Join us December 5th, 6th, and 7th for Christmas in Bethlehem! We’ll be having a Gnome Scavenger Hunt with participating businesses–thank you Casey Kristoff for loaning us your collection! Friday night, participating shops are open until 8:00 for Light Up Bethlehem, with sales and goodies. Love.Yarn.Shop. will be making Christmas cards with you on Saturday afternoon and you can make us a stop in your fun-filled afternoon and evening. Make Bethlehem your destination this holiday season!
Probably many of the knitters who participate in the Great Northern Yarn Haul, both shop owners and customers, don’t know that it began at Love Yarn Shop and not be me, the owner, but by a customer, Jane Dickerman. She had the idea that we should have a yarn hop along route 302, the east/west corridor across Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. I visited shops to promote the idea and it was born—10 years ago. The second year, Jennifer Arbuckle from Must Love Yarn volunteered to spearhead it and she has done a stellar job ever since. Supporting other yarn shops, small sheep farmers, local dyers, fiber artists, is important because we are a community that thrives when we gather together. There is nothing I love more than a fiber festival, granted I am in the grandstands watching the sheepherding skills and savoring the lamb stew more than looking at fabulous yarns, but I do that also.
This Friday, we will celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Great Northern Yarn Haul. We will check out yarns to replace yarns from two American companies who have recently closed: Kraemer Yarns of Pennsylvania and Jaggerspun of Springvale, Maine. We will have custom designed LYS stitch markers from Paula Bishop and I will make GNYH 10th anniversary pins.
We will gather together from 5-7 with good company, good food, good fiber. Please join us.
Let’s Knit this Weekend! Yarn Tasting–Friday the 13th and World Wide Knit in Public Day–Saturday the 14th!
Elizabeth Zimmerman writes, “Let’s make them in May.” Though May has slipped by, we will be discussing “Mittens for Next Winter” from her Knitter’s Almanac at 3:00, just before the Yarn Tasting. In this delightful chapter, she encourages us to make mittens for Christmas now, “Large projects may lie heavy and warm on the lap, but small things like mittens and socks are easy to carry about outdoors, and can be made surprisingly fast.” She discusses how our preferences for colors are often associated with experiences: “For years I loathed purple because it was the color of a droopy and voluminous hand-me-down.” I look forward to a lively discussion with you and hope to share our color preferences and reasons for them. We will have a free Berroco mitten pattern for you. Bring your small project!
At 5:00, we will have our 2nd Friday of the Month Yarn Tasting and this time, we will be trying out a yarn—not a new one to many—but one that may replace our beloved Kraemer and Jaggerspun yarns—Berroco. As you may know, this is a departure from the American-made yarns I have curated over the past 10 years, but once a superwash and superwash/acrylic blend replacement has been found, I am motivated to expand my collection to some of the smaller dye-houses which customers have suggested.
Saturday is World Wide Knit in Public Day! Rain or shine, we will be knitting together, sharing stories, and continuing our discussions about color preferences and mitten construction. Bring your project! Bring a snack to share! Should we have a scone bake-off? See you this weekend!
Come wring hands with us over the closing of Kraemer, close on the heels of Jaggerspun, and brainstorm for the future! Yarn Tasting this Friday, 20% off Kraemer and Jaggerspun–our two old friends. With what will we replace our main acrylic/superwash blends? What do you wish to see on the shelves? Be part of the discussion. 5-7 Nibbles and sips. At 3:00 we’ll be discussing Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Knitter’s Almanac, chapter 3. Join us!
So what is the buzz? The decline of the wool industry has hit Love.Yarn.Shop. hard recently. In February, Jaggerspun of Maine closed their doors and at the end of this month, Kraemer of Pennsylvania will no longer be producing yarn. If you know our shelves, you know that is all our acrylic/wool blends and super wash that is sourced from American wool. All others come from other countries.
When I started up LYS, I had to make a decision about how I was going to curate my yarn. I only had 500 square feet and I wanted to put up some parameters for myself, so I chose to concentrate on American wool. There are a lot of American wools, but the majority (if not all now?) are not super wash, and many people want super wash for clothing and items that they can throw in the washing machine, maybe even throw in the dryer, and not worry about shrinkage. Many charity projects require it! The super wash process has been controversial—chlorine-bleached and then plastic-coated wool. You can read up on the super wash process here.
Needless to say, we have our homework cut out for us. Most super wash is produced in Turkey, UK, Peru, China, and India. Chargeurs (French-owned as name indicates) in Jamestown, North Carolina, is the only remaining super wash facility in the US. In 2011, Congress mandated that all military clothing be produced in the USA and the military is a major contract with Chargeurs, as well as Kraemer (that part of their facility is also in danger of closure.)
We can’t save an industry, but we will keep providing quality yarn to our knitting and crocheting community! Come join us for discussion or email us your thoughts.
“Once upon a time there was an old woman who loved to knit. She lived with her Old Man in the middle of a woods in a curious one-room schoolhouse which was rather untidy, and full of wool.
Every so often as she sat knitting by the warm iron stove or under the dappled shade of the black birch, as the season might dictate, she would call out to her husband: ‘Darling, I have unvented something,’ and would then go on to fill his patient ears with enthusiastic but highly unintelligible and esoteric gabble about knitting.
At last one day he said, ‘Darling, you ought to write a book.
‘Old man,’ she said, ‘I think I will.’ So she did.”
Thus begins Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Knitter’s Almanac: Projects for Each Month of the Year, a delightful and quirky book about knitting. We will be having a book discussion the second Friday of each month (before Yarn Tasting) from 3-4:30, starting this February with her first chapter “An Aran Sweater.”
I have six copies for $7.95 at the shop, but you can probably pick a copy up at the library or even off your own shelves.
Up on the countertop, colorful balls.
One project after another calls:
Hats, scarves, socks, sweaters, even toys–
All for the dearest ones’ Christmas joys.
Who would know?
(Row after row) Who would know?
Up on the countertop, click, click, click,
Another project—finish it quick.
First comes the stocking, now a smaller one.
Then a pair of crew socks nearly done.
Might wrap that sweater as a vest with no arms.
And making that scarf a cowl does no harm.
Who would know?
(Row after row) Who would know?
Up on the countertop, click, click, click
Another project—finish it quick.
Paula Herbert, Christmas Parody for 2024
Many knitters have been admiring the work of Victoria Hust, and now can purchase her Connections Cowl on Ravelry. Victoria has been working with Jaggerspun Kokadjo, only to discover that the mill in Maine is closing. Some of our favorite yarns in the shop–Berwick Bulky, Mousam Falls, and Kokadjo–will soon be unavailable. However, she has also been using Dirty Water Dye Works out of Boston, which is a beautiful hand-dye and we will make sure to keep those stocked up for your projects.
Love.Yarn.Shop. 