yarn, yarn, yarn 🌈

June 28, 2020 Emily Foden

We’re back after a little hiatus with lots of yarn for you, including some brand new yarns & colours. Wahoo!

Over the past couple of months, the Viola team has gradually emerged from quarantine and returned to work part time. We have managed to dye a surprisingly large amount of yarn in that time, in spite of the fact that we’re only working 3 day weeks. In fact, we have so much yarn that we are going to split it into two shop updates! The first of which is set for…

Friday, July 10th @ 11am EDT

The date and time for the second update will be released after we are finished processing orders from the first update. I will share the yarn breakdown for both updates below so that you can plan you shopping more easily (scroll to the bottom).

What’s new?

Yes, you read right. We are very excited to be able to share some new yarns and colours with you! While these yarns have been in stock since February, this is their first time in the shop. Needless to say, it has been difficult keeping quiet for such a long time. At last, I can spill the beans…

West Country DK & 4 Ply:

West Country 4Ply

A beautiful yarn spun by my friends at John Arbon Textiles, West Country is a blend of three wools that are local to the Arbon Mill in North Devon: 50% Exmoor Blueface, 30% Blue Faced Leicester & 20% Wensleydale. This yarn is the very same as the John Arbon Devonia base, now coming to you hand dyed by us in VIOLA colourways.

DK: 233 meters (254 yards) / 100g / $37 CAD

4 Ply: 388 meters (424 yards) / 100g / $37 CAD

It is a lustrous worsted spun yarn with lots of tooth and wonderful stitch definition. It dyes beautifully as well, creating crisp and rich colours. I (Emily) have been on a quest to knit the perfect cabled cardigan using West Country DK and am well on my way to knitting up an entire ball into various swatches…

West Country DK in HERON BLUE (knit on 4.5mm needle)

WC DK in SAGE

WC DK in PEONY

Mohair Mini Skeins

Another exciting addition to our yarn selection is the (much anticipated at our end) 20 g Mohair Mini Skein! It’s exactly the same as our 50 g Mohair Lace, but in a perfect quantity for stripes, accents or building a larger palette of mohair colours. One 20 g skein goes a surprisingly long way, we came so close to finishing a pair of Sachiko Burgin’s Watashi No Yume Socks with just one 20 g skein. We will be offering these little gems in bundles of five colours and individually so that you can mix, match and build your own mohair collection!

Mohair Mini: 72% Kid Mohair, 28% Silk / 168 meters (183 yards) / 20g / $22 CAD

Bundle of 5 Mohair Minis: $112 CAD

Blended stripes in various shades of mohair lace…this swatch could quite literally go on for days.

Many of you have been asking about yarn to knit a Soirée Sweater (thanks!) Pre-Covid it looked as though we would be receiving more Polwarth & Alpaca right about now. Since our whole world has been thrown into a tailspin, our yarn delivery has been postponed again. We will keep you up to date when more news arrives and make lots of noise about the return of out lovely Polwarth & Alpaca yarn. In the mean time, the new West Country 4Ply is a great substitute…and I’ve knit up a little swatch holding it together with Mohair Lace just in case you can’t hold out any longer.

Which yarns will be available When?

UPDATE NO. 1 (Friday, July 10th @ 11am EDT):

West Country DK & 4Ply
Mohair Lace & Mohair Lace Minis
Mohair Mini Bundles of Five skeins

UPDATE NO. 2 (date & time TBA):

Sock & Sock Mini Bundles
Organic Merino DK
Shadow DK
Merino Fingering

We are still working three day weeks here, with staff split between days. This means that order processing times will be slower than normal. Because we pick and check all of your orders (at least twice!) before packing and shipping, it may seem like a long time before the first parcels are sent out. We do this because it allows us to double check for colour consistency in each order. If you are curious about our shop update process, you can read more about it here. If your local Post Office is not operating or working at reduced hours due to Covid 19 please let us know. We can hold onto your purchase until it is safer to ship or make another arrangement to suit your needs.

Viola