One thing I didn’t explicitly point out in my little studio tour on Friday was the narrow shelf just above my WIP shelf in the big storage wall, which is where I keep the yarns I’m the most eager to have off the shelf and into my hot little hands. It’s generally a mix of upcoming sweater quantities and some assorted singles or pairs of skeins I’ve either found or been sent. At the moment, that shelf holds four sweater quantities (all discussed here) and a few other beauties I thought I’d show you today — which were actually sitting out on my worktable the day I took most of those photos. With all the same caveats and pleas as in my April Yarns in Waiting post, these are my current fixations/fascinations—

1. The unlabeled ivory skein at the far left is Tov from Woolfolk, which came up in my post about the stunning Tov collection. It’s 16 “cable spun” plies of the same Ultimate Merino of Woolfolk’s original yarns, this time at aran weight. I’ve never seen anything that looks quite like it.

2. We have a joke around my house that my husband’s favorite color is “smudge,” so when I opened the box of Cashmere Merino Bloom (75% extra-fine merino, 25% cashmere) from Purl Soho with this inside, we both knew it was destined to be something for him. This Charcoal Onyx colorway is intriguing — a tonal marl of soft black and dark charcoal. Heathered smudge, you might say.

3. Stone Wool, as I understand it, is a joint effort between Twig & Horn (aka Quince and Co) and Whitney Hayward, who has previously used Stone Wool as the brand for her handspun. This is mill-spun 100% American Cormo, worsted weight, that’s some mysterious combination of worsted- and woollen-spun methodologies. I don’t know if that means 1 ply is worsted spun and the other is woollen spun (?) or what, but I do know it’s delicious in the skein. I’m loving this Tobacco colorway, naturally, which is somewhere between camel and what I think of as tobacco. (The 4-pc pattern collection for this yarn is great, too.)

4. Washington Targhee is Tolt’s new collaboration with Abundant Earth Fiber Mill — a limited edition of 100% Targee fiber grown and milled in the state of Washington. I’m really crazy about this yarn; it’s super tidy looking in the skein and both soft and sturdy to the touch.

5. Those four were all sent to me by the makers in recent months, whereas the last one (of which I have two skeins) I bought at Porter Flea on Friday night from my friend Allison of TN Textile Mill. I was ogling the yardage of her latest fabrics and spotted these skeins on the counter, which are the yarn she’d used for the fabrics I was drooling on at that moment. It’s 100% merino, bulky weight, in a dark camel shade that’s exactly what I’ve been wanting for that turtleneck I’m craving, so I may wind up with a SQ of this one. The fabric it wove up into is incredible but I’m eager to see how the loosely spun yarn knits up and wears. (I’m not sure if she has any plans to list it for sale on her website.) (UPDATE: It’s now available online!)

Given how many of those April yarns in waiting wound up factoring into my queue, I think it’s safe to say you’ll be hearing more from me about these gems!

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