close knit: the neighborhood yarn shop


Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Extra Slouch

I told you about Sally's blue hat back in December. Well the Extra Slouch is all done and in the shop! And they aren't kidding about the slouch. Or the extra. This is a loosey goosey cozy hat, my friends. Perfect for hiding in, if that's your sort of thing. 
It's my kind of thing, so now I want to make one. And the Blue Sky Alpacas Extra is soft and squishy like none other. I love this Atlantic Blue, but all of the colors are really quite lovely.
We also have a few Lilly Brushes left. This was our stock on Monday, but they have been selling like hotcakes!

Monday, January 26, 2015

Speckle Socks

Check out the Plymouth Happy Feet 100 Splash. This will be the last installment of the speckle series. I love them all dearly, and I have not been able to decide which one I want to be mine. Probably the Autumn in the middle again, but that Crayon looks good, too. Blue Oreo is also great. Decisions!!

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Kureopatora

I walked in on Monday to this lovely mountain of Noro!
Please welcome Noro Kureopatora to the shop. Apparently this is a reissue of a yarn from the 1980's, but in a lighter weight and fresher colors. It looks to be a light worsted/DK weight, knitting up around 5-5.5 stitches per inch. Each one of these balls is 295 yards, which is a lot of yarn for Noro, and the price is very reasonable.





There is a free pattern book, available with the purchase of the yarn. I love the styling of this book. It reminds me of the Japanese sewing books that are so crazy popular. There are several woven scarves, too, which you don't see as often. And knitted shorts, of course.

This yarn would be perfect for the Noro Striped Scarf, written up by Jared Flood. Take a look at this gorgeous one! Just two balls would be plenty. I was looking for an excuse to take some of these home, and now I have one! Which colors, though...

Friday, January 16, 2015

Fresh Malabrigo

There is some fresh Malabrigo on the shelves, including a restock of Merino Worsted and Rios. But the Sock. It gets me every time, so colorful and lined up nicely.
These always fly off the shelves. I don't even really knit socks, and I still can't stop myself from loving this. Come and get it!

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

More Speckles

So, last week we talked about the chunky speckled yarn from Plymouth. I am currently lusting over the Worsted Merino Superwash version, as were several knitters who stopped by the shop today. 
Sally used our basic slouchy hat pattern to create this fabulous hat. The pattern is free at the shop with the purchase of the yarn. She knit it with the knit side out, and then decided she liked the reverse stockinette side better, so she flipped it.
I like both sides, but I agree that the reverse side is quite nice.

The Autumn colorway that she used is my favorite. 
We recently received Blue Oreo as well, but I didn't get a photo yet. It's a close second, for sure. These lovely colorways are Blueberry, Lipstick, and Crayon. I love them all, to be honest.


I was thinking about making my own hat using Autumn and this lovely brown for the ribbing.
I'll probably end up needed to get another skein of Autumn to make a scarf to go with. Excuses, excuses. I just want it.

Friday, January 9, 2015

Speckled

Lisa knit a speckled pom pom creation with some of the most unusual and intriguing yarn I've seen in a long time. She used just one skein of the Plymouth Baby Alpaca Grande Hand Dye to make her cute hat.
These new colorways from Plymouth look so unusual in the skein, but they knit up so nicely! The colors look almost splotchy against the neutral background, but they look so cool when the yarn is worked up. They have stockinette swatches available to view on the Plymouth website if you want to see for yourself.
Lisa has made the hat available as a shop freebie with the purchase of the yarn, so please ask us when you come in for your yarn. This is the chunkiest weight that Plymouth is offering in these colorways, and we are stocking the worsted and sock as well. I'll show you photos of those as soon as I have safely procured my skeins. I am slightly obsessed with them.

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Hats!

Aaaaand, we're back! Let's knit some hats, shall we? This one looks fabulous!
Our friend Kirsten made the Let it Snow hat with one skein of the lofty and lovely Tahki Montana.
For a super bulky yarn, this stuff is light as a feather. It reminds me of roving actually, it's so lightly spun. But it makes for a gorgeous cable and an epic pom pom. Free pattern, fabulous yarn, warm head. Yes, please!