Frontier Fiber Mill is my favorite yarn company, hands down. This small company is own by Lisa Gilman & Michael Rheinheimerf, who own an alpaca farm in
The alpaca yarn is beautiful, amazingly soft, wonderful to work with, and the best thing about the yarn is that it’s all natural - no dyes, no nothing. Who knew natural alpaca fiber came in so many gorgeous color variations? In addition to solids, Lisa and Mike expand our selection by combining various colors to create brindles and tweeds.
This scarf in progress is used with the sportweight in a pretty tan. This easy pattern, called the overlay stitch, is from Barbara Abbey’s Complete Book of Knitting. As I was knitting, it became very apparent that the sides were curling much more than anticipated.
I don’t want curl.
So my plan is to duplicate the backside with the same pattern and attach the pieces together as I knit along (i.e., pick up stitches with each row) rather than seaming two completed pieces together. The scarf will, thus in a sense, be a flat tube - but a very warm flat tube.
Knitty has two wonderful patterns that we’ve knitted up for display in the shop. We are also offering classes on how to knit them. Both are fantastic introductory projects.
The first is Quant, knitted in Rowan Tapestry, and is a great beginning project for knitting entrelac. Tapestry, because of its variegated quality, is perfect for this basketweave design.
The second is the Ice Queen, knitted in Rowan Kidsilk Haze and is speckled with pretty beads. You can’t see them, but they’re there (I promise you). The lace pattern is quite easy and uses only ball of the kidsilk haze. We’re told by Rosemary, the designer, that she tried to use as much of the ball as permitted. What a gorgeous piece she created, eh?!
