- The National Needleworkers Association (TNNA) holds trade shows for members twice a year. We are fortunate to have this great event so close and near Portland, Oregon. We will gather at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Tigard, just on the outskirts of this knit-friendly city, to meet fellow business owners, designers, suppliers, and all sorts of creative and enterprising people. We are also going to just have FUN! Lots of time to knit in the beautiful open lobby, take classes, and spot the knitterati as well as introduce our yarn line-up in our very own suite on the 9th floor. We hope to capture this adventure and post in Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, so be sure to follow us on our adventure.
Reminding you that the Studio is closed for the next few days – back on Tuesday evening,
5 to 8 pm for drop-in knitting!
Meet movie-star Isle of Skye
from the Jorstad Creek Yarn Portfolio…
When I started adding yarns to my dye-portfolio that were not made from scratch with local fiber I decided I wanted to look for something I couldn’t easily make myself, a yarn that would stand out in any crowd. Focusing on luxury blends with an eye for their source, I sought out yarns that made me want to drop everything else and knit. That is the standard we continue to apply to yarns we add to the line up. We’ve added some truly special yarns, but it is hard for anything we dye to stand up to the movie-star qualities of Isle of Skye.
Named for an island off the coast of Scotland (a visit in my twenties to this amazing place on the planet), it manages to take every color and behave as if it were being seen through a camera filter. Every angle is replete with the spectacular. The fibers display our colorways like a legend waiting for her closeup. Endlessly fascinating, 24 colors is not enough for this amazing yarn. From the sublime of soft Grey and Dusty Cedar to the eye-popping Lipstick, Indra, and Ultraviolet, this yarn takes color and reflects it back with sparks of silk in the depths of the soft kid mohair. Can you say that a yarn is sexy and mysterious like Joan Crawford or Marlene Dietrich? Well it just is.
We’ve paired this yarn with all sorts of companion fingering-weight yarns to make a DK combination that is light, lofty, and incredibly beautiful. Solid or hand-painted yarns gorgeous on their own are elevated to something transcendent when knit together with Isle of Skye. We’ve used this technique of holding two yarns together for all kinds of projects. Now we have two designs using this technique, developed by our sister-company BK Collective, a design cooperative. The Glacier Cowl and the Sunset Beach Shawl offer simple design in a two-skein project. The results are stunning and a pleasure to wear.
The possibilities are wide open when you think about all the DK weight designs you can make by pairing Isle of Skye with that special sock yarn you’ve fallen in love with. It is also a great way to experiment with color dominance – you can pick a matching color of Isle of Skye, or a contrasting color – you will get wildly different results.
Isle of Skye is classified as lace weight on its own. It is a two-ply, 70% Kid Mohair, 30% Mulberry Silk (the kind of silk that is smooth and shiny). Find it at our Studio or meet Isle of Skye in real-time at TNNA or the Madrona Arts Festival in Tacoma later in February.
Next blog we will feature another
Jorstad Creek Yarn and more BK Collective
patterns!
Jorstad Creek 