Fall preview: Quince and Co.

If you were sad like me to hear that Pam Allen was stepping down from Classic Elite as creative director, you will be as happy like me to hear her latest news: Yesterday, Pam's new enterprise, Quince & Co., opened for business.

Marian Cowl

What is Quince & Co.?

Effie Beret

Why a fabulous new yarn & pattern company, of course.

Featuring beautiful and extremely well-priced yarns primarily from North America, Quince & Co. is selling direct to the knitter on their website. Pam has joined forces with Carrie Bostick Hoge (a photographer and knitting designer) and Bob Rice (a mill owner), seeking to create beautiful yarns while remaining socially conscious "without making too much a fuss about it."

Castle Pullover

What will you find at Quince & Co.?

For its debut, Quince has created four yarns, all of them wool, with the majority of it sourced from America and all of the weights coming in the same palette of approximately 37 colors:

• Chickadee is a sportweight wool (gauge is listed as 6 or 6.5 sts per inch, depending on needle size), three plies of American wool, and is described as firm yet soft. At $5.75 for 181 yds/50g, it's exceedingly well-priced and looks divine for colorwork.

• Lark is another firm yet soft yarn, this time with four plies of American wool, knitting as a worsted weight, with gauge given as 4.5 to 5 sts per inch. Price point: $5.50 for a skein of 131 yds/50g.

• Osprey is described as a three-ply aran-weight yarn, knitting at 3.5 to 4 sts per inch. Osprey has a more relaxed twist, aiming for a loftier feel. $10.75 for a whopping 175 yds/100g.

• Last but not least, Puffin is the thickest of the Quince family, a single-ply yarn knitting at 2.5 to 3 sts per inch, for when you need speed. At $8.50 for a skein of 112 yds/100g, it's also very nicely-priced.

Pattern support looks divine. Right now, about 15 or so patterns are listed on the site, available by download. They are roughly evenly divided among the four yarns, and include sweaters as well as accessories. All have that clean yet elegant simplicity that hits just the right spot: interesting but not overdesigned. All are photographed beautifully. Price for the download varies by the size of the pattern, ranging around $5 to 6.75 -- but there are also a few free downloads, too.



Right now, Quince & Co. is selling direct to knitters, and through a single yarn shop, KnitWit in Portland, ME.

Cullin Cowl

According to their website, the higher costs of doing business in the US, as opposed to, say, importing the yarn from other countries makes it harder for Quince to offer their yarns through knitting shops. It will be interesting to see how this innovative business model plays out...

Photos copyright 2010 Quince & Co.

An interesting development

Quince & Co., and for those of you on Facebook, here. A new yarn company with top-notch pattern support... and a drool-worthy yarn called "Puffin" described this way:

We love this plump and chunky single-ply. It's soft and rustic with a misty, matte finish—almost as if the strand had been lightly felted. Can you tell from the photo? Knit Puffin on size 11 needles and you have pliable, warm fabric that would make a great pair of mittens for the dead of winter....

A little birdie told me that Pam Allen is involved in this venture, and since I'm a huge Pam Allen fan, you can bet that I will keep you posted on this. . .The company is set to launch in the next few weeks.

p.s. Happy birthday, Véronik!!!

BFL-apalooza at BBF

Today I've updated the Black Bunny Fibers shop with some great blue-faced leicester yarns and rovings. You'll find 100% superwash BFL sock yarn:

Red Light

Electric Navy

a terrific, tightly-twisted blend of 75% BFL and 25% nylon:

Patina

Cabbage Rose

some batches of superwash BFL roving:

Ribbon

and some non-superwash BFL roving:


Go get 'em while they last! (It's the last update before my big studio sale on Nov. 22d...)

Podcast alert

A couple of days ago, I got to chat with Kathy and Steve Elkins, owner of (drumroll please) WEBS. Ah, WEBS. You can tell they are one of the all-time best places to feed your yarn addiction because their website's URL is www. YARN . com. I have always loved the way you get an automatic discount of 20 or 25% if you order over a certain amount (it's like working at a yarn shop without having to deal with pain-in-the-butt customers!). And they have the best sales. If you haven't checked out their Anniversary Sale, you still have a few days left. Amazing prices on the good stuff, like Berroco Ultra Alpaca, Cascade 220, Debbie Bliss Rialto DK (a really nice, supersoft merino) and RYC Wool/Silk (Steve put that one on sale just for me). I can safely say that Webs is one of those places that has my husband periodically saying to me "Do you think you could move some of this yarn into the garage?"

Kathy and Steve invited me to appear on the official WEBS podcast, called "Ready, Set, Knit" which you can find here. The episode I taped will be broadcast tomorrow morning (9 a.m. on station WHMP in western Massachusetts) and available for download on places like ITunes. I thank them for giving me a chance to babble on about KSF. And I hope I get to podcast with them again soon! (hint, hint)

For my Amurrican readers, have a terrific Memorial Day weekend. If you're near a computer, check back over the weekend: I'll be posting a No-Bull Book Review and also an interview with Laura Grutzeck, one of my co-authors.