Handpainted Yarn Mania!

My name is Bridget and I am a handpainted yarn addict. When I see the colors that these dyers create, I get chills down my spine and I must have them now. I have probably used this same logic to enable you: if you see a color you love, you need to get it now because the next dye lot will probably be wildly different. Here are just a few of my favorite color magicians:

Malabrigo:

Take a squishy soft merino wool base, then apply vibrant colors that knit up into a wild mish-mash of delightful color and just try to keep it off my needles. Just try. Rios is their superwash and it's perfectly lovely and my pick for baby knits but my heart belongs to Worsted--it's a single-ply, lofty and squishable.

Wild Hare Fiber Studio:

My love for Wild Hare is not just because Melissa, the owner/dyer, is so much fun to work with and understands us so well. It's because she creates these fantastic color combinations (animal prints, even!) on yarn that feels nice on the hands and works up into a wonderfully soft and drapey fabric. But also, she gets us--Melissa created yarn for me inspired by Firefly, one of my favorite sci-fi shows, based on some images and my obsessive colored pencil shadings.

Gotta love someone who gets you!

 Dragonfly Fibers:

Dragonfly does these marvelously deep colors and then dusts over many of them with this smokey  haze of black. I find that the haze doesn't hide their intensity but draws it out in those little portions where it peeks through. We have two of their fingering weight bases, Djinni Sock and Pixie Skein--Djinni is fabulous for socks and single ply Pixie is awesome for shawls.

Freia:

Smooth, beautiful handpainted gradients on lovely wool base yarns. Freia is my absolute go-to yarn for Stephen West's Spectra--I made mine using the lovely single ply Sport with Lorna's Laces Sportmate and I adore it.

Three Irish Girls:

 I'm an Irish girl so it only makes sense that I'd be partial to other Irish girls, especially the yarny ones. I love their color combinations and the distribution of those colors. Ordering from them and staying within budget is one of the hardest parts of my job (and yet still one of the most pleasurable). Plus, they do a lot of really fantastic exclusive colors for us.

There are so many really amazing hand-dyers out there and I love discovering them (or having them brought to my attention). To ring in my first guest blog here in true StevenBe-meets-DrawFour fashion, I'm doing a giveaway! Hurrah!

Enter to win the two squishy skeins of Malabrigo Worsted in exclusive Steven by commenting here and answering this question: if you were a handpainted yarn, what colors would you be? (Imaginary bonus points if you tell me your fiber content, too.) The winner will be chosen by random number generator on Sunday the 15th!

Bridget (DrawFour Designs) signing out!

Show and Tell: Radiance Shawlette

Bonnie (Bonicita on Ravelry) made a Radiance Shawlette using 1 skein of lovely, bright Knitwhits Freia Handpaints Freia Ombré Sport.

She had this to say about it.

I think my favorite thing about this project was watching the colors change. I really loved working with the Freia Fibers and can’t wait to do another project with this yarn. The pattern itself is very simple and easy to follow and was very nicely written. I love those one skein wonders and this one certainly did not disappoint.

I suppose my one bit of advice is that if you use the Freia Ombré like the pattern suggests, trust the yarn! You will think you’re going to run out but you won’t! Assuming you’ve followed gauge :)

Also, you have to block this project -- there’s just no way around it.

Gorgeous, Bonnie! Thanks for sharing.

The photo is from Bonnie's Ravelry page, and is used with her permission.

Want to share your story? Email me at jessie at stevenbe dot com.

Want to buy something you read about here? Call us! 612-259-7525.

Show and Tell: Kari Cowl

Annette Wright (annette414 on Ravelry) used two skeins of Knitwhits Freia Handpaints Freia Flux Worsted to make a lovely Kari Cowl by Tina Whitmore.

This is what she had to say about it. 

My favorite part of knitting the project - it went incredibly fast and the pattern was very easy to memorize. Knitting is my “second” hobby (I spend more time cross stitching), so I tend to go for patterns that are impressive to look at, but deceptively easy to complete ;) This one fit the bill very nicely.

Advice: While the Freia yarn is wonderful to work with, I found it ran just a couple rows short of the pattern. It still turned out quite well and I will definitely use it again! I do plan to make another version of the cowl, just haven’t decided on the color yet.

You can read more about Annette on her blog. Thanks for sharing, Annette! Photos are from Annette's Ravelry page, and are used with her permission.

Want to share your story? Email me at jessie at stevenbe dot com.

Want to buy something you read about here? Call us! 612-259-7525.

Show and Tell: PB&J Cowl

Today, our show-and-tell chat is with Lara Neel, who stopped by to see us in June!

Jessie: What inspired you to tackle this project?

Lara: When I saw the Hello Purl batts lined up in a neat little cubby at StevenBe, I thought of my mother immediately. Like my mom, these batts had a lot of interesting elements and a little sparkle, too. So, even though I was just a beginning spinner, I took a chance and brought one home. My mom’s favorite color is purple, so I chose the PB&J batt.

The batt, split up and ready to spin.

Jessie: How long had you been spinning at that time?

Lara: About 3 months! I should have been nervous, I guess, but the batt was made so beautifully, I had no trouble at all. It spun up really easily. I just tore off strips from the batt, predrafted them a little, and spun them. I designed the cowl to knit out of it because I wanted to really show off the yarn, but also make something that wasn’t too boring. I made a cowl and called it the PB&J cowl, after the batt.

Singles.

Jessie: How did you end up with your design in the Ennea Collective?

Lara: I had been reading The Ennea Collective blog for a little while, and I had emailed them about design submissions. They answered that they liked distributing knitting designs, but they LOVED them if they also included handspun yarn. I had already knit up the cowl, and had written a pattern, so I photographed it and sent them a submission.

I was so excited when they said they wanted to publish the pattern! I think it’s a really fun one that could work in a lot of different yarns, and is easy (but doesn’t look TOO easy).

Jessie:
Well, I think it’s really cute! Can people still buy the pattern?

Lara: Yes. You can buy it from the Ennea Collective or on Ravelry.

Thanks for that, Lara! It’s really lovely work.

We still have a few batts, but, if you don’t have the time or patience to spin, any yarn that knits up at 4 stitches per inch on #10 needles will work for the cowl. You only need about 141 yards (128 meters) of worsted or heavy worsted weight yarn.

Cascade 128 Superwash would work well. It comes in tons of colors, too. Plus, it's machine-washable! You might be able to squeeze a cowl out of just one skein, but it would be safer if you had two skeins.

Malabrigo Rios could work, although your cowl would probably end up being slightly more narrow, because the gauge on it is closer to 4.5 stitches per inch.

Or, you could use three skeins of Freia Ombré Sport, held three strands together. Freia Flux Sport is a multicolored, handpainted, striping yarn of 100% wool. Each ball starts and ends with the same color. The long color changes would probably produce some really fun shifts as you knit the cowl.

For a slightly larger version, you could use Misti Alpaca Chunky or Hand Paint Chunky. You might need two skeins to get a good-sized cowl, but the baby alpaca would be so cushy!

Lara produces a blog and podcast at journalgazette.net/craftyliving and you can find her on Ravelry as math4knitters. Her podcast is called Math4Knitters, Crafty Living, and you can get it, for free, on iTunes. All photos in this post are hers.

Want to share your story? Email me at jessie at stevenbe dot com.

Want to buy something you read about here? Call us! 612-259-7525.

Show and Tell: Shades of Happy

Diana, (dianalynn on Ravelry) made a wonderful Baktus Scarf for herself with 3 skeins of Freia Flux Sport for a project she called Shades of Happy.

She had this to say about it:

“This was the first time I used Freia Flux Sport. I particularly like the color I chose and the way the yarn is wound in a ball. Unlike Noro, all colors are visible in the ball. The yarn is on the rough side; but after a good soak, it softens and makes a comfortable scarf.”

Thanks, Diana! We love what you knit!

(Photos are used from Diana's Ravelry site, with her permission.)

Want to share your story? Email me at jessie at stevenbe dot com.

Do you want to try out Freia Flux Sport? Call us up! 612-259-7525.