Category: IRL

We are fully immersed in balmy summertime weather here in North Carolina. I look longingly at my heavy hand-knits every morning, knowing I won’t get to wear them for months. But with high heat also comes air conditioning, and we keep things pretty chilly here in the Universal Yarn office.

Many of us keep a lightweight sweater or jacket on the backs of our chairs for when the cold blast becomes too much. Heather, on the other hand, loves to knit and wear hats. She follows patterns sometimes. But Heather has knit so many hats that she is a hat-knitting pro and will often just cast on and start knitting, which was the case with this lovely hat in Poems:

 

I asked Heather to tell me about her hat, and here’s what she had to say:

“I was going to see Kingsman (loved it!) and wanted a fairly mindless project to work on in the dark, and hats are my go-to.  To keep it a little interesting, I added a right twist every other row.  I liked that technique in my Rocked Knitalong so it seemed like a good addition here.  For the decreases, I did a p2tog every couple of rows in the p3 sections, then did did my best to keep the twists going as I did k2tog for the final decreases. 

This hat will probably be set aside until I see what the Afghans for Afghans charity ( http://afghansforafghans.org​ ) is doing this year.  If they’re in need of hats, that’s where it’ll go.  It gets cold in those mountains!”

Heather’s hat took just one ball of Poems. We don’t have an official pattern for the hat, but Heather cast on 90 stitches with a US size 8 16″ circular and dove right into k2, p3 ribbing and worked a right twist every 2 rounds.

Thanks for sharing, Heather!

Back in the fall of 2013, I designed this openwork cardigan in Deluxe Chunky for knit.wear magazine, an Interweave publication:

It’s called “Kite Cardigan“, and takes between 5-10 hanks of Deluxe Chunky. I had a lot of fun with this sweater. It’s knit bottom-up in two pieces. There is a bit of shaping involved, but the shape of the cardigan is largely due to directional lace. Done in a bulky yarn, it goes super fast, but because the fabric is so open, it’s fairly lightweight.

I am lucky enough to be in possession of my Kite Cardigan again, and can now add it into my rotation of daily sweater wear. It was a little chilly here in Charlotte last week, so I was able to squeeze in one last day of wool-wear for the season.

 

Yes, my desk is a little messy…I know! We knitters have more important things to do than clean, right?

Today I’m delighted to share a Bamboo Pop FO from Jen who works in our accounting department.

Jen always has multiple projects going on, as she is an avid knitter, crocheter, and spinner. This versatile summery cardigan was a free pattern Jen found on Ravelry. Crocheted using Bamboo Pop in color 210 Orchid Smash, it does look smashing on her – am I right?

Here is Jen in her own words on her fabulous project:

It took 3 balls with a 4mm hook.  The original pattern called for a worsted weight cotton and a 5mm hook I think,  but I knew it would be too heavy and cumbersome for everyday wear.  Since it was top down changing the gauge was easy peasy, I’d like to talk about all the swatching I did and the math I used,  but I really just crocheted until I liked where it was and then transitioned to the shell stitch.  Its ended up being one of my favorite FO’s.  The fabric is very drapey so it feels really nice and fancy to wear.  It looks great over the single black dress I own if I ever decide to go somewhere swanky and it also looks good with a t-shirt and jeans.  It’s very lightweight and breathable so I can wear it over a long sleeve top in the winter or a tank-top when it gets warmer and it isn’t hot or anything.  I knew the bamboo/cotton would grow a lot so I only crocheted until the bottom hit just below my navel, as I suspected, after washing/blocking and wearing it grew to the perfect length for me.  The pattern also called for buttons but I hate sewing buttons on so I just ignored them and use it to showcase my growing collection of shawl pins and brooches.

Thanks for sharing, Jen!

Spring has definitely sprung here in Charlotte, NC. The grass is green, the dirt is red, and everything outdoors is getting covered in pollen. As a result of this seasonal change, our knitwear here in the office has switched from wintery sweaters to warmer weather alternatives.

This past week I spotted our sales director, Yonca, wearing her Goldleaf Tank designed by Moira Engle which is part of our Cotton Supreme Book 5 collection. This piece was originally knit in Cotton Supreme DK color 703 Beige. Yonca’s version is in color 708 Celery which really enhances the leaf motifs. It’s a beauty – nice job, Yonca!

Sometimes the best things in life come easy, right? In this week’s IRL, Heather’s Two-In-One hat shows off the beauty of Poems Chunky‘s self shading colors with a simple hat pattern. And the best part? You can squeeze two hats out of just a single ball of yarn.

I spotted Heather earlier this week in her adorable hat and had to know the details. When she told me it was her own hat pattern and that she had enough yarn to make two hats from her single ball of Poems Chunky, I knew I had to share it with the world!

The Two-In-One Hat pattern is available for free on our website. Thanks, Heather!

The weather is finally warming up here in North Carolina, but it’s still chilly enough to wear our knitting. Thank goodness!

 

I caught up with Katie as she was filling orders and wrangling paperwork earlier this week. I had glimpsed her in her new cowl and had to try and convince her to let me take a photo for the blog. She was shy but willing!

Katie is donning her version of the Ellery Reversible Cowl in Llamalini. She used color 112 Caspian which looks stunning with her fiery red hair. Llamalini is a favorite with all of us in the office. It’s a lovely choice for sweaters. The linen and silk add the most sumptuous earthy feel in combination with the llama, making garments that are breathable and not overly toasty.  But for those of us who aren’t ready to commit to a large project, just 3 50-gram hanks will make the lovely cowl above.

Whisper Lace two weeks in a row! Can you tell that’s one of our favorites here in the office?!

Today we’re sharing an “In Real Life” with Katie who works in customer service. She’s adorned with a scarf woven on a Schacht Cricket rigid heddle loom. She used both Llamalini and Whisper Lace for the warp, and just Whisper Lace for the plain-weave weft. It only took one ball/skein of each!

Thanks for sharing, Katie. Your scarf looks fantastic!

I am lucky enough to work with a great group of ladies here at Universal Yarn. We mostly consist of Yonca (sales manager), Heather (social media goddess), and Katie and Jackie (customer service wizards), me (Amy) the design person. We’re a small group of 5 women, but we all knit, crochet or both. There’s hardly a day that goes by where one of us is not wearing our handmade preciousness.

Thus begins a new series I am calling “IRL”, or In Real Life. Every day I come to work in a building that houses more yarn than you can imagine. It can be overwhelming to look at it all boxed up in the warehouse, sitting on shelves, or piled on my desk. It’s always calling to me, “knit me! make something out of me!” We sell yarn here, but we also love using and wearing it. I thought you might be interested in some of the things we make, so here goes.

I’ll start first:

I’m wearing a scarf I knit up last year made out of Whisper Lace. With just 2 balls of color 103 Harbor, I came up with a whopping 20″ x 60″ scarf/stole. It’s long enough that I can keyhole it, or when it’s really cold, double wrap around my neck like the photo above. The pattern is a modified Wisp by Cheryl Niamath, free on Knitty. I didn’t add buttons; I just cast on extra stitches, added a couple of random vertical garter stitch columns for interest, and knit until I ran out of yarn. For me, a person who almost exclusively knits garments, it was a refreshing change!

How about you, what Universal Yarn are you wearing today?