Yarns to Love
History Spun into an Ethereal Yarn
Love Story Einband is an ethereal laceweight yarn, the beautiful creation of Hélène Magnússon. She wanted to give knitters a yarn that was similar to the handspun yarn Icelanders used to knit traditional lace shawls like the ones you can see at the textile museum in Blöndós, Iceland.
Hélène knows knitters crave softness, especially for a yarn that may be worn around the neck. She chose to use lamb fleeces, which are much finer and softer than adult fleeces, even when the two coats of the fleece (tog is the coarser outer coat, and Þel is the softer inner coat) are combined.
The lamb fleeces proved to be harder to process into yarn using the major mill in Iceland. The lamb fleeces are a finer fiber, and the yarn Hélène wanted was thinner than the mill was able to accommodate. So she took her fleeces to a mill in Italy, whose process is so secret that Hélène couldn’t visit to see her yarn spun.
The result is gorgeous: a fine, strong yarn that is soft enough to wear at your neck and dyed in colors that represent the Icelandic landscape.
How it knits
It knits beautifully. It’s light and has a soft halo. This fuzziness makes this yarn a super-duper gauge shifter. I knit it at three different gauges, moving two needles sizes each time. Each swatch gives a different look and different drape, but all three gauges hold shape and structure.
I might suggest using your pointiest needles for this yarn. It is very fine, and my rounded needles missed stitches occasionally, especially if I was looking away.
This yarn allows for so many possibilities. Knit alone at an open gauge, it would make a wonderful, barely constructed type of overlayer for a hint of color and warmth—the only warmth I can deal with these days.
Of course, the real appeal is to use it for what it was designed: lace. It makes the most magnificent lace and holds a stitch pattern even at the most open gauge.
There is no need for you to see my lace swatches when I can show you Hélène’s beautiful Love Story Lace Shawl from Field Guide No. 26: Moss.
Love Story Einband is a tricky trickster when it comes to color. You wouldn’t think something this fine would make much a difference (it’s finer than Rowan Kidsilk Haze), but it can add a whole new feeling to a color. It marls exceptionally, allowing you to create new or fading colors. It’s so fine that it’s easy to swap colors as you’re knitting, and the halo makes it easy to weave in those ends as you go.
1+1= 3
Something almost indescribable happens when you combine Love Story Einband with Plötulopi, the unspun fairy-fingered yarn that comes in plates, like in the Crowberry Sweater in Field Guide No. 26: Moss.
Plötulopi can knit at a variety of gauges, but adding Love Story Einband lets you push it even further. It also helps strengthen the sometimes-breakable Plötulopi by quite a bit.
The color play between Plötulopi and Love Story will really spark your creativity, too. Look how you can make a good basic gray brighter or more moody, just by adding a fine, fine yarn. It’s witchcraft, really.
Einband is not Einband
Love Story’s full name is Love Story Einband, and there is a Lopi yarn named Einband. They are both single-ply (“einband” means “one strand”) laceweight yarns.
Love Story Einband is finer and softer than Lopi Einband, though in a pinch you could swap them in a pattern. Lopi Einband is made from adult sheep using both their inner and outer coats, so at its very core it is a different yarn and much coarser.
It doesn’t have the wonderful otherworldly quality of Love Story Einband. It’s like comparing a Hershey’s chocolate kiss to a small-batch, artisanal truffle. One will do in a pinch, but they are not the same.
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I agree, these yarns are truly something special! I knit another of Hélène’s sweaters (Icebreaker) recently, holding the Plötulopi with the Love Story, and the results are spectacular.
Thank you for all the info! It’s going to make my Crowberry even more special. I’m saving the picture of the lads and lasses waiting for shearing…so they can be by my side as I knit!!
If this doesn’t bring a rush to buy Love Story, I don’t know what will. Great job, Jillian.
Thank you for this Jillian, so helpful and informative, like all of your articles!
Agree!
My yarn for the Crowberry vest came in the mail yesterday, and I can’t wait to swatch! Which is not something I thought id ever say
I look forward to reading your articles. They are wonderful. I finally understand the difference between the two different Einband yarns. Thank you!
Love Story is also excellent for knitting lace cowls — soft, warm, and very light-weight.
Thank you for the great, enlightening article!
This answered a lot of my questions. Thank you. So well done. I just started experimenting yesterday. Can you pull Love Story from the inside of skein. It wasn’t obvious to me and I didn’t want to pull too much. I did pull from center of Plotulopi. Do you recommend that?
Wonderful explanation of Love Story. And thanks for showing it knit with the plotulopi. Really nice to see how it changes the look. Having finished knitting and weaving in the ends of the Love Story shawl, I’m now looking forward to soaking and blocking it. I love everything about it at this point. You are right about weaving in the ends. Usually not my favorite task, but the halo allows it to stick just enough to not worry about it coming undone.