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TESTIMONIALS
What People Say About Our Yarn!
“Knitter’s Review: Tess' Designer Yarns had a stunning display of hand-dyed silks, bouclés, wools, ribbons, super bulkies and other yarns, all sorted by colorway. Even on Sunday afternoon, the booth had a constant line at the check-out table.”
“Thanks, I got the yarn and am well in to the baby blanket. The first one was so beautiful, I had to make a second. Thanks for having such a great product.”
Jan
“You had the best yarns at the Expo! I'm completely partial to your yarns, and plan to use them exclusively. I think I spent 3 hours in your booth finding myself in heaven.”
“Thank You, so much for the quality of yarns you produce.”
“It felt so wonderful I had to sink my face into it...it's fabulous.”
“Your booth was my very favorite at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival! Your yarns and the beautiful colors pulled me out of the rain (but would have done the same in the best of weather!) I wanted to buy your whole tent full of yarn!”
“It was a great pleasure to visit your store. I can't wait to come back. I've already been telling all my friends and family about you and giving them your store flyer. You ladies were just so wonderful. So often fancy yarn stores are very snobby, but not you!
Can't wait til your website is up and running with all your colorways shown. You were so inspiring!”
“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.
“My husband had a reunion in Portland. Maine which gave me the opportunity to troll for LYS’. I found one called Tess’ Designer Yarns. There was a little dog looking through the glass door at me and a note with a phone number to call if I wanted help. I called, the owner came and let me in. I felt like Alice falling down the rabbit hole; there was a huge room filled with the most gorgeous array of all different types of yarn all exquisitely dyed by the owner. Her favorite colors are clearly the blue/purple variety but everything was gorgeous.
The owner was delightful and will come open the shop whenever you need her to.”
“Thank you for responding so quickly, and for the additional note about the poncho.! You are truly as wonderful as other satisfied patrons have said.”
“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!”
“I have several projects going with your beautiful yarn. It's such a treat to work with! My friend and I am looking forward to our next Maine trip to pick up some more. My favorite is "baby bunny" --- it's such a joy to work with!”
“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!”
“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 to 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.”
“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 like…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.
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 dyeing it.”
“I have to agree about the smell of Tess yarns--it is lovely. I am looking forward to seeing this knit up.”
Kathleen
“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.”
Claudia
“Shout-Out to Melinda at Tess Yarns
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.”
“My first stop will be Tess Designer Yarns. I love their colors! I've bought from them both at Stitches West and several times via e-mail or phone call. Melinda, the owner, is a dream to work with! I can't wait to get there!”
“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!”
Lolly
“I finished the Ribbon Tank. 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, 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:
...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 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 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).”
“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. :)”
“1rst 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.”