Now that many of us are out of work, the satisfaction of a job well done is something that we need to seek out.  That sense of well being can come from finishing a project, but when our knitting takes several days or even weeks to complete, that reward can feel somewhat remote.

We’d like to encourage you to use your additional free time to try different pursuits.  Watching seed starts make daily progress in their growth, or putting together a delicious meal can bring that healing sense of joy with a bit less work on your part.

To that end, we’d like to offer you some reading material that can give you a creative respite from the daily news and provide you with patterns, recipes, and instructions for other pursuits that can enrich your life and beautiful your home.

A quick browse through our selection of Magazines, that could be on your doorstep by the end of next week, may give you some great material to try something new! Taproot and Making both offer a rich selection of content that extends way beyond the typical knitting periodical.

This week, the newest issue of Making has been released.  Within its pages you’ll find projects that include a variety of crafts: KNIT • SEW • QUILT • EMBROIDER • CROSS STITCH • CROCHET • NEEDLE FELT • RECIPES.  All of these have been inspired by the idea of simplicity.

And we have two signed copies to give away!  Head on over to our Instagram post here, and leave a comment there about what your favorite part of making is.  We will pick two winners at random on Friday the 15th.

What a breath of fresh spring air!  Enjoy.

Our collective needles and hooks have been flying!  Raverly is full of inspiration as crafters around the world are completing project after project, using this time of quarantine and social isolation to make and create.  We selected several projects made up with our heavier weight yarns to share with you this week so that you might enjoy some instant gratification!

Our friend WillowSnowKnits recently finished a Nightshift Shawl, designed by Andrea Mowry using 6 contrasting skeins of Spinnery Weekend Wool.  She picked out these colors while visiting our booth at Stitches West and we remember the care she took in her selection.  We love the way the tweedy colors work together in harmony to create lively contrasts that look gorgeous in combination.

Leslie opted for a neutral project that we anticipate will become a wardrobe staple for her next winter.  She worked up a bulky pullover, Column designed by Hiromi Nagasawa that utilizes unusual construction for a deceptively simple look.  Her sweater was created with our Natural Dark Capricorn a single ply blend of wool and mohair that is dense and snuggly warm.

We especially like that Leslie refers to this sweater as her bear hug.

Our friend Heather’s Moorland (deigned by Jennifer Wood) is like a breath of Spring!  We are smitten with her color selection of Lichen Weekend Wool with two shades of variegated yarn in garden fresh colors.  Her project notes are very detailed, just what we love to find when considering a new project.  Learning more about another knitter’s experience through their project can help inform our own!

We’ll have more recently completed projects to share with you in the week’s to come.  Next time we’ll focus on creations made with lighter weight yarns.  Until then, stay safe and craft on!

With several more weeks (at least) of quarantine ahead, it seems like an ideal time to consider an ambitious project.  Why not work on a blanket  Under normal circumstances, larger projects like knitted throws and bedspreads seem daunting.  It will take many hours of crafting to accomplish a project of this size.

Now that the time is available to us and before the weather grows to warm, let’s cast on!  We’ll have a keepsake of this unusual time that we can treasure next winter when we again are drawn back to snuggle indoors (hopefully due to more seasonal instincts).

We thought we’d share with you a few blanket project possibilities to see if one strikes you as the perfect option.

Cap Sease designed her Diagonal Blanket with our Variegated Green Mountain Green.  This yarn is one of our Mill’s softest, combining the finest wool with kid mohair in a loosely spun 2-ply construction that blooms into a fuzzy delight.  The un-dyed fibers are added in sequence into the carding machine leading to a self-striping yarn that combines creamy white and a soft taupe that is a perfect neutral to match any decor.

This project is worked on the bias with a random placement of garter ridge bumps that will give you some creative leeway to play.  We love the juxtaposition of texture and color changes.  It may be a perfect project for you to enjoy while listening to your favorite audio book, podcast series or Netflix selection.

If you’d prefer a smaller throw or your family will be celebrating a new arrival in the near future, you might want to consider casting on for Blankie.  The alternating blocks of Shaker Rib and Garter Stitch create a rich texture that will show to advantage indoors and out. By adding or removing blocks, you increase or decrease the dimensions of the blanket.

Shown here made up with 6 skeins of our Maize Cotton Comfort, this throw can be worked up with any of our DK weight yarn options: Alpaca Elegance or Mewesic would be ideal.  It might be just the thing to use up that sweater quantity of yarn that you’ve been holding on to waiting for the perfect pattern.

Among the pages of our newest pattern collection, At the Spinnery, you’ll find the Millstone Blanket.  This lushly textured garter stitch circular throw uses two shades of our Mountain Mohair for a comfortingly cozy blanket (or shawl) that is a showstopper!

This project is worked in the round from the center outward with regular increases, slipped stitch columns and a shifting pattern of stockinette against the garter stitch background.  This fabric will keep you engaged from one row to the next.  The pattern is charted. You may find that after several repeats, the consistent shifting becomes easily recognizable, and you’ll start anticipating where the chart is leading you next.

© Margaret Holzmann

And fresh on Ravelry this month is a new blanket project that couldn’t be more timely.  Margaret Holzmann’s Safe at Home blanket calls for approx. 270 yards each of twelve colors of Aran weight yarn.  Our Weekend Wool will make for a perfect palette if you don’t have sufficient yardage in your stash that you are eager to use up.

This quilt-like work of art is worked in garter stitch strips then sewn together. You will be using intarsia, color striping, and pick up and knit techniques.  Finally, the border is added by picking up and knitting along the completed blanket edges.  And best of all, there is a KAL (knit a-long) you can join on either Ravelry or Facebook that will connect you with other makers who are enjoying the same project and will be sharing their progress.

What a wonderful way to virtually connect with friendly makers and learn a bit more about how they are faring in these days of change.  We wish you well and many happy hours of stitching.

We have been so inspired to see what you all have been creating during our quarantine.   The projects range from the small and intricate to the ambitious and wonderful.  It warms our hearts to know that in a small part we are continuing to stay connected through our shared love of wool and the solace that our crafting can bring.

Today, we want to share with you some of the fabulous finished sweaters that are popping up on Ravelry that have recently been created with Spinnery yarns or patterns.

Lisa has been working on a stunning stranded pullover, Goldwing.  She made this work of art designed by Jennifer Steingass with our Cotton Comfort as her main color.  She managed to get this on and off her needles in under a month!  What an achievement!

Robbie, better known as BoxySweaterGal on Ravelry, recently finished a rich and flattering Ceilidh.  This delightfully comfy pullover is designed by Julia Farwell-Clay and Robbie chose to work her up with Brick House Mewesic.  We encourage you to check out her project page so that you can see what she did for her pockets.  Yep, this pattern has pockets!  And, Spoiler Alert, her contrast color was sewn in!

Our next project to share with you is a very special one.  Marathonknitter is a serial knitter, making more than one version of a pattern, when she finds one that she really enjoys.  This sweater is the third version of Juniper designed by Ash Alberg, and her second one using yarn that we’ve spun.  She selected the Miel colorway of Julie Asselin’s Nurtured (a delicious 3-ply worsted weight yarn).

While we adore her finished garment, the reason why she made it was what caught our attention and warmed our hearts.

“A local farmer was feeling blue and stressed, so I gave her my second Juniper, in Chambray colored Nurtured. Wrapping a friend in wool seemed the kind thing to do. But, then I had the perfect excuse to make another one!

Knitting it at the height of the virus crisis, a great comforting project that brings together Julie’s talented dye techniques, Green Mountain Spinnery production, and the good efforts of Alisa at Firefly Fibers, my beloved but not-so local LYS.”

We feel fortunate to be able to work on projects that bring us joy through the calming meditative practice.  When the finished object can then bring pleasure or comfort to others, it amplifies the grace to be found in the craft into something that knits our communities together.  What a blessing!

Stay tuned for additional posts to come that will feature other finished objects made by your fellow crafters.  Please feel free to send photos and project details to Kate at spinnery@spinnery.com if you’d like to share your work with our friends here.

Vermont transitioned from social distancing suggestions to a Shelter at Home mandate that will remain in effect for several weeks.  It means that many of us will now be sheltering in place as others of our friends around the country have been for a week or more.

In a surprising turn of events, many of our social connections are deepening, with friends and social knitting groups gathering with video conferencing technology to stave off feelings of isolation that can come from not interacting with co-workers and service workers in what used to be normal day to day life.

And families are spending more time together.  Parents who are working from home may be struggling to engage and distract their kiddos who aren’t accustomed to these new restrictions.

Why not try knitting?

It’s possible that the same benefits that your stitches can bring you, can be shared by others in your household.  Crafting can be meditative, it brings a sense of accomplishment, and perhaps a few welcome moments of quiet concentration(?)

© flax & twine | anne weil

We wanted to encourage you to delve into finger knitting.  Our friend Ann Weil (of Flax & Twine has a lovely photo tutorial on her website.  Or you may want to explore Youtube to find instructional videos like this one for right-handed finger knitting:

No special tools are required.  A bulky yarn is recommended, like our Yarn Over or Capricorn that will allow quick progress for impatient beginners.  You’ll find a similar video for left-handed instruction, so no one is left out.

Try sharing something that you love with folks you are quarantined with.  Take frequent breaks, and if your fellow makers are of a wiggly age, add some dance party intermissions to blow off steam and pent up energy that will allow your little ones respite from concentrating on something new.

Perhaps you’ll make something special together.  Or perhaps you’ll share a few laughs and learn that every tangled mess can be undone.  We wish you many moments of joy during these days ahead.  We hope that our fiber can bring you the same comfort that it does us!

Be well, and happy knitting!

Keeping one’s equanimity has been difficult this week, and it’s never been more important. Whether you are sheltering in place, practising a self-quarantine, or keeping a generous social distance; it feels like a good time to find solace in your stitches, so that we can best support our communities from that full-hearted place that knitting can help us find.

We have released a new pattern this week that we hope will keep your fingers busy, your mind engaged on the pleasant work of crafting something useful and beautiful.  Introducing, Bunny Hill designed for us by Sandi Rosner.

Learning how to do something new is tricky at any age. Starting to ski on a gentle slope takes some of the fear of failing (and falling) out of the equation. This top-down pullover’s repetitive motif provides recurring rows of stranded color work that can act as a similar form of training. Practice eventually makes perfect. We simply need to be willing to try.

Shown in White Simply Fine and Woodsmoke, Fresh Cut Grass, Dessert, and Summers Day Simply Fine Skinnies.  Our new mini skeins of Simply Fine are just as downy soft as the original undyed skeins, but in a lovely spectrum of colors that you might find therapeutic to work with.

Sandi’s pattern includes a wide range of sizes 34 (38, 42, 46, 50, 54, 58),” /86 (97, 107, 117, 127, 137, 147) cm with yardage requirements as follows: 2 (2, 3, 3, 3,4, 4) skeins Undyed Simply Fine (450 yds) 1 skein each of Simply Fine Skinnies (224 yds) in CC1, CC2, CC3, CC4.

We hope that you enjoy spending some time with your needles with soft yarn running through your fingers.  We trust that connecting with the wooly goodness of natural fibers will bring you some solace, and a feeling of our love.