Feeling Thankful (and free)

Feeling Thankful (and free)

This year, we’re feeling especially thankful for the amazing community that feeds our enthusiasm, builds us up, and makes it fun to come to work everyday: our amazing customers. Thank you for supporting local businesses. Thank you for engaging us meaningfully in such a way that we really care about all of you. We love being a part of the Summit Downtown community, and that all of you are a part of our community.

We’re also thankful for knitwear designers put publish free patterns for all to use! Because of them, we can fearlessly read through new patterns and techniques and learn with reckless abandon. For some reason, it’s much easier to try something new when it comes free – and we’re aware that someone put a lot of time and effort into creating these patterns for our use.

For a special thanksgiving treat, we want to highlight some of our favorite patterns – some new and some are old favorites!

We are generally thankful for Espace Tricot. This knit shop out of Montreal regularly puts out chic and simple patterns that highlight gorgeous yarns. Mayu has quickly become a favorite at Wool & Grace – by all of us working at the shop and our customers. The Espace Tricot team recently published a new pattern called Getting Warmer. This cowl is knit up in a bulky weight yarn with a bit of haze surrounding it. The cowl is worked in simple garter stitch, with a slightly conical shape that narrows as it ascends the neck. The result is a sumptuous and warm cowl that feels great against the skin. The pattern calls for Woolfolk’s Luft, but try Rowan’s Brushed Fleece of Blue Sky Techno for a similarly soft yarn with a halo effect. Another great yarn for this project is Juniper Moon’s Stratus, although the look will be a little different!

Loopy Mango is another company that is incredibly generous with the patterns. All patterns are free with purchase of their yarn. I’m tickled we brought this yarn in, and we can’t seem to keep it in stock. Loopy Mango’s super soft Merino No. 5 knits into chic and fun hats, scarves, sweaters, blankets, etc etc etc. The Super Cropped Cardigan is a favorite at Wool & Grace, most likely because we have a sample at the shop and EVERYONE can see how fun it is to wear (and easy it is to knit). Loopy Mango has tons of projects, and this year have come out with some great cabled sweaters (pullovers and cardigans), and some simple fisherman ribbed scarves and neckwarmers.

Shibui generously publishes at least one pattern each season that is free with purchase of yarn, and these are among our favorite Shibui patterns. Spectrum, knit up as a scarf or wrap, couples Shibui’s Rain (a worsted weight cotton) with Silk Cloud, and sheer stripes of Silk Cloud run at ascending frequency throughout the project. This piece is incredibly sophisticated and chic, and our knitters have gotten creative and knit it up in combinations combining Silk Cloud with Pebble and Dune, to name a few.

This season’s free-with-purchase pattern is Icon (featured in last week’s email), which includes graphic triangles shaped with German Short Rows. Shibui’s new yarn, Birch, gets the spotlight with this wonderful piece – it’s incredibly soft, light and somehow substantial, as well.

One more brand new pattern is the Stripey Tube Scarf from PurlSoho. This simple scarf is knit with seven colors of super bulky yarn, knit as a tube, striping throughout. There’s no fancy join on the end (or closure for that matter), but it’s pure color fun. Conway + Bliss’s Odin is the perfect yarn for this project, as it’s super bulky but not TOO much so, so you can knit a tube of it and not feel overwhelmed by it’s size. Also consider knitting it up in lots of colors of Debbie Bliss’s Roma Weave. The subtle tonality of that project will lend some interesting striping to this project as well!