Adventure Mitts

Looking for a fun, quick knit for spring? Try the new Adventure Mitts!
I wanted these mitts to be functional for any kind of adventure--leaving the fingers free to operate a bow-and-arrow, light a camp stove, put up a tent, or anything you can imagine--and also to remind the wearer of the spirit of adventure on a day-to-day basis.
These mitts were originally inspired by a trend I had noticed among younger girls--instead of all princesses and flowers, I had seen many girls wearing clothing with images of arrows, tents, canoes, and mountains. These kinds of themes are all over Pinterest, accompanied by quotes about adventure and exploring.  This also goes along with a growing interest in archery, thanks to several recent movies with archer heroines and heroes.
The pattern knits quickly and is worked in the round, with both colors carried along for the arrow section. They really are incredibly durable and will dry quickly. I get a lot of comments when I wear them in public. :)

Shown in Mountain Retreat (LL600) and Manor Grey (LL33)--but there are so many great choices in Lanaloft!

You may have already noticed that this pattern does not appear under free downloadable patterns on our website--we are having technical difficulties with editing this page. We apologize for any confusion. The good news is that you can look forward to a brand new website in the upcoming months!

For now, please find the link to download for free on Ravelry:
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/adventure-mitts-2

I would love to see your finished mitts if you decide to knit them. . . Post a picture on our Facebook page or post as a project on Ravelry!

Woven Blanket Scarves

Have you noticed the oversized, plaid scarves that seem to be everywhere lately? I admit that I'm mostly interested in fashion to the extent that I could weave, knit, or crochet something that's currently fashionable.  So of course, I had to enlist my mom's weaving expertise in creating one of these large scarves.
We wanted the scarves to be extra wide and long, but not overly hot to wear--sort of like flannel. We decided that Nature Spun Fingering would be ideal, woven at 16 ends per inch for a nice drape.

 

Nature Spun Fingering in 115 Bit of Blue, 110 Blueberry, 720 Ash, 730 Natural, 701 Stone, and 303 Sea Spray

These oversized scarves can be wrapped and worn in lots of other fun ways, too.

One of my favorite parts of any project is choosing the color scheme. I wanted the first scarf to be colorful and fun, yet neutral enough to match with anything. This color combo pairs warm neutrals with several cool blue shades.




The fringe is simply delightful.

I can only take credit for picking the colors--my mom did all the weaving on her Schacht Wolf Pup LT.  The finished scarf turned out to be about 17 inches wide and 90 inches long. I wish you could feel it--it's incredibly soft and squishy!

The next scarf has more of an earthy color scheme with an asymmetrical plaid pattern. I highly recommend checking out www.plaidmaker.com - it's rather addictive.

Scarf 2 in progress: colors are 720 Ash, 112 Elf Green, 110 Blueberry, 730 Natural, and 136 Chocolate Kisses

Warped and ready to weave!

Can't wait to wear my blanket scarf to the winter TNNA tradeshow in San Diego this week!

Beautiful finished scarf.

New Color Line-Up for Cotton and Serendipity

New color development is an ongoing process here at Brown Sheep. Our latest round of new colors are for our "spring and summer" yarns: Cotton Fleece, Cotton Fine (a blend of 80% cotton and 20% wool) and Serendipity Tweed (a newer line of yarn made with 60% cotton and 40% wool). Although I don't want to divulge any secrets, the process of selecting new shades was quite fascinating to me--basically, we try to predict which colors will be popular in the upcoming 1-2 years--something that has been extensively studied by people in the fashion industry. We try to include new colors that will appeal to women, men and children as well as coordinate nicely with the existing color palette. These colors will be available for local yarn shops to order beginning January 1:


Four new colors in Cotton Fleece and Cotton Fine: Lentil, Olive Burst, Bering Sea Blue, and Apricot Nectar

 

Garden Green in Serendipity Tweed

Also in Serendipity Tweed, Tuscan Olive and Heathered Plum

 

 Both Cotton Fleece and Serendipity Tweed knit as a DK weight or light worsted. They also go well together. One of our free downloadable patterns, the Jade Pullover, uses Serendipity tweed for the body and Cotton Fleece for the sleeves. Available here: http://www.brownsheep.com/patterns/downloadable-patterns.


Although I didn't knit this sweater, I do get a lot of compliments when I wear it!

Cotton Fleece and Fine are excellent for weaving. One of my latest projects was creating a window valance with my favorite (bright!) colors of Cotton Fleece. The yarn is very strong and great for warping.

Woven fabric in Cotton Fleece

Finished window valance

Since I'm on show-and-tell mode, I have to share another itty bitty project in Cotton Fleece: these adorable baby mitts designed by Susan B. Anderson. These were a fun little gift and a very quick knit.

Baby Mitts

The pattern for the mitts is available for free:
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/baby-mitts-2

Hopefully you feel inspired to make something with our Cotton blend yarns. . . the possibilities are endless! Look for our new colors at your LYS. :)

Have you discovered Nature Spun?

I've noticed that most Brown Sheep fans are all about Lamb's Pride. . . in fact, many knitters out there only think of Lamb's Pride when they think of Brown Sheep yarn! Don't get me wrong, I think Lamb's Pride is awesome but. . .  Nature Spun deserves more attention that it has been getting.
Nature Spun is a classic, 100% wool 3-ply yarn. The wool is U.S. grown and comes from the Front Range of Colorado and into Wyoming. All of our wool here is tested for fineness (micron count), and only the softest fibers go in to Nature Spun. Nature Spun is made in fingering, sport, worsted, and chunky weights in 80 different colors.
 Let me convey an experience I had trying to knit colorwork recently: I began the project using several colors of Superwash wool in sport weight. This was a stranded, Norwegian style hat for my husband and my first attempt at the project turned out to be too big. I decided to re-do the project with a new gauge: Nature Spun Fingering and smaller needles. Something unexpected happened on this go-around: my colorwork looked WAY better in Nature Spun! The stitches were so much more even and better defined. After some pondering I concluded that, of course, non-superwash wool is much better suited for intricate colorwork because the barbs in the wool fiber stick together better.

Here is my hat in Nature Spun Fingering, blocking. The first version of this hat ended up in Newfoundland.

So now as I progress further and further into fiber snobbishness, I realize that I much prefer knitting with natural wool fiber as opposed to superwash treated fiber. Not only do the stitches cling together better, the stiches are more forgiving if you happen to drop a stitch or make a mistake. Stitches actually stay in place rather than slipping undone, which is a major plus for a knitter who depends on being able to fix my mistakes as I go. This is especially helpful for lace or openwork styles of knitting.
There's certainly a time and place for knitting with Superwash--socks and kids come to mind. But for making an adult sweater or accessory-- Nature Spun is the way to go. Nature Spun has been making an appearance in many of the knitting magazines and publications lately.
Here is a project that is definitely on my queue. This pattern is called Polonaise by Ashwini Jambhekar.

This gorgeous sweater in Nature Spun worsted was inspired by Romantic era dresses

This comes from an online subscription-based magazine called Holla Knits! Check out their website and blog (featuring yarn giveaways!)

http://www.hollaknits.com/blog/

This site features fun patterns that are SO not frumpy! I'm having fun following this new site and I think you should check it out, too.

The Story of Jimmy Beans Wool

Our latest yarn shop highlight is Jimmy Beans Wool. Chances are, you've probably heard of this store before as they've done a great job bridging the gap between traditional yarn shop and online sales.

Jimmy Beans Wool began in 2002 as a teensy little yarn shop in the mountain town of Truckee, CA. The owners, Laura (aka Jimmy) and Doug Zander were Silicon Valley expats looking for a change of pace (and good skiing)! when they moved to Truckee in 2001.  this time, Laura learned to knit and loved it... which is how she met Lorna - owner of a local hand-dyed yarn company (Lorna’s Laces) who she built a website for. Lorna encouraged Laura to follow her true passion (knitting!) and voila! Doug and Laura emptied their savings account and Jimmy Beans Wool was born!

Laura and Doug just after we moved to the warehouse, Laura and Huck, Laura in the new retail space before the renovation, and Laura and Doug Skiing



They took their business online the following year and soon they realized they were going to need more space (they had yarn coming out of their ears…and in their guest room)! In 2004 they opened a shop in Reno, NV about 30 minutes away, and the rest is history… the Truckee store closed a year later and the Reno shop and online business has continued to grow by leaps and bounds, and in 2011, they moved to an official warehouse space. Doug continues to be the technical backbone of JBW by managing all-things web related with a small team of experts that he has personally trained (both women & knitters!) Laura is our head business maven full of ideas and energy. Her entrepreneurial spirit drives us, and keeps us moving forward and growing. If you can’t tell, we have a lot of fun around here! 

The original Truckee shop, a guest room full of yarn, and the new warehouse and Reno shop

If you'd like to learn more about our team, you can read about them here:

http://www.jimmybeanswool.com/teamJimmyBeans.asp

We pretty much live and breathe fiber arts around here. Almost every one of our employees knits, crochets, weaves, or spins…or some combination of these. And if they don’t when they start working here, they quickly pick up something…it’s contagious! It’s in our blood! Most of us find it to be the most relaxing part of our day, and we get more energy just being around great yarns all of the time. Several of our staffers are up-and-coming designers, and being around yarn every day certainly helps to fuel that creativity. That’s really the key right there, for us, it’s how we express our creativity…and we love sharing knowledge and ideas with others so they can express theirs!

We’ve done a lot of little things over the years to make the shop experience unique and fun for people. For example, we used to have a big hot tub full of yarn in the back of our warehouse that people could get their photos taken in when they visit. We regularly let folks “shop the warehouse” and give warehouse tours when people visit us from out of town. We try to make it fun for them!

 

Some snapshots of the shop and the famous yarn hot tub

We really try to offer a lot of FREE learning opportunities to our local customers. We host 3x weekly free Walk-in Help Sessions (although anyone can come in any time for help) and we’ve grown quite a group of followers! We rarely have less than 8 or 10 people that show up for these sessions and many of them just come to chat and knit. We also have twice monthly knit nights and everyone puts $5 in a pool to win a gift card. It’s tons of fun. We also have special retail shop only “Flash Sales” that you must be physically in the shop to take advantage of. Being an online business, we try to be really cognizant of making our local customers who we have face to face relationships with, feel special. It would be really easy to lose sight of them, but they are our #1 priority!

Book signing event with Romi Hill

We’ve also started hosting retreats where we bring in some widely known designers and head for the nearby mountains for some awesome bonding, scenery, and learning. It’s a blast. Because our business has such a large online component, we get customers coming to these retreats from all over the world! It’s fun to meet our online customers in person and get to know them better!

Fiber Arts Fair Recap

This year's Scotts Bluff Valley Fiber Arts Fair was a fun-filled success for the many families, friends, and animals that participated. As always, we had a great selection of interesting vendors at the marketplace and a  wide variety of fiber arts classes.

Participants, as well as vendors, came from our region and all over the country. Shoppers at the marketplace were able to revel in a delightful selection of colorful roving, yarns, and goods--everything from goat's milk soap to fish leather wallets.

One of the new highlights was the Sheep-to-Scarf competition. Three teams raced to prepare a fleece, spin yarn, and weave a finished scarf within the morning.  The teams were very interactive with the crowd, explaining the process as they worked. This demonstration helps children and people in the community bridge the gap between agriculture and textile production.

The hands-on demonstration booths were busy throughout the day giving people an opportunity to dip their toes into a new art.

A special performance was given by the Scottsbluff Sprouts, a group of five- and six-year old violinists. The crowd seemed to enjoy these adorable young musicians.

The fiber animals are my personal favorite part of the fair--the animal breeders must work with them for weeks beforehand to train the animals to walk calmly on a lead through the marketplace. Adults and children alike are delighted to pet and interact with the alpacas, yaks, sheep, goats, and rabbits.

This day is so filled to the brim with activities, it's impossible to capture all the excitement in just a few photos. To see the full album from the day, be sure to like our Facebook page, Scotts Bluff Valley Fiber Arts Fair.

Thanks to all who came to the fair as a vendor or participant--we hope you had a great time!

 

 

Midwestern Knits

As we transition into a new season, there's suddenly an abundance of new patterns, colors, and trends. . . And with the weather getting cooler, knitters are gearing up for new projects.

We wanted to highlight a new book, Midwestern Knits, featuring a pattern in our Nature Spun Sport. I especially love the name of this garment: the Storm Cloud Tee. One of the best parts of living in Western Nebraska is being able to see the entire sky, all the time. I no longer need to check my weather app when I can scan the horizon to the west and see, from miles away, what kind of weather is approaching.


Earth and Sky by Nebraska photographer Michael Forsberg

All of the patterns in Midwestern Knits are sourced with yarn from the Midwest. When you live in a place where the weather could be 80 degrees and sunny one day, then snowing the next, wool is a necessity. This pattern is a versatile top that could be layered on a cool day or even worn on a warm summer day. There is just enough color work to keep the knitting interesting, without being too daunting.  I am loving the current trend toward knitting with lighter yarns-- Nature Spun Sport is the ideal weight to wear comfortably. If you're looking to start a new project--check out Midwestern Knits! Be sure to look up the Ravelry group-- and if you're an Instagram person, post your project pictures with #StormCloud.

Happy Fall Knitting!