A parcel of beautiful yarns from Habu Textiles has brought some wonderful inspiration into our studio.
Yarns made from paper, stainless steel, silk, wool and copper – in a gorgeous tonal palette. Inspirational, indeed!
We’ve received tons of inquiries regarding the images of the abandoned railroad station in our Wool People 2 look book, so I thought I’d share some location information here for all of you texture lovers and history buffs.
These images feature the overgrown railways of Communipaw Station, which is nestled on the edge of the Hudson and overlooks Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty and downtown Manhattan, from the Jersey side.
The historic station building is a gorgeous brick structure that was built in 1889. The tracks you see in these photos were in regular service until April of 1967, at which time their use was suspended.
The station is now part of Liberty State Park, which opened in the mid 70′s and encircles the riverside station with 1200 acres of park land. Today, the station functions as a Ferry Terminal for tourists to Ellis and Liberty Islands – the nearby tracks remain a mere vestige of the past. I think they are incredibly beautiful and a great hidden treasure of the city.
We’re starting the new year off with a very special announcement: the second installment in our Wool People series is all polished up and ready to take flight from the BT Nest!
We were humbled by the response to our first issue’s release in August, and have had a blast putting together a sequel to that collection. The new issue features work from 14 diverse talents from our industry – all of whom have been an honor to collaborate with.
As with our first volume, we shot for a balance of project types and skill levels in hopes of curating a group of patterns that is accessible to a wide range of knitters. We’re also thrilled that our roster of designers spans such an inspiring range: from long-time industry celebs to exciting break-out talent.
It was our first really cold photoshoot of the year, but it’s always worth braving the chill in the name of the pearlescent light that only Winter can deliver. Having woolen knitwear as your subject matter is certainly helpful, and our models were glad for it!
We invite you to sit down with a mug of something warm and flip through the pages of the Look Book to get to know the new collection. You can view it from right within your browser by clicking “Expand” below, or download the PDF version for on-the-go viewing later.
The patterns are all available as digital downloads through our website – with a portion of every pattern sale going directly to the designer for the lifetime of each design. 
We thought this was a great way to kick off the beginning of a new year, and hope you find something to keep your fingers contented as we head deeper into Winter.
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RESOURCES: Patterns from Wool People Volume 2 are available here. Yarns for each project are available here. View the Look Book on our website, or download the PDF version to your computer, tablet or mobile device.
I love New Years. To me there’s always a strong feeling of the collective whole taking stock of where we’re at. It’s a time of gratitude and looking forward. It feels great.
It’s been another whirlwind year for us as our little company continues to grow and refine itself. Today we’re slowing down and enjoying the quiet.
We’re so looking forward to another year of new ideas, projects and challenges. A sincere thanks to all for reading, commenting, and supporting what we do here – we’re so grateful!
November 1st has been marked with a giant red circle on our calendar at BT HQ for what seems like an eternity – we’ve just been dying for this day to finally come! Why? Because today we get to introduce you to our little darling: LOFT.
She is the newest member of our US-grown yarn family, and we simply love her.
From the very first time I laid my hands on Shelter, in early 2009 – months before its public debut – I couldn’t stop thinking about how perfect it would be to create a companion yarn in fingering weight. A light woolen-spun 2-ply is such a dreamy medium for lace and colorwork, especially for Wool Hounds like us (and likely, you too).
We weren’t surprised, either, to hear a steady stream of similar requests after Shelter’s official launch for that exact thing. We knew this yarn had potential to be a real stunner, so we took things slow, proceeding with caution and care (the way we like to do things around here). This one had to be just right.
Fast forward to today – 11 months since we began our first serious planning meeting with the mill in Harrisville – and it’s finally here. And what a journey it has been!
So what is Loft all about? From the outset we sought to design an ideal lightweight wool yarn for handknitters that looked and felt special. A yarn whose gently-spun nature mimicked the lightness and loft of handspun, and created stunning lace or stranded fabrics. We also dreamed of a substantial palette of stunning heathers worthy of serious Colorwork.
Our new color lineup boasts 32 carefully crafted dyed-in-the-wool shades – the original 17 from the Shelter palette, plus 15 newbies. The added colors were selected with our existing palette in mind; because each blend draws from the same 11 dyed solids, there is a cross-range coherence that makes the old colors pulse with new life.
Loft requires a slightly gentler touch than other yarns, but we think the results are so worth it. The lace fabrics it makes are so fluffy and light, they just beg to be cuddled, and the airy nature of the construction allows for a notable range of possible gauges. Loft can fluidly shift from dense fingering weight gauges like 9 spi in colorwork, on up to traditional sport weight gauges of 6 spi without losing fabric integrity – one of the hallmarks of true woolen-spun yarns, and as a design team, one of our favorite features (fabric variety!).
Each 50g hank packs a generous 275 yards, too – an added bonus for those of us who hate weaving in ends.
In celebration of Loft’s public release, our design team has put together an original collection to help introduce our shiny new treasures. We really indulged ourselves in lace (once you see the yarn, you’ll know why), but also threw in some colorwork and textured accessories, and even a pullover for good measure.
The best way to experience the collection and the new yarn is by viewing the Look Book – our biggest yet – which is bursting with lush, Autumn-flavored photos, and plenty of info about the new undertaking. Just click on the cover below to view it in your browser. The patterns themselves are all available now for download.
I’d like to also take this opportunity to thank you for your continued support – it is the single reason that we are able to continue developing yarns and projects that truly inspire us, and bring us such joy in sharing.
Happy Lofting!
Very sincerely,
Jared and the BT Team
Resources: Loft yarn can be purchased online here. See The Loft Collection Look Book here. View all the designs from the collection on our website –including all pattern-specific information – here. See a list of our Flagship Retail Locations, each of which has the full palette of Loft in stock today.
I have new hat designs in a couple of Fall publications that were recently released. Designing for books has such a long timeline – both of these hats were designed over a year ago – so it’s always a funny thing ‘releasing’ them to you, when they feel like such distant memories already!
The Wanderer Cap is part of a new hat collection that was curated by my friends Cecily Glowik MacDonald and Melissa LaBarre called Weekend Hats. Interweave hasn’t officially released this title yet, but it is available for pre-order.
The hat was knit with Shelter in our Hayloft heather. It’s funny looking back on this after having just released Rosebud… I never seem to tire of using Garter Stitch as a backdrop for smaller, cabled details. The base of the ribbing utilized a crisp 1×1 tubular cast-on. A good tubular cast-on always delights me with its charm – such a clean, perfect way to start a new piece of fabric.
The second design is in the same color family. I guess I was really feeling the pull of golden, heathered yarns, eh? Tilden is a stranded hat for children, worked with 2 colors of Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift. (I think every child should have a colorwork hat made with real Shetland wool!)
This hat design is included in a wonderful new book by Larissa Brown called My Grandmother’s Knitting. I’m always so excited when I see a knitting book that thinks outside of the box and brings something really unique to the crowded bookshelf. Larissa’s books always have that quality, and this one is no exception.
Larissa is interested in stories. With this work, she set about interviewing well-known designers in our industry to learn more about their family histories, and who it was that deeply effected their early growth and development as a Creative. Many designers share sweet stories about who it was that shaped their appreciation for our craft, and/or their artistic practice in general.
I speak a little about the creative influence that both my father and mother had on me while growing up.
Aside from some great handknitting patterns, the reading material is fantastic. (Side Bonus: baby photos of some of your favorite designers!)
The Tilden hat has a simple 2×2 ribbed brim and is constructed with 6 wedge-shapes that are staggered as they are shaped for the crown. It’s a non-traditional type of shaping that creates the subtlest bit of pointiness at the top of the crown (easily steamed flat, if desired). It’s a bit of geometric whimsy, playing with vertical lines and 45-degree angles throughout.
I hope you’ll enjoy either design, if you do choose to add either of these books to your libraries. For more info about either title, click the cover images below.
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Resources: The Wanderer Cap pattern can be found on Ravelry here; Tilden’s Ravelry page can be found here. Yarn for Wanderer is available here. Yarn for Tilden is available here. For links to either book mentioned in this post, please click the cover images above. The first four images in this post are original photographs and not featured in either publication.
Yesterday I walked out the front door of my apartment building and got about five steps before I stopped suddenly and realized…. I needed a scarf! For the first time since early Spring, I had an urge to don knits out of necessity. What a wonderful day it was! The second time I walked out the front door I savored the chill and ended up spending much more time out in the city than I have in quite some time.
The arrival of Fall this week (not on the calendar, but in feel) seemed like the perfect timing too, since we’ve been working hard behind the curtain to bring you a collection of designs inspired by this time of year. I’m happy to share with you BT FALL 11, a collection of 16 handknitting patterns.
This season I’m joined by designers Leila Raabe and Michele Wang (you’ve seen work from both of them in our first issue of Wool People). About 6 months ago, I approached each of these women to see if they’d be interested in coming together with me to form an official In-House Design Team at BT. To my great delight, they each accepted and the three of us have been happily collaborating on knitwear ever since!
Though we’ve been at it for a while now, we’re thrilled to be releasing our first group of designs as a team, just in time for the changing of the leaves. As with Wool People, we’ve put together a Look Book for the collection in hopes of giving you a pleasurable aesthetic introduction to the work. You can view it in the space below (click “expand” to view the full-screen version) or on our web site. If you’d like to download a free PDF copy to take along with you on your laptop, tablet, or device, you can get that here.
We were wooed by all sorts of surface texture as we were designing these patterns. We also wanted to make use of Shelter’s rich palette of Autumn, and create projects of all sizes and time-commitments. We hope there’s something in it for everyone to enjoy – happy Fall!
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RESOURCES: All the patterns in BT FALL 11 are available now for digital download here. Shelter US wool yarn is available here.
I’ve just returned from our Alaskan knitting cruise – my winter sweaters happily emerged from hibernation for the trip. As for the scenery and the light…
You may have noticed a cloak of silence shrouding BT in the last month. Summer is funny like that. For knitters it’s a hard time that we ride out with hope for chillier temperatures, but behind the scenes it always becomes the most chaotic time of the year as we busy ourselves with big Fall surprises. This year we’ve got a lot of things up our sleeve; a few large-scale projects that have swirled us into their summer vortex.Thankfully, today we are finally ready to release the first of our Fall concepts.
It’s been almost a year since the launch of SHELTER. I remember well all the planning, waiting, nerves, & excitement that accompanied the months leading up to that release – but probably most of all, how I couldn’t wait to get to designing with a yarn that really spoke to me. And as I began (and continue) my own creative work with the yarn, I found myself beginning to wonder what this wool might inspire in the hands of other Creatives whose work I have admired from afar.
This simple curiousity became the basis for WOOL PEOPLE: a semi-annual design series curated by Brooklyn Tweed, the first installment of which we are happy to release just in time for high knitting season.
For this first collection of patterns, I sought out designers both near and far whose work – which comprises its own wonderful variety – I have long watched and admired. My plan: arm them with a healthy dose of wool and see what happens.
The process was so rewarding. We were able to work directly with each designer, discussing their ideas and sketches to construct a collection that we think will appeal to the sensibilities of our readers, and will welcome Fall in the best way knitters know how. The creative dialogue that is at the heart of this series has been invigorating – a welcome contrast to the virtual solitude I was in just a year ago!
Our first group of Wool People has been a joy to work with. Some of their names you may recognize, others you may not, but in all cases I hope there will be something for everyone to enjoy.
We’ve put together a beautiful Look Book for this collection, highlighting all the designs with full color photographs, as well as providing readers with information about our Guest Designer Team. To get the best feel of the whole collection, we encourage you to take a look!
Each design in the collection is available now as a PDF download at Brooklyn Tweed or on Ravelry.
As the publishing world continues to change rapidly, designers are working differently. Having designed independently for some time now, I see the problems that designers face in this industry every day. We’ve worked hard to put together a model that compensates designers fairly (and gratefully!) for their work. Starting today, a portion of all proceeds from digital pattern sales will always go directly to the individual designer for the life of the pattern. In the spirit of collaboration, each designer also retains the rights to their own work. We plan to continue developing this model in future WP collections to best serve those people who have made this project possible.
It’s been a hot summer and we here at Brooklyn Tweed HQ are certainly daydreaming of Fall’s arrival. I hope some of the designs and photographs featured today inspire you to do the same (if you weren’t already!).
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Resources // The Wool People Volume 1 Look Book is viewable here. Pattern collection is available on BT here and also available on Ravelry here. All designs in this collection are knit with Brooklyn Tweed SHELTER, available here.
The knitting world has been all abuzz with the long-awaited release of Elizabeth Zimmermann’s posthumous Knit One, Knit All – and with good reason. I received my copy two weeks ago and have been savoring the freshness of each page. The book is very inspiring and I feel particularly touched by the ‘evidence’ of Elizabeth’s process that is included – scraps of paper with scribbled notes and half-drawn sketches, alongside landscape watercolors from her home or abroad. To me, this window into her thought process and inspirations is especially exciting.
Today, in celebration of her new publication, I have something very special for you. I’ve been sitting on some notable photographs for quite a while, waiting for the right time to share them with you, and this week the timing feels perfect.
Back in September of 2009 when I had the wonderful opportunity to photograph EZ’s newly discovered Green Sweater, there were a few other EZ artifacts that came along for the ride. Joan Morhard Smith, who as a child called “Betty” (EZ) the Crazy Knitting Neighbor Lady, had been the recipient of plenty of EZ’s wool creations when growing up in New York City, and brought the Green Sweater to the public eye two years ago. As she was readying the Green Sweater for its trip to Brooklyn for our photoshoot, Joan found two wool hats tucked away with it. Both had been conceived and knitted by Elizabeth, and were brought along because Joan thought I “might be interested.”
The funniest part is that she pulled them out just as she was leaving, almost as an afterthought. “Would you like to see two hats Elizabeth knit for me?”
With a conscious effort towards self-control, I respectfully said yes (with minimal limb-flailing). She then pulled out two colorwork hats, worked in natural wools. In the waning afternoon light I asked Joan to hug the window so I could get a few quick photos of her wearing the hats before she left.
The first was a ‘pillbox’ style with a turned picot hem and simple, rhythmic motifs worked in cream and heathered grey. Just before beginning her crown shaping, Elizabeth worked a purl row to create an angled turn and flat top. The turned hem at the base of the hat was folded and joined with a three-needle bind-off, but purling the stitches together rather than knitting them. This created a simple ridge at the top of the doubled-hem which I loved.
The second hat is fantastic. A small hat with a tam-like shape, worked in cream, brown and grey.
The pattern alternates between grey stripes and brown floating ‘lice’ stitches, worked on a background of cream wool. The crown shaping is the most exciting part: a combination of round ‘yoke’ shaping that transitions to a small 7-wedge decrease which incorporates colorwork for the brown star-like design. The beret ‘nub’ at the top of the crown is simply a loose piece of brown wool, or perhaps two strands felted together to create a slightly thicker piece of yarn that would stand up on its own.
Both hats are simple ideas, but have the imprint of a great mind. They were both so charming in design – utilitarian in purpose but with details that kept the knitting (which was most likely improvisational) interesting. I felt so fortunate to have gotten to inspect them closely, and now, to share them with you.
I’m grateful that we’ve been given more EZ to celebrate with Knit One, Knit All. If you’d like to grab a copy of your own, head on over to Schoolhouse Press, where I imagine they are going like hotcakes.