Welcome Home Yarns

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This is Tanya Thomann’s Marquette. Tanya’s the designer behind MayBea Crafted. She’s TanyaTho on Ravelry. She’s my Black Sheep Knitters Guild mate. And she’s also at least one-third of the team responsible for a new all-Michigan yarn, Welcome Home. Carla Kohoyda-Inglis of cjkoho is the dyer. Mary Glass is the Michigan shepherd whose herd of Romney/Blue-Faced Leicester are responsible for the fleece. And the yarn is processed and spun right here in Michigan. My sense of the yarn is that it’s a light worsted weight…or maybe a hefty DK. My Marquette is worked on size 4 US.

I very much enjoyed working with Welcome Home. As I’m thinking you expect, it’s a tad rustic. I like that. Every once in awhile you get a reminder that your yarn was recently walking around in a field. But only every once in awhile.

Tanya has kitted Marquette with plenty of yarn to complete the project. Sheep to skein–all pure Michigan!

Here’s another look at Marquette. It’s got a great crown decrease. No pointiness here.

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There are some long floats to deal with in sections of the pattern. But it’s well worth the effort. And I really like the great saturated colors. Look for Welcome Home at festival booths. Or join Black Sheep Knitters Guild and I’m thinking you’d have an easy source for this kit and this yarn!

This is another MayBea Crafted Welcome Home kit: Drummond.

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This is much easier Fair Isle work than Marquette. No long floats. I wasn’t sure if the orange and pink were going to work well together, including because the colors seemed to me to be a bit hard to distinguish. But the use of brown was inspired. And even when the colors share the brim, they work well together.

Here’s a look at the crown decreases.

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It’s been in the 90’s for weeks. There’s been almost no rain. It’s so hot and dry that my neighbor has had to move his honeybees because they were starving despite his best efforts. And here I am, knitting winter hats!

You can learn more about this Michigan Sheep-to-Skein effort here and even reintroduce your Welcome Home yarn to its sheep here.

In case you’re not from around these parts, Marquette is a great small city in Michigan’s upper peninsula and Marquette County boasts more than 80 miles of secluded Lake Superior coastline. Drummond Island is a short ferry ride from Detour, on the eastern tip of our upper peninsula. Coming from the direction most folks come from, cross over the Mackinac Bridge and sort of just turn right and you’ll get there. Year round, it isn’t called the “Gem of Lake Huron” without good reason.

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