HRYC

All too often on the blog i'm exclaiming about the yarns we stock from all around the world. One local yarn may be a humble price in comparison to the others, but we are having a love affair with it. Who better to talk about this adoration than you, our lovely customers? 

Vintage DK is entirely processed right here in NZ, and we're lucky to be one of very few stores to have it on the shelves. This yarn is so popular in-store that we don't sell it online, however we are most happy to take email orders.

Thanks so much to Vanessa for this beautifully thought-out post. 

aaahhh Vintage…

Vintage. I have knitted nearly everything with it. So plump, so soft, so versatile – I could wax lyrical for quite some time.

So I will.

Back in the very early 1980’s, I was inducted into that special club that most of my friends were - the one where Nana teaches you to knit a misshapen scarf with yarn that burned your fingers with the acrylic content as you had your tension so tight; your hands would sweat and your tongue was poised in the oh so attractive concentration mode and you buried every ounce of time into that thing until your mum rescued you and took you to the movies to see ET. I must have been 7.

I didn’t pick the sticks up again until I was pregnant with my third (what a waste of baby knitting opportunity). Here’s where my totally normal and harmless addiction started. Anyway, I joined Ravelry; ditched the straight needles in favour of circulars and was soon burning through so much wool it was getting a bit.. well, ridiculous. This wool was matched to my budget – nearly always wool, but always $5.00 and under while I was taking a break from working full time. I started searching for an alternative to the dreaded Spotlight trips with 2 tiny and packed-with-hideous-potential boy children.

I found Skeinz online. I spent a lot of time browsing the yarn, and ordered a pile of it to try. In that pile, I got 6 balls of Vintage in ‘Cadet’. Said yarn arrived. Love ensued. I cast it on straight after the package arrived, and never had I enjoyed the process so much. That thing was finished in just a few days.

I ordered more. And visited the Skeinz store in person. Picked up balls of it when at the HRYC on a Wellington visit. Felt guilty when looking in my stash at all the unloved other wool in there. Knitted some unloved stuff up so I could buy more Vintage. Tried an overseas yarn that everyone raved about and wasn’t in raptures like everyone else- for the press it had got, I was expecting yarn twice as soft as Vintage, since it was more than twice the price. Not even.

So, what’s it made of? It’s soft as some merino in my opinion. No other yarn comes as close for me (I love the way it looks but I’m a tactile person – and I don’t love machine washable yarn in its squeaky, stretchy and to me, polystereny handle, or the really rough, sheepier, scratchier stuff). The colours are bang on – softer and more sepia than most. I’ve gifted it. Made many, many clothes for my 3 boys from it. Hats and scarves and even finished a ‘Rocky Coast’ in it for me – that is being worn to death.

(looking gorgeous, Vanessa!)

So what’s next? Shall I get all exotic and try more overseas yarns now I’m back at work full time with a legitimate budget for yarn? Shall I jump out of my comfort zone and go for some of those brighter, clearer superwash dye jobs that look so pretty in other peoples projects? Or shall I pester Skeinz until they do a fingering and a sport range of Vintage in some greenish blues and marled greys? I’d be absolutely sorted then. So, whoever the tactile angel is who is in charge of making that fleece so gorgeously strokable and knittable; the visual artist who makes those vivid but muted colours that are so perfect to my eye – thank you. Keep on doing it!

All too often on the blog i'm exclaiming about the yarns we stock from all around the world. One local yarn may be a humble price in comparison to the others, but we are having a love affair with it. Who better to talk about this adoration than you, our lovely customers? 

Vintage DK is entirely processed right here in NZ, and we're lucky to be one of very few stores to have it on the shelves. This yarn is so popular in-store that we don't sell it online, however we are most happy to take email orders.

In the second of a series this week, here's Lisa very appropriately referencing vintage culture alongside Vintage DK.

TV ads, magazine spreads, Miuccia Prada ... These days everything and everyone is referencing vintage.

It's shorthand for cute, quirky, and cool. And now Skeinz has made it even more so, with its oh so covetable Vintage Premium NZ DK.

Instagram has taught us to delight in the art of the lo-fi  transformation. We take photos on our phones of our 21st century lives,  saturate them with a mid-century vibe, and revisit our childhoods.  It's a little like time travel.

Maybe that's why I'm so besotted with Vintage yarn.

It's partly the weight. The stitch definition is outstanding, and it's so springy to knit with.

But mainly it's the colours. They are DELICIOUS. Like Hipstamatic gelato. Only you don't need a filter.

Picture, if you will, sugared almonds, Nigella's sweaters, the original Tupperware your nana packed for picnics, and the faded covers of 1950's schoolgirl annuals.

I so badly wanted to be one of those girls in their red blazers. Sassy, intelligent, most probably uncovering a secret spy ring.

Now I can be, in my jaunty carmine beret.

Now, what to make with it next...?

All too often on the blog i'm exclaiming about the yarns we stock from all around the world. One local yarn may be a humble price in comparison to the others, but we are having a love affair with it. Who better to talk about this adoration than you, our lovely customers? 

Vintage DK is entirely processed right here in NZ, and we're lucky to be one of very few stores to have it on the shelves. This yarn is so popular in-store that we don't sell it online, however we are most happy to take email orders.

In the first of a series this week, here's Bridget talking about her introduction to this most beautiful of yarns.

A new knitter with instructions in hand visited HRYC to pick up some yarn to learn with. As she got distracted by all the yarn, Tash steered her towards a yarn called Vintage, cute colours, good price, this beginner knitter was sold! 

A couple of scarves later this not-so-beginner knitter graduated to a baby cardigan, with the added pressure of gifting the cardi. For this the knitter turned again to Vintage.  A great unisex suitable colour, not splitty, blocks great, feels nice in the hand and isn't slippy. And the end result is a gift-able cardigan! A knitter rejoices! 

The knitter then revisited her first yarn hobby and took Sofia's amigurumi class, with more Vintage. With a nice full look, great colours and a good feeling on my crochet hook, mint slice ninja bunny was born.

But all of these are small projects, and this knitter/crocheter needed something a bit more... Epic. And so the ripple blanket was planned.  In vintage of course, and the crochet blankets group provided the committee decision on colours and I was away! 

With the progress on this crocheters blanket moving along, I'm even more in love with vintage! 

So is there anything vintage can't do? A times it can be difficult to get some colours, which is frustrating but not the end of the world.  

All in all, this knitter sees a lot more vintage in her future.

In vibrant, beauteous colour, Lorna's Laces is once again gracing our shelves. It's like a unicorn threw up everywhere. The perfect yarn for happy happy happy socks, Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock is 80% superwash merino, 20% nylon. 

I think these shiny rainbow skeins would lend themselves perfectly to super simple socks, or a nice garter stitch something or other. 

How do I feel about Lorna's Laces?

Yep. 

(I'm a bit obsessed with Despicable Me 2, it's the best giggle-out-loud fun movie i've seen in ages)

Here are just a few of the pretties. The best part? They're all up online too!

Hooray!

This morning I had a bit of a surprise - tweets from friends exclaiming over the news that Margaret Stove had designed the shawl that was presented as New Zealand's official gift to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge for the birth of their first baby.

Having absolutely no idea what was going on, and assuming the Prime Minister had maybe got a bit confused between shawls from the Prince William's birth, I rang Grandma. 

One bemused conversation with her later, I have the story. The most hilarious (because all I can do is laugh about it) is that she specifically asked if she could tell me, so I could be sure to have copies of her book in stock, and she was flatly told that she couldn't. 

Anyway, here's the info:

Margaret was commissioned to design, spin and knit a shawl for the event of Prince William's birth in 1982. A special request from the High Country Breeders of Merino sheep, the shawl took nearly 400 hours of work and was a purely original design, inspired by traditional Maori design and native New Zealand flora.

Image courtesy of the Christchurch Star

There is an excellent article, written by Margaret, in the Summer 2013 issue of Spin Off magazine. It details the fascinating process of creating the shawl. 

Anyway, the official gift given by the New Zealand government to the new parents today was hand spun and knit by Cynthia Read of Cambridge. I was lucky enough to meet Cynthia at the Creative Fibre Festival in April but had no idea why it was she wanted to have a nosey at our shawl samples. The design is Filmy Fern from Margaret's most recent book, Wrapped in Lace (Interweave Press 2010). It is an incredible shawl with amazing drape and from tomorrow we'll have the book sample in the shop for anyone who would like to drool over (just not on it, please, that would be gross). It is knit using Artisan Lace Gossamer, which produces wedding ring shawls - that is, a shawl that will fit through a wedding ring.

Image courtesy of Interweave

And here I was thinking i'd be able to avoid all the royal baby mayhem. Hooray babies, but let's value the people nearest and dearest to us first, yeah? We've had a very shaky few days here in Wellington and it means nerves are frayed and knitting really is the ticket for keeping worries at bay. I have even more respect for what the people of Christchuch (including Margaret) have lived through the past few years, what with sleepless nights thanks to aftershocks and the constant worry that we're yet to see our big earthquake. Thanks goodness yarn is soft and squishy and bouncy! 

I'll update this post as I get more information about the gift (and hopefully some pics!). Take care of yourselves xx

Edited to add: A great radio interview with Margaret on Newstalk ZB this morning - the link takes you directly to the clip.