasonable price for a domestically-produced yarn of this quality. At full price, it’s $14 per skein, and at 15% off, it’s $11.90 per skein.

Each skein is 220 yards, enough for a hat, and the folks at Kelbourne Woolens have designed one for every month of the year. Even better, every one of these patterns is free to download from Ravelry – look there for “January,” “February,” “March,” “April,” “May,” “June,” “July,” “August,” “September,” “October,” “November,” and “December.” This collection shows Germantown’s versatility in a variety of techniques, from ribbing and texture to cables and lace to stripes and colorwork.

“February Hat,” by Kate Gagnon Osborn. 

“April Hat,” by Courtney Kelley.

Get in touch with us by May 14 to get 15% off Kelbourne Woolens Germantown – thanks so much for continuing to support our small business!

“August Hat,” by Sarah Solomon.

“January Hat,” by Courtney Kelley.

Just a reminder–all sales are final on discounted items; there can be no exchanges or returns. Thanks!