Buffie Hollis Yarn Estate
Thank you to everyone who came to Village Frame Gallery to shop Buffie's collection.
The main sales are now over, but Buffie's yarn is still finding new homes.
Buffie's yarn has already raised thousands of dollars for her nephew Jakob's college fund. Every skein that finds a new home helps us make that contribution even better.
If you missed the sale, you haven't missed your chance.
New Heights Yarn will be sharing one of a kind finds on Instagram, from single skeins and sets to kits and books.
Keep an eye on the feed, and when something catches your eye, follow the post to claim it.
Buffie's party, next October
This time next year, we'd love to gather and celebrate Buffie, her creative life and her love of beautiful yarn.
Spend the next 12 months making projects with the fiber you've purchased from her collection.
When you share what you're making, tag your posts #madewithbuffie and @newheightsyarn so we can watch her yarn turn into finished pieces all year.
Date and details to come.
In Loving Memory of Buffie Hollis
May 4, 1967 - 12 May, 2026
Buffie Hollis called College Station home, where she worked as an archivist at the George Bush Presidential Library.
She was, by every account, a master knitter, and her yarn collection reflects it.
With few dedicated yarn shops nearby, everything Buffie gathered, she gathered with real intention. Fine European fibers, sought-after indie dyers, vintage skeins long out of production, barely a "cheap and cheerful" skein among them.
Buffie understood something many knitters come to learn only with time, that the right yarn in your hands can transform the process itself, turning a project from a task into a pleasure. She built a collection that speaks to genuine expertise, discerning taste, and a lifelong appreciation for the craft at its finest.
A Life in Fiber
Buffie began knitting around age eight, watching her grandmother work doilies and sitting beside her mother's knitting and crochet. She advanced quickly, teaching herself new techniques through books long before the internet made that easy.
Buffie's shelves told their own story: yarns in weights from gossamer lace to heavy worsted, techniques spanning colourwork, lace, and cabling, evidence of a knitter who never stopped stretching what she could do.
She kept meticulous company too, magazines like Laine and Pom Pom Quarterly, books on advanced technique, the kind of library a serious student of the craft builds over years, not months.
Buffie was a prolific shawl knitter, and it was here that her mastery truly showed. Shawls demand a knitter's full range, lace, colourwork, intricate shaping, and Buffie moved through all of it with evident skill and confidence. She shared them freely too, with friends, family, and colleagues alike. At her memorial at the George Bush Presidential Library, many of her coworkers wore the shawls she'd made them, a quiet tribute to how much she'd given, one stitch at a time.
She taught as generously as she gave, sharing her knowledge with brand new knitters and seasoned friends alike, and leading classes for coworkers and staff at the Library itself.
She was part of a community too. The Knit Sisters started in 2013, when a small group of women who'd spent their Friday nights and Sunday afternoons at Sugarland Yarn Company decided to keep knitting together after the shop closed, rotating through each other's homes one Sunday a month. Buffie was the only member who didn't live in Houston, she was in College Station, and she'd often spend the weekend with Michele just to be there for Sunday afternoon knitting. Whatever anyone else called her, the group had one name for her: their Master Knitter. No matter the trouble in your project, Buffie could find it and set you right.
The group grew over the years, picking up two more members from a retreat in Austin, and eventually settled into an annual tradition: a weekend at The Best Little Yarn Crawl in the Hill Country, an Airbnb rented, and days spent knitting together.
3000+
Skeins
Bringing Buffie's Collection Home
After Buffie passed, her collection remained in College Station, carefully stored and safe, but far from the hands that might put it to use.
Asked by Buffie's family, Michele Granit, one of Buffie's close friends and another Knit Sister, made the trip to bring it back to Houston, with one goal in mind: getting every skein into the hands of knitters who would genuinely appreciate it.
I believe Buffie would have wanted her yarn finished into shawls, worked into projects, loved the way she loved it, rather than sitting unused and forgotten.
Jakob Hollis is Buffie's nephew.
At twelve years old, he dreams of working in aerospace, astrophysics, NASA, or perhaps Blue Origin, wherever the work takes him.
His fascination with space began at just three years old, and it never let up. Buffie noticed, and made sure he always had the science and space books to match his curiosity.
Proceeds from the sale of her yarn collection are being directed toward his college fund, a way of turning something Buffie built with such care into an investment in his future.
Age 12
Aspiring
astrophysicist
Meet Jakob
New Heights Yarn is honoured to help see this through, cataloguing, pricing, and hosting the sale of Buffie's collection so that as much as possible can go toward Jakob's education.
Every purchase, whether a single skein or an entire lot, is a small part of that.
