Harrisville Nightshades

Cormo wool may very well be my favourite fibre to knit with. I know, it’s really hard to pick favourites, but I have yet to meet a Cormo I didn’t swoon over. Some are more velvety and some have a buttery soft feel. I chose Harrisville Nightshades for the Main Colour of my Under the Canopy Cowl and I’m excited to tell you more about it! While I love all Cormo yarns, Nightshades has two characteristics that set it apart for me.

First, the surface has the most delightfully dry, raspy texture. I know that might sound like it’s rough, but it’s not at all. Somehow, it’s extremely soft while also having the toothy charm of a Shetland yarn. Very much a best of both worlds experience in my opinion!

And second, it comes in many different shades of black! The subtle colour tones are created with heathered bits in various colours from gold to red to green. I just can’t get over how delightful I find this palette. It’s unlike anything else available. (And if you’re over being moody and goth, they also happen to have a partner line of natural whites called Daylights. A perfect combo!)

Closeup of hands holding a skein of black Nightshades yarn with heathered yellow flecks. The label reads, “Nightshades American Cormo; HD; woolen-spun.”

Why Use Nightshades for Colourwork?

I chose this yarn for its colour and because of the Cormo content, but I want to tell you a little bit more about my thought process in deciding to use it for colourwork.

I do knit colourwork with all kinds of yarns, but the yarns I most enjoy knitting colourwork with are woolen spun wools. These yarns have a grippy texture and a lot of elasticity, which means that when I knit a stitch, it pretty much keeps its shape. Knitting with these kinds of yarns means I don’t have to worry nearly as much about keeping my tension even — it just wants to be!

And when you block woolen spun wool projects, the fabric relaxes into this gorgeous, slightly fuzzy, gentle, cohesive look. All the stitches snuggle up naturally to their neighbours.

Nightshades is a woolen spun wool and the feel of the strand is particularly textured, in my opinion. So that makes it perfect on that level.

The major bonus for a cowl is that it’s so very soft. Sometimes yarns that have that great surface texture are also quite prickly. That’s fine for outerwear and toques because it can make hard-wearing fabric, but my neck is delicate and I require softness for neck accessories! Nightshades really delivers for me.

I do have to add here that softness is extremely subjective and your experience might not be the same as mine!

Closeup of black wool yarn with green heathered flecks being pulled gently apart.

The Interview

I loved getting to interview Kate from Spincycle in a previous blog post, so I thought it would be fun to ask some similar questions of the folks at Harrisville. Here’s what they said.

• Tell me about Harrisville the company. What makes it special?

Our family has been in woolen textiles for 6 generations. Our antique equipment was purchased new by my great grandfather and still produces our yarns today. All of that spinning knowledge has been passed down from generation to generation and it’s a big part of why we are able to maintain this delicate process and bring unique yarns to knitters and textile professionals. In the same way of making cheese or wine. Generational knowledge is a powerful tool of quality.

• What do you want folks to know about Nightshades?

The concept of nightshades emerged in response to the vast array of beautiful bright and happy themed yarns that seemed to be well represented in the market. I wanted to point out the often overlooked beauty of more somber themes. Melancholy can also be eerily beautiful and is a very real emotion on the darker side of the human experience. Something we all share and it seemed to really resonate with the knitting community in a way that definitely surprised some at our company who didn’t fully understand why anyone in their right minds would be interested in 12 shades of black.

• How did you all come to develop a line of yarn that’s different shades of black? It’s brilliant, but it seems like it could be a hard sell since black can be so challenging to photograph.

I don’t recommend designing a color palette out of black. It’s miserable to photograph and ironically you really have to take the yarn out into the sunlight to see its magic. It swirls with a marbled color pops and has deep base hues of navy and greys that you’d definitely miss in a dimly lit store (like ours).

• What are some of the values that guide Harrisville as a company?

The mission of our company has always been to provide good jobs for our local community. The town has always been a textile village and that heritage has always been very important to our family. My dad gave up so many things to pass the company onto me, in good standing. My parents survived some very lean times and they always cautioned me and my brothers that choosing this life path would be a struggle but it’s been something that gives me great purpose and it remains one of the few things in life I feel certain I got right. My parents have always valued our employees over everything. My Dad always said, a company is only as good as its people. As our company continues to grow, we reinvest that growth back into the business. Better pay, better benefits, better working conditions is always what motivate us to improve. We are a collective of people who work hard together to make the best possible yarns and craft tools you can buy. That is our ambition.

• Can you tell me about how you named the colourways?

For the colorways, I get this question a lot and I really like that the color names speak to people in their own specific ways. Names like Cinder are more obvious but Talk Radio and 12:57 have a much more open-ended curiosity that I’d like to maintain. This line was made for that purpose. Exploring the darker side of things within the self. Not in a negative way. I just wanted to put a spotlight on a dark corner and have people feel like it wasn’t a bad place to be. So the experience and interpretation is up to the knitter to decide what it means to them.

One note about Spincycle and nightshades. These two yarns came about at the perfect time and I continued to see more and more people putting them together. We love Spincycle and our missions are very aligned. Rachel and Kate and their team should be very proud of the brilliant inspiration they bring to our industry and we are humbled to have designers like you pairing these two yarns together in such an inspiring way. We’ve always been a huge fan of your knitting and hope you continue your great work!

Want More?

If you’re curious about this yarn, you have to go look at Whitney Hayward’s Nightshades Collection. The patterns are amazing and I’m just obsessed with the photography, which I’m pretty sure Whitney also did, along with the styling for the shoot.

And I did a Swatch Project post about this yarn too.

Five skeins of dark wool yarn in shades of green, yellow, orange, red, and purple.

How about you?

Are you as enthralled with shades of black as I am? Or do you prefer the Daylights collection to bring some softness into spring? Tell me your opinions in the comments!

And don’t forget that if you’re sharing your Under the Canopy Project, use the hashtag #UnderTheCanopyCowl and tag me @AndreaRangelKnits so other knitters can see your work!