Loop Alpaca Tweed – Loop’s New Yarn!

Now we’re always thrilled when deliveries of woolly goodness arrive, but last week something extra special made it’s way to Loop. We’ve been working with the lovely folks at The Border Mill to bring you our very own range of yarn! Loop Alpaca Tweed is soft, textured and has the most gorgeous heathered colours – can you tell why we’re head over heels?

Nestled in the beautiful Scottish Boarders, The Border Mill is a small fibre spinning mill and our Loop Alpaca Tweed uses pure alpaca all bred in Britain. The blend of natural and hand-dyed alpaca fibre, gives each skein dappled flecks and nubs of saturated colour. We know that you’ll have fun pairing colour combinations from this capsule collection of twelve colours – which includes several that are exclusive to Loop.

Susan, the owner of Loop, worked closely with The Border Mill to develop these exclusive shades and then came the equally fun task of naming all of them! Names that not only evoke a colour, but a memory and meaning with each one.

 ‘Hotel of Bees’ references an important place in a book Susan read last year called ‘All The Light We Cannot See’, whereas ‘Captain Linnaeus Tripe’ is the name of an incredible documenter of India and Burma. In the 1850’s when photography was still very new, he was a pioneer and captured another world before the West encroached. All his photos have a sepia tone and the yellowish brown tones of this yarn captured that, so the name is a little nod to his work.

The artist Anselm Keifer and his sculptures made of lead are paid tribute to with the grey ‘Anselm’s Aeroplane’, Susan confesses “I have always wanted to name a grey yarn with this name!’. ‘Green for Ondine’ borrows the name from one of Joseph Cornell’s  beautifully curated shadow box pieces.

And it’s not just the colours that have us swooning, did we mention how soft this yarns is? The soft halo of alpaca fibre makes this yarn so cosy! One pattern we’ve been putting this squishy yarn to use with is the free pattern Flo the Elephant by Franklin Habit available from Knitty.com. 

We have a couple of patterns in production at the moment that we’ll be bringing to you soon! As always, we’ll keep you up to date on the blog.

It’s hard to just pick one of these beautiful shades, so one of our resident Loopettes and talented designer Fiona Alice came up with the perfect way to use every one – bunting! Each flag features a delicate blossom pattern with a yarn over edging to give a pretty scallop. It’s certainly brightening up our current window display!

 Each one uses around 16 grams so you can get several out of one skein – it’s the ideal way to play with colours and use up scraps. These little flags could also be sewn together to make a patched blanket, or how sweet would a little pocket detail be? We have the pattern to download for free at the end of the blog post if you want to start knitting your own!

Fiona has also been busy knitting up some of the accessories from her book Take Heart that was released last year. The small and medium size of the Chester Basin Hat take one skein of each colour, shown here in the colours Where Breezes Hydrangea Dream. The Chester Basin Mitten set also takes one skein of each colour.

Thanks to Fiona for writing up this sweet pattern for us! We can imagine the Blossom Bunting draped around the trees during a summer picnic, or adding a touch of colour to a wall… so what are you waiting for? Click on the image below to download the pattern to get knitting!

One final thing is our winner of last weeks competition. We gave you lovely readers the chance to win a Rico Pom Pom maker. Thank you to everyone who entered, and the winner is … Sara Hunt who said ‘Pom-poms would look great on all my Toastie Toots baby knits on the end of the ties. I’d even add the tiny pom-poms onto my newborn booties and beanies! Would really love one of these pompom makers as I have been using a piece of cardboard!’ Enjoy your new pom pom maker Sara, we’ll be in touch to let you know how you can claim your prize.

Until next week, Happy Knitting and Crocheting!