Yarn Review - Knit Picks Comfy Sport

Suddenly I realize I've been neglecting to blog, for which I kick myself, but only a little bit.  I have been very busy, with all kinds of things.  But at any rate, I owe you a review of this lovely stuff:

Which I have been using to make this lovely thing:

Which is in fact available for preorder right here.  But at back to the yarn: Knit Picks Comfy Sport.  I've talked about the mixed feelings much of the knitting world has for Knit Picks in another post, and won't get into it again.  This one is 75% Pima cotton, 25% acrylic, and actually also comes in fingering and worsted weights, which is super convenient.  Also, six bazillion solid colors, so there's at least one color for everyone.  Also?  Soft and fluffy like a cloud.  All this combines to make Comfy my first pick for a workhorse cotton yarn.

Downsides?  You do have to remember that it is cotton, and it behaves like cotton (although the acrylic content does mitigate it a bit).  If you expect it to behave like a wool yarn, you will be disappointed.  Also, when I frog it, it tends to send tiny cotton fibers into the air, which makes me sneeze.  The yarn is none worse for the wear though, so I'll take it.  Most fluffy soft cotton yarns pill like a monster, especially if you frog them, and this does not.

So really, I'll probably keep using this stuff as long as Knit Picks makes it.  It's nice, and the price is right.  Can't argue with that.

Housekeeping, and a surprise!

First of all, my Tea Party Stole is finished and out of preorder:

It is available for purchase on Ravelry for $4.99.

Also, the next pattern in my book, Nuts and Spice Shrug, is now in the testing.  It is also available for preorder for $3.99.  I think it turned out really nicely!

There, done housekeeping!  Now, if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you know that I'm actually slightly ahead of schedule, which will allow me to give you a surprise.  My book is a collection of layering pieces - shrugs, wraps, and so on - but it has really bothered me that there isn't a shell included.  There was supposed to be, but between one thing and another, it seemed it wasn't to be.

UNTIL NOW!

I will be adding one more pattern, the Whipped Up Shell (in Knit Picks Comfy Sport) to my book.  This will necessitate me raising the price on the book to $18.  However, anybody who has already bought the book when I raise the price will get the additional pattern for FREE.  Surprise!  The price change will happen as soon as the shell goes into testing - hopefully in about two weeks.  I will set a date for it once I get a little closer to completing the pattern, however I wanted to let you know that if you want to get the lower price, you should go ahead and order now!

Contest: Curio and Blueberry Torte Capelette

If designing has taught me one thing, it is that I am occasionally epically wrong in my estimated yardage for a project.  In this particular case, I thought that my Blueberry Torte Capelette was going to take two balls of Curio.  It actually only took one (with some left over, even!).  This left me with the problem of what to do with the extra ball of thread.  Of course my first impulse was to squirrel it away in my stash, but anyone who has ever been to my house knows that I have something of a stash containment problem, so that wouldn't be a good idea.  Then it occurred to me: I can give it away!

There will be three winners: two first prize winners will get a copy of the pattern, and one grand prize winner will get a copy of the pattern, and this lovely ball of Curio #10 crochet thread in Bluebell (plenty to work the pattern):

You also get three ways to enter.  First is your gimme entry: just comment on this post.  You don't have to answer any questions or anything, just leave me a way to get a hold of you if you win.  Second, if you like my page on Facebook, and leave a second comment on this blog post, you will get another entry.  Third, you can follow this blog, and leave a separate comment on this blog post, for yet another entry.  The winners will be chosen by random number generator on August 10 (by which point the finished pattern will almost certainly be published).  Good luck everybody!

ETA:  Gah I forgot all about Twitter... if you tweet my contest, and comment here, you can have ANOTHER entry.  :)

Now in Preorder: Blueberry Torte Capelette

I think it turned out pretty nicely.  Available for preorder for $3.99.  The finished pattern is expected about the ninth of August, at which point it will be available for $4.99.  This is the second pattern in my ebook, Cake (Because It Has Layers).

Yarn Review: Curio

One of the awesome things about being a designer is that sometimes you can get yarn support in yarns that are not available to the public yet.  That is also one of the not so awesome things about being a designer - you have to keep it a secret until the yarn is released.  Case in point: Knit Picks Curio.  I have been wanting to talk about this stuff for like two weeks now, but it is finally released, hooray!

Curio is a #10 crochet thread, in 100% cotton.  For you knitters out there, that is a lace weight.  I would bet my last biscuit it is mercerized cotton (because it is so smooth and shiny), but the label doesn't say it is.  It is smooth, shiny, and has a very tight twist, as crochet thread should so that it doesn't split on itty bitty hooks.  It feels a little bit stiff in the ball, but softens beautifully on washing.

All that, however, is fairly standard for good quality crochet cotton.  The thing that makes Curio stand out is the colors:

Seriously, they are even better in person.  I have always kind of had a thing for colored crochet thread, but it is often difficult to find it in any colors other than white, ecru, baby pink and blue, and Christmas colors.  Curio comes in a nicely varied palette.  I'm particularly drawn to some of those softer colors in particular.

And now on a related note, a preview for my book:

The next pattern, Blueberry Torte Capelette, is in Curio, in Bluebell.  So if any of you were wondering why I hadn't put a planned yarn next to this one, when I have one for all the other patterns, now you know.  I am good at keeping secrets.  I just don't like it.

Review: Panda Cotton

In all honesty, I think I like every Crystal Palace Yarns yarn I've tried.  Panda Cotton is no exception.  It is a fingering weight 59% bamboo, 25% cotton, 16% elastic nylon plied yarn.  I think it's an excellent choice for wool-free socks -- it is soft and springy and durable.  I freely admit that my Panda Cotton socks aren't very old, but they seem to be showing wear at a rate comparable to any of my wool socks.  It also comes in 50 g (as opposed to 100 g) balls, which I think is a perk.  The smaller put up makes it easier to get exactly how much you need if you are doing a larger project, yet isn't so small that it causes problems in smaller projects.  The yardage is pretty good at 182 per ball.  This is slightly less than most comparable wool yarns, however I've found this to be pretty standard.  Cotton just weighs more per yard than wool does, as far as I can tell.

Do you have something you want me to review? Needles? Yarn? Notions? Drop me a line! marusempai at gmail dot com Put "Maru reviews" in the subject line.

Seafoam Cardigan

Another new pattern, just in time for Christmas!  Lightweight and cozy.  This sweet little cardi is worked in one piece from the top down, so there's no annoying seaming to do -- when you're done, you're done!  The simple stitch pattern shows off the fun texture of the yarn.  Includes instructions for altering the number and placement of the buttons.

Berocco Weekend

Six balls of Weekend in Cerulean.

Yeah, the days of the snazzy tagline in my review titles may be numbered.  I actually ended up with Weekend as a last second switch out - the yarn I had requested (Berocco Touche) will be discontinued by the time my pattern is released, and it makes little sense to design in a discontinued yarn.  The similarities between the two are actually remarkable.  Both are cable plied, worsted weight, cotton blend yarns that come mostly in warm spring/summer sorts of colors.

Weekend is 75% acrylic and 25% cotton, soft, and very round.  It has very little stretch to it.  The big interesting bit of this yarn is its structure - as I said before, it's cable plied.  That means that the tiny plies were plied together, then those plied pieces were plied into the final yarn.  This makes a yarn that is very durable, very round, and frankly, kind of splitty.  That being said, the texture of it is pretty nice, particularly in a simple pattern like stockinette or garter stitch.  Ironically enough, I don't like cable plied yarns for cables.

Do you have something you want me to review? Needles? Yarn? Notions? Drop me a line! marusempai at gmail dot com. Put "Maru reviews" in the subject line.

Plymouth Cotton Kisses

Worked up yarn with included buttons.

I can't come up with a good snazzy title for this one.  This is an interesting yarn.  It is made from several plies, two or three of which are smooth-ish and kind of kinky, and one of which is soft and slubby.  I am really into texture (those of you who follow me may have noticed that even my lace work is meant to be textured), so I like working with this yarn.  It works up fairly quickly, and because of the slubbiness, it can be worked at a fairly large gauge without looking holey.  Because of the wildly different texture between the plies, however, it can be quite splitty.  I do not like knitting with it, frankly.  I don't mind a little splittiness in crochet, however, and think it works up really pretty.

This stuff is also a really good deal - each ball comes with three little ducky buttons and two baby sweater patterns (a cardigan and a pullover).  One ball is plenty of yarn to make either of the enclosed patterns, so it's great for emergency baby gifts.

The pattern I'm making with the stuff (it's still top secret, as it's in submission to a magazine) reflects how I think of it, really.  Simple stitch pattern, in crochet, to show off the yarn's texture.  I like it (for crochet), and will certainly use it again.

Do you have something you want me to review? Needles? Yarn? Notions? Drop me a line! marusempai at gmail dot com. Put "Maru reviews" in the subject line.

Repurposing

This is one of the things I do in my spare (hah!) time.

 

This is the first time in five years I've had the space to set it up!  But what's that?

Yup, high hat stands make a GREAT stand for coned yarns.  I pull the outside end, and it rotates nicely, giving me a smooth, tangle free working yarn.  Score one for clever!  This is some 100% cotton don't know what that I'm using to make bath mats for the kids' bathroom.  Go team cotton!

Sweet Violets Cardigan

For finally, my sweater pattern!  Worked in one piece from the top down, the yoke is designed so that the overlap can easily be adjusted to fit a wide range of body types without making the sweater lie funny.  Check it out on Ravelry, my available patterns page, or click through right here!  Available in girls sizes four through ten.

Silk, glorious silk!

Silk is, without question, one of my very favorite fibers.  Nothing quite says "luxury" like a little silk  Which is funny, given that silk is basically caterpillar spit.  It is made from the cocoons of the silk worm, a little caterpillar that eats mulberry leaves.  It is not a vegan fiber.  The first step in the process of turning cocoons into yarn is dropping them into BOILING WATER!  Needless to say, the little larva isn't coming out of this one alive.  After that, either an end is picked up and the cocoon is unreeled from there (reeled silk), or the cocoon is stretched out over a frame.  If you're a spinner you may recognize this part -- it's where we get silk hankies, caps, and bells.

The biggest misunderstanding about silk, I think, is that everyone thinks of it as an extremely fragile fiber, handle with care.  This is both true and false.  Individual silk fibers are actually incredibly strong, as long as they are dry.  They are just incredibly fine, so they catch on things easily, and shockingly fragile when wet... especially if it's hot water.  That's why they dunk the cocoons in boiling water before they unwind it.  It opens up the fibers and softens them.

What does this mean for us silk users?  Well, silk does have to be washed very carefully, lest it break.  I treat silk like I do fine wool that I'm afraid will felt.  No agitation, no wringing!  The other option is to get it dry cleaned.  Once it dries (flat!), however, silk is pretty durable.  I think that silk blends are great, for example, for a very special baby item that you wouldn't mind hand washing.  My youngest's coming home sweater, for example, is a silk blend.

Pure silk is also very expensive, generally speaking.  There are some exceptions.  If you were to say order your silk from eBay, where there are a number of sellers from overseas who carry 100% silk yarns, you can get a real steal.  That being said, it's difficult to say if it's really silk, or if it's actually rayon.  Of course if you conclusively proved it to be rayon, eBay's fraud department would help you out, but it's difficult to prove one way or the other.  That being said, there are a number of very affordable silk blends.  I'm very fond of Misti Alpaca Pima Cotton and Silk, and of Crystal Palace Yarns Panda silk.  Both give you that sheen and silky hand, without the crazy price tag.

Cotton -- not just for dish rags

For the first post in my thoughts on fiber series, I'd like to look at cotton.  Cotton tends to get a bad rap.  It is scratchy, it is inelastic, it pills.  Banish the "scratchy" assumption right now.  It is a misconception started because for most of us, the only 100% cotton yarn we encounter on a regular basis is Peaches and Creme or Sugar and Creme.  Don't get me wrong, these are great yarns for kitchen and bathroom items.  They are durable and absorbent, and come in a wide range of attractive colors.  But they are not all cotton can be.  Knitpicks Simply Cotton, for example, is like working with a soft fluffy cloud.  Another factor in the softness of cotton is what kind of cotton it is.  You wouldn't expect all wools to feel the same, and cotton is no different.  My personal favorite for softness is pima cotton.  Soft, soft, soft!  I have also found it to be less pilly than some other cultivars, which is a double bonus.

Which brings me to the other complaint about cotton: it pills.  Unfortunately this is a fact of life when working with very soft fibers.  Because cotton fibers on their own really are soft -- comparable to very fine wool.  The difference with cotton is that those fibers are also very short.  It takes a lot of twist to get all the teeny tiny ends bound tightly into the yarn, and all that twist tends to make the yarn feel hard, like Peaches and Creme.  When it is spun more loosely, the fibers have a tendency to escape a little, forming those irritating little pills.  Of course wool does this too -- a very fine merino, for example, will pill just as much as any cotton yarn.  This is where a sweater shaver comes in handy... most yarns, regardless of fiber content, pill like crazy for a little while, then stop.  Shave off the pills, and it's good to go.

An important thing to remember about cotton is that when you block it, it will GROW.  Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, depending on the stitch and blend.  In my experience, it gains much more length than width, especially if you encourage it to do so.  I like to take advantage of this, personally... it gains a lot of length when washed that first time, so I don't have to work as many rows!

Another common complaint about cotton is that it's inelastic.  This is true!  It's only a downside, though, if you expect cotton to behave like wool.  Yes, ribbing in cotton will stretch out and never go back.  Cotton socks do not stay up well without the addition of elastic.  But cotton lace is virtually self blocking.  Yeah, if you make a big ol' cabled sweater out of cotton, it will grow and stretch and sag under it's own weight.  But it makes great baby clothes, and again... lace that stays blocked.

Another advantage of cotton is how incredibly well it breathes.  It doesn't insulate the way wool does, which makes it fabulous for summer knits.  It does insulate some though, especially some of the fluffier yarns, which makes it great for transitional weather, as well.  My very favorite hand made sweater is in fact a cotton/silk blend.  It is soft and scrummy, and keeps the chill off without overheating me.  The drape of it (it is a lace sweater) is also very flattering, whether I can fit into my skinny pants that day or not!

So in conclusion, cotton is great as long as you don't expect it to behave like wool does.  It won't.  But it has it's own properties that make it a great fiber in its own right, as well as having a lot to bring to blends.  It's not just for dishcloths!

Thoughts on fiber

I've noticed that a lot of people tend to have one go to, fail safe fiber.  For most, this is either wool or acrylic.  I've been thinking about that lately, and am slowly coming to the conclusion that it is because, as fiber artists, we simply have too many choices.  I mean, there was a time when you were pretty much limited to your flock, and maybe your neighbor's flock.  No more.  Now you can get alpaca, six kinds of wool, silk, a couple kinds of cotton, acrylic, nylon, a few flavors of rayon... just by going to your local yarn store, or even closer, the internet.  This is a good thing.  But it is difficult to know or predict how each of these fibers will behave, alone or in blends, so we tend to have a go to.

And it is true that a good wool yarn can be made to do just about anything, as can acrylic if you know what you're doing.  But it might not be the best answer.  So I've decided that I'm going to do some posts on fiber types.  Because once you know the basics, it becomes so much easier to get the effect that you want.  Now, it is of course possible to just always get the same yarn (or a comparable blend) as the designer used to make their pattern.  I encourage this, frankly, however it's not always going to be what you want to do.  Sometimes the recommended yarn is unavailable.  Sometimes it's too expensive.  And sometimes you just want a bit of a different effect than the designer got.  All perfectly valid reasons for a substitution... and if you know your fiber, there will be fewer unpleasant surprises along the way.