Yarns to Love
There’s a New Yarn in Town: Brunswick
With a shop the cute little size of our shop, adding a new yarn is always a big deal.
In this case, it’s not just big, it’s bulky.
We are thrilled to introduce a brand-new yarn from Jill Draper Makes Stuff:
Brunswick is a bulky weight blend of domestic fibers: 70 percent Corriedale wool and 30Â percent mohair. Spun in Vermont. Dyed in Jill’s studio in the Hudson Valley.
Each skein is 140 yards, 113 grams of handmade woolly goodness.
We have five colors, chosen exclusively for MDK by Jill.
(GAH. LOOK AT THOSE COLORS.)
Brunswick is a domestic yarn, full of character, that works up lightning fast, so it’s perfect for accessories and gifts, hats for marching, and anything else you need to get on and off the needles with speed.
Pattern Recommendations
Lars Rains’ latest book, Presto, is full of good ideas for Brunswick. (For example, the Titania cowl, which I whipped up in the fever of our December giftalong—but really, all of the Presto patterns are excellent ideas for quick, satisfying projects, with some cool colorwork options, too.)
I had Jill pull a couple of skeins from our shipment for me to play with, and asked her to pick my colors for a two-color project. “Surprise me,” I said. She chose Minty and Charred Coal, so I guess she really knows me by now.
My chosen pattern was one I’ve wanted to try for a while, now, Gale Zucker’s Portillo Cowl, from her best-selling collaboration with Mary Lou Egan and Kirsten Kapur,  Drop-Dead Easy Knits (still the best knitting-book title ever).
(Photo by Gale Zucker.)
I cast on yesterday afternoon (taking a break to savor my ill-gotten head start on our Bang Out a Hadley knitalong), and within an hour I was nearly done:
(I guess you could say it’s drop-dead easy.) (That’s a US 15 needle.)
Somehow two-color garter stitch looks like there’s some kind of trick to it, but nah. You don’t even have to move the yarn from the front to the back or vice versa; it just sits there waiting for you to go around with the other color. I already have a customer for this one, and enough yarn left over to knit a second one, maybe swapping the main and contrast colors for more minty-ness.
We hope you enjoy checking out Brunswick. It’s new, it’s special, and we have it in limited quantity. If you’re the collect-the-set type, we have a few Brunswick Bundles available at a special price, and with our favorite three words, Free Domestic Shipping.
And now, I’m binding off my Portillo Cowl and getting back onto the sleeves to my Hadley. Colorwork time! Just try and catch me! (OK, Nell already passed me, but let me enjoy myself.)
These colors are luscious!!
Why are you doing this to me, Kay?
My intentions are good. I’m paving a road with them!
I ordered skeins earlier in the colors Amethyst and Charred Coal. Home sick today, but I am so excited now because there is a Portillo Cowl in my future! It will be my gift to Me. Since I already have Gale’s book, I will be able to make it right away. Kay, thanks for taking me along on your trip down that road!
Isn’t that Gale clever? I’ve made three of those cowls – lighting fast! Now I want that yarn.
You MADE MY DAY! My Portillo Cowl in Jill’s new yarn? I’m plotzing over here. Love love love love love. Thank you.
oh my. love it
Absolutely gorgeous! All the qualities I love, the colors are gorgeous, and the yardage in the skein is generous. You gals sure choose well.
🙂
So pretty! I especially love the two colors on the left. On my monitor they are a beautiful purply-pink and a rich rust.
Stop it! You already ruined me by sharing the existence of 2048!
Oooh, pretty AND squishy! That looks lovely. And I happen to have a 24″ size 15 needle…
I’m looking for Brunswick Breeze yarn. I understand it is cotton and polyester, 80/20. I can’t seem to find it and I don’t know of an equivalent. Any help you can give me is appreciated.