Sometimes a yarn company sales rep visits months before the yarn actually arrives. Only rarely can a rep leave us a sample, so I take pictures of the yarns we order. As we see one rep after another, the photos help us “curate” our collection for the upcoming season. Back in April, we saw Urth Yarns for the first time. I did take pictures, but it has been impossible get these amazing hand-dyed yarns out of our minds. We knew we had to bring in Urth first for Fall/Winter 2018.
Swatches showed us what the colorways of their self-striping 100% extrafine Merino Uneek Fingering would look like knit up.
A ring of mini skeins made it easy to pick shades of their Harvest Fingering, also 100% extrafine Merino, dyed with natural plant-derived dyes.
Then the sales rep showed us a knit sample of Uneek Fingering and Harvest Fingering used together: the Butterfly/Papillon* shawl by Marin Melchior.
Oh. My. Love at first sight. A closer look…
A show stopper, right? It has KAL written all over it, and I’m so excited to invite you to cast on for your very own Butterfly/Papillon next month with our KAL, which will be both in-store and online in our Ravelry Group. There will be lots of tips, explanations, and pictures. (Shawl shown was made with Uneek #3012 and Harvest in Indigo.)
And, drum roll, please… our Urth order has just arrived!
In addition to fingering weights of Uneek and Harvest, we brought in Uneek Worsted (imagine the hats and cowls!), a silk and Merino laceweight called Coexist, and the cutest Uneek Sock Kits (75% extrafine Merino/25% nylon), pre-wound cakes that make matching self-striping socks.
I will be taking more pictures as we unpack and put the Urth Yarns out on shelves, but I couldn’t wait to share the good news with you that they were here.
ALSO JUST ARRIVED: our favorite Paca Peds HT sock bundles from Alpaca Yarn Company. You get 100g of one shade of alpaca/wool/nylon blend sock yarn for the foot and 25g of a complementary color for the heel and toe – a whopping 550 yards total. These never last long, and no two are alike, so visit soon for the best color selection.
Ready for some finished projects? The first two both use the same yarn, Wonderland Yarns Mary Ann. Gina took the Stripes and Swaths Shawl* by Stephanie Shiman and – no surprise! – gave it her very own fun and creative “twist.”
Suzanne’s color my stripes*, using Mary Ann for the background and mini skeins from a Sweet Georgia Party of Five set for the stripes, is stunning. We love this pattern from Lori Versaci and really love Suzanne’s colors!
If you read my recent post about wanting to finish up a few WIPs before settling in with Andrea Mowry’s The Weekender* and some Fibre Company Luma, here’s a gallery of what I’ve been able to (finally) get off my needles:
The sample for my class for the Log Cabin Mitts from Fringe Association could be finished once they were no longer needed to demo the anatomy of log cabin knitting. This is a great pattern for using up scraps of worsted weight. I used leftovers of two shades of Malabrigo Rios and a madelinetosh Tosh DK. The pattern is free on Ravelry.
I based the cabled scarf below on the free pattern Graphic Design Scarf by miinemost on Ravelry. I changed the width to use 2 balls of Berroco Ultra Wool and worked the cast-on/bind-off edges differently. My adaptations will be ready to share here on the blog on July 15.
Before washing and blocking, it looks nothing like what it will become.
Which is, I think, pretty awesome!
(And did I mention Ultra Wool is next-to-skin soft and machine washable?)
Then I cast off my Vertices Unite* from Stephen West. Ohmygosh, I loved making this! I will be teaching a class on it in the fall, and you can learn Mr. West’s special techniques for joining colors in the style of patchwork piecing.
Get comfy; I got a little carried away taking pictures of it. But I do think it’s helpful to see how the “pieces” fit together when it comes time to pick colors for this shawl. My yarn is Isager Alpaca 2, a 50% wool/50% alpaca blend made in heaven.
Now there are just two more WIPs between me and The Weekender: a second Gooseberry Hat from Suvi Simola and my Match & Move* from Martina Behm (pictured below) in madelinetosh Merino Light that I started last August. I am determined they WILL be finished before the end of the month, and then I can get going on my Andrea Mowry sweater.
Note: Patterns marked with an asterisk (*) are available at Gosh Yarn It!