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Smitten.

I’m helplessly, hopelessly in love.

This is Smitten 120, the newest addition to Elliebelly. It’s a single-ply yarn in a fingering weight, spun from 20% Silk, 15% Yak, and 60% Merino Wool.  It comes in 120 gram/523 yarn skeins, so that one skein is  perfect for shawl knitting.  The details completely fail to capture my love for this yarn.  I love it in the skein.  It’s so soft and so pretty.  Yak is lustrous, soft and has good elasticity, so blended it with the silk and fine merino, it’s a beautiful yarn with just a hint of halo.  It’s everything good in a shawl/scarf yarn.  It will make lovely hats.  And I’m already thinking about sweater possibilities. The sample is knit up in Llyr, one of the colorways that was developed to take advantage of the qualities of Smitten, and the pattern is Lamassu.  You can see Judi’s project page here.

I’ve fallen so hard for this yarn that I’m planning to add a DK version as well (perhaps I’ll take advantage of that to knit the sweater I’m dreaming about).  I’m over the moon about this yarn — you know that wonderful feeling when something you think you’re going to love wildly exceeds all of your expectations? I love Smitten, and can’t wait to make it available to you when we reopen later this month! Make sure you sign up for our newsletter so you’ll know all the details.

You know who you are.  My friends who spin their own yarn from roving.  You are wonderful people, and I love and admire you.

You also scare me a little bit.

“Are you going to dye any roving when Elliebelly reopens?” That was the entire email I received from a close friend a couple of months ago.  “I’m not sure,” I told her.  I’ve always been sort of picky about the roving I dye.  It’s typically small farm sourced or a commercially available, but uncommon or limited availability fiber that I particularly like.  I don’t dye it regularly or have ongoing kinds of roving available.

She emailed me a couple of weeks later, this time with a photo of some of her handspun yarn attached.  She reminded me that she REALLY needed some more Elliebelly roving.  The next week, I got emails from a couple of other spinners.  And a former customer simply demanded “more of that soft merino I got from you in 2005. I need at least two pounds.”

Then, at a Christmas party, I was introduced to a woman who said, “I need to talk with you about something really important.” I thought it was a business matter.  We found a quiet spot in the house.  “Roving,” she said.  “I just got a wheel and am learning to spin and a friend said I’ve got to get my hands on some of your roving.” She was insistent.  And, another friend, a teacher at my children’s school and a wonderful knitter, mentioned that she had just got a wheel and was learning to spin.

The spinners out there have been insistent.  And demanding, in, of course, the polite way that all people who love fiber behave when they really need something.  So out of fear (not really, actually, out of love for you all and selfishly, because I love dyeing roving), I’ve found some very fine merino roving that I like, and dyed up a bit for the opening.  I hope it’s what you’ve all been wanting!

Also, if you’ve been with me on Ravelry or Instagram, you’ve probably seen by now that I’m encouraging people to sign up for my new email list (you can do that at the top of this page).  On Saturday morning, I’ll do a random drawing from everyone who has signed up so far, and offer a skein of Elliebelly Luxury Cashmerino Sock yarn, in the Crayon colorway, as a prize.  So please sign up.  I promise to keep the emails to a minimum – news about our reopening, updates after that, but no spam and I’ll never sell or share your information.  Take a second or two and sign up!  I’d love to send you this skein of yarn.