What people say
about our yarn!
I bought your sock yarn (one dark skein for socks and one pastel
for a baby sweater) at Stitches East in Baltimore last November. I have
just finished the socks (made the Monkey pattern from Cookie A.) and have got to
rave! I have been obsessively knitting socks for about the last 15 years.
I have used every sock yarn out there. I have my favorites. But,
these socks are absolutely glorious. The colors, the dyeing--just
fabulous. Now, I can't wait till October SE so I can now buy more
of this most gorgeous stuff! Just wanted to share.....Ruth in N.J.
A
friend of mine has been raving about your yarns since she first discovered you
at MD Sheep & Wool festival a couple of years ago. Yesterday I learned why.
It was my first time at MS&W...Your yarns and patterns are superior to
anything else I saw at the show!
This is that Tess Designer sock yarn...I have to say I am in love
with this yarn. I think I like it better than, ahem, koigu. shhh...keep that
under your hat...but I really do.
Tess.…I must say a few words about Tess Designer Yarns.
I emailed them about a week before I went to Stitches. I explained that I'd
bought some Ribbon yarn at MD S&W and I had buyers remorse. They emailed
me back (like in 5 minutes) and assured me I could bring it back to Stitches
for an exchange. Look what I got instead of the ribbon yarn...
First let me congratulate you on having the most beautiful booth at the Sheep & Wool Festival in Maryland 2 weeks ago. My 9 and 5 year old daughters looked at everything else at the Festival and agreed that I should buy something from you! The colors, patterns, displays, and project examples were all breathtaking
… the mailman just delivered my yarn - it's exactly the colors I was hoping for! It looks just like a birch tree. Absolutely gorgeous!
Comments: I bought this yarn from Tess' booth at MDSW 2005. It's a
fantastic sock yarn! It was only $15 for a skein that's 450 yards. I have a lot
of the skein left. I definitely will buy more of this yarn. I started these
socks while waiting for the plane to Mexico in January, 2006. I really love how
this pattern works with this yarn. I really love how the finished socks fit. It
was hard to get them on over my heel, at least at first, but they fit perfectly
once on my feet.
First stop - Tess Designer Yarns. My favorite stop. I absolutely love
their yarns. I was going nuts. You should have seen me before I narrowed down
the choices to what I was actually going to purchase. My arms were laden
with yarn. Seriously. In the end, I ended up with 6 skeins of sage green Silk
Boucle, 5 skeins of sage green Cultured Silk & Wool and 4 skeins of
raspberry worsted weight Cascade Silk. The silk boucle is destined for a sweater
for me and the cultured silk & wool is for my sister (she wants me to design
a poncho for her to knit). The raspberry silk - I have no idea what I'm going to
make, plus it's out of character for me to choose the raspberry color, but it
just looked so gorgeous, I had get it.
Speaking of temptations galore, we actually arrived at MSW
around 8:30a and the parking lot was already swarming! Next year, are we
going to have to camp out the night before? Lucky for us, we'd already
strategized our "List" and began at Tess'
Designer Yarns. I somehow managed to leave there with one hank of
fun-colored Super Socks and three hanks of Microfiber Ribbon in a fuschia color.
Knitter’s review Tess' Designer Yarns had a stunning display of hand-dyed
silks, bouclés, wools, ribbons, superbulkies and other yarns, all sorted by
colorway. Even on Sunday afternoon, the booth had a constant line at the
check-out table.
The mailman just delivered some of the most beautiful yarn I
have ever seen! I love it! Thank you so much for all of your
products - they truly make knitting even more relaxing and fulfilling than it is
with any other yarn!
We hit Tess’
Designer Yarns first, promising that it would be the last variegated
sock yarn for Miyon and myself (still working on making Marisa a sock knitter)
because we love fancy sock patterns, and some just need solid, or near solid
sock yarn. By near solid I mean dyed one color, but with subtle variations in
the dying. Tess actually had some of that, and we ended up with a lot of the
same sock yarn colors, though we did get what was supposed to be the last
variegated yarn there (I say supposed to be because I’m weak). We all fondled
some silk in that booth, and I decided that if I was good (and stayed within
budget) for the rest of the day, I could have the yarn. We buried it under some
other stuff and left.
Um, so liiiiiiike…I’m really NOT sure how anyone
walks into Tess’
Designer Yarn and DOESN’T walk out with something. What I
*am* sure of though, is that the fine vendors at Tess’ DON’T appreciate
being referred to as ‘Crack Dealers’. Luckily for me, I escaped having
*only* bought these three little balls of Angora Merino (98 yards each!!) As an
extra bonus, they threw in a free Bias Scarf pattern! yay!
I also figured out what top project I wanted to tackle next --
the brightly colored tank top made out of the incredible microfiber ribbon
that I bought from Tess' Designer Yarns at MSW.
Winding this stuff into a ball was a little bit of a challenge, given it's
eel-like slipperiness, but they put very helpful directions on the ball band
to help you get going. I didn't think there was much more to learn about ball
winding, but now I do know something handy -- turn your swift 90 degrees from
it's normal angle when working with slippery yarns and wind by hand as tightly
as you can and then stick the ball into a nice safe plastic sandwich bag. I
haven't had a lot of good swatching luck
lately. The pattern recommends US size 6 needles (4.0 mm) to get
gauge. I ended up on US size 9 (5.5 mm, I think). The good thing about this
yarn though, after ripping out my swatch 3 times, it still looked fresh and
happy in my final swatch. Which you can see below:
The main pattern stitch is mostly reverse stockinette. If you
click the image, you can also see the stockinette side, which I think is quite
neat as well. Sometimes hand dyed stuff just doesn't give you nice intervals,
even when the colors look lovely together. This stuff (the Confetti colorway)
is just as lovely knit up as it is in the hank -- and it smells good as well!
I'd love to know what they use to wash this stuff after dying it.
http://www.keyboardbiologist.net/knitblog/archives/000527.html
I have to agree
about the smell of Tess yarns--it is lovely. I am looking forward to seeing
this knit up. Posted by:
Kathleen at June 21, 2004 06:46 AM
Well, I'm glad I'm
not the only one who sniffs Tess yarn. :-) I wind my Tess ribbon yarn the
normal way (since my cheap swift doesn't turn AFAIK), but I wind it around a
cardboard "donut" that came in a beautiful Italian slippery yarn. With a core to it, the ribbon yarn isn't that hard
to work with. Posted by: claudia at June 21, 2004 06:52 AM
Isn't the yarn pictured here luxurious? Let
me tell you a little story about it.
Once upon a time, there lived a little knitter named GuinnessGirl. She bought
some beautiful yarn from Sophie's
Yarns in Philadelphia, with the intention of making her sister a
scarf for Christmas (not the same yarn as pictured, Sis, so don't worry - I know
you're not keen on pink). Being new to the knitting scene, she sought guidance
from the store clerk as to what size needles and how much yarn to buy and how
wide to make the scarf, and she followed his advice to a T - even measured the
width with a ruler.
Alas, as GG neared the end of the yarn she had purchased, it became sadly
apparent that the resulting scarf would not be of suitable length. She returned
to Sophie's Yarns, hoping to buy more, but they had none in stock. They promised
to hunt far and wide for GG's yarn, but instead ignored her calls. Thus, GG was
on her own. She called this yarn store and that yarn store, but to no avail - no
similar yarn could be found.
As a last resort, GG contacted the yarn company, Tess Designer Yarns, directly, but
without much hope, as many yarnmakers will not work with individuals. However,
she was pleasantly surprised, as Melinda, the owner and magical yarnmaker was
beyond helpful. Melinda saved the day by locating yarn the exact color as the
yarn GG needed and mailing it by priority mail to GG, creating a lifelong
customer and fan. And they all lived happily ever after, except perhaps Sophie's
Yarns, which GG plans to bash in this blog and beyond. The end.
I
really splurged on Tess' but her yarn has held up better than any other socks
I've made, so I think it's worth the splurge.
This morning I got up bright and
early, picked up my friend, and we drove the several hours down to Santa Clara
for Stitches West. So many gorgeous yarns to choose from! So many wonderful
things I wanted to bring home. It was so very hard to keep that self
restraint. I did pretty well until about midway through, when we hit the booth
for Tess Designer Yarns. Those of you who've poked around in my archives might
remember my Seabreeze sweater, which I made out of some absolutely gorgeous
superwash merino I bought from Tess Designer Yarns at last year's Stitches
West. The minute I saw their booth this year I knew I had to get more - they
always have such an amazing collection of colors, and their yarn (at least
their superwash merino) is just divine. It was hard to pick just one, but
eventually these two huge skeins of gorgeous turquoise superwash merino just
had to come home with me.
Hi, thank you. I look forward
to receiving the yarns. Your colors were so beautiful! I look forward to seeing
you again at next year's show. I spin and dye alpaca myself, but just fell in
love with your colors
Oh, I love Tess yarns! That colorway knit up so nicely in that
pattern! I am knitting on my second Tess sock right now, and I was worried about
the yardage too, but even with my big feet, I have more than enough. That
peacock blue is stunning - I am sure your pal will love it!
Posted
by: Lolly | February
09, 2006 at 08:03 AM
I finished the Ribbon Tank pictured below. It fits like a
glove! The ribbon has a lot of "give" in it and I love the way it
feels. After sweating out whether or not I would have enough, I have almost a
full ball of the variegated rainbow-colored ribbon left. I've contacted Tess
Yarns to see what else I can make with this luscious ribbon.
Tess yarns are amazing in every way. It
is my fave, I think... so, I got some (or four) this weekend!!
I
discovered Tess' Yarns at Stitches Midwest a couple of years ago and it is
luscious! Her Super Sock yarn is incredibly soft and her colorways are some of
the prettiest I have seen. It's one of my favorite sock yarns and I don't see it
discussed very much so I thought I'd mention it. Make sure to click on her
available colors and prepare to drool.
Oh man, I am loving the Tess you picked! I think it's my
all-time favorite sock yarn.
From my new favorite yarn
supplier, Tess' Designer Yarns in
Steuben ME, two 560 yard skeins of Superwash Merino and a 333 yard skein of
Microfiber Riboon. The superwash is the softest I have ever touched, in a
beatiful and subtle green-blue colorway. As Tess' informational pamphlet
states, "[I]n a review in Knitters' magazine, the writer picked this yarn
as her favorite among more than a dozen Superwash yarns" - and I can feel
why. The booth that Tess had setup at Stitches was incredible and I wish now
that I had taken a photo...it was a gorgeous myriad of colors that eased into
one another. Anyone with a yarn fetish would be sure to drool over this
amazing display. Anne and I visited more than once before making our final
selections. This superwash merino will be used for a baby blanket, pattern yet
to be determined:
Here's a closeup of
the microfiber ribbon yarn. It is so silky to the touch, I'm thinking that
this is perfect yarn to make a silky edging for a baby blanket. It seems that
babies love to rub the satiny edge of blankets when nursing or falling asleep,
so let's hope that this microfiber ribbon has that special touch
the blue/green variegated yarn bits i sent you are from Tess' Yarns (in
Maine)--it's their SuperSocks yarn 80%wool/20%Nylon. it's such a great
yarn...you should google them online and look at their other colorways. they are
a great company.
My final image from Stitches is my purchase from the Tess
Designer Yarns booth. So, yes, there were booths that had yards and yards of the
finest alpaca yarns you could want. Yes there was some yarn made from ox hairs
that was to die for. There was angora too. But then, there was Tess Designer
Yarns. Holy man. That booth so needs to fill up a bathtub with their yarn and
sell 15 minute slots of time where you can roll around naked in their yarn. They
have the most beautiful yarn colors and their different yarns are all so so very
nice. I escaped with two skeins of yarn in the same colorways, I got a skein of
their Super Socks & Baby yarn (80% wool/20% nylon, 450 yds) and a skein of
their Microfiber Ribbon yarn (100% nylon microfiber, 333 yds). These will be
socks and a scarf:
It was extremely difficult to escape from their booth
without more yarn. I think we groped their yarn several times over our two day
visit to stitches and I finally bought this later in the day on Sunday. I am
glad I didn't walk away empty handed from their booth, it was far too nice to
pass up.
This
was another awesome booth that made me feel lucky in that I am "only"
a sock knitter-- they had delicious yarns arranged by color, not by content (so
there was a brown/black yarn section, a pink section, a purple section, etc.) I
had a bit of a hard time locating their sock yarn in this arrangement, but they
had the *nicest* staff working there and I easily found this beauty. A
"steal" too at $15/hank.. if I'd had found more in different colorways
I probably would have picked up more than this one.
I confess (belatedly) that I am a yarn sniffer. I have found that I prefer to sniff Tess Yarns. This discovery was made at Maryland Sheep and Wool and affirmed at Stitches East. I have some silk/merino blend..that is divine. mmmm. :)
Irst
on my list was Tess Yarns. I found it. On the end is the silk yarn, a beautiful
tangerine, and the silk/wool on the end, not sure what color it is, all i know
is I had to buy all they had (6 or 8 skeins, I lost count)a very buttery color.
I LOVE IT>Thinking of a long sleeve dress.I couldn't wait,had a size 6
needle in the bag, and I did a gauge swatch. Hubby loves the color and wants a
sweater out of it..I was there for 40 min. I spent all the money I brought