I received the yarn that I ordered online from The Yarn Cafe this afternoon. It's a hand-dyed Bluefaced Leicester yarn (lightweight aran/10 ply) in Rosa ($20/100g). With this yarn, I'm going to try my hand at making the Anthro-inspired Scarflet by Kim Seio (Ravelry). There's a group on Ravelry that focuses on knits inspired by Anthropologie - an online store that sells womens clothes, accessories, bags, and homewares. This brand seems to be pretty popular among knitters, although I had not actually heard of it until I came across this scarf pattern.
The lovely yarn shown above is another purchase I made from the same shop a few weeks ago at a textile arts festival. This one - also hand-dyed - is called 'Drift' and is composed of 20% bamboo/80% superwash merino 4ply, in Raspberry ($24/100g). I actually like the look and feel of this yarn much more than the BFL. I guess that's the problem with buying yarn online - you don't get to touch the product and see it up close, so you don't know if it's the thing you have in mind, until you actually receive it. Locally, there are no specialty yarn shops available that I know of, so I have no choice really. For the record, this year's textiles expo is the thing that got me into hand-dyed yarns. Hand-dyed yarns are much more expensive than commercial yarn, but I appreciate how each skein is unique, so no one can ever have the exact same shade of colour as you. Also, if you're going to spend time and effort knitting up something, you might as well make it that little bit extra special.
At the expo, I also bought a skein of Haiku, a lace-weight yarn made of 40% silk/60% mohair in Evening Pink, by Alchemy Yarns of Transformation ($30/25g). I bought this with the intention of knitting the lace scarf the stall displayed. When I tried making it, however, the number of stitches stated in the pattern didn't produce the right width measurement. I tried knitting with VERY loose tension, but even then, it didn't look right, and the loose tension made the design look really gappy and unattractive. As such, I decided to unravel what I'd knitted, having to cut off long lengths of yarn that were too hard to untangle, in the process. And now it's just sitting in a bag, waiting for inspiration to kick in.
Another purchase made that day was a ball of Noro Kureyon Sock Yarn, 70% wool/30% nylon ($24.70/100g). Interestingly, it's a 'sock yarn', but I've just noticed, while reading the ball band, that it's actually a single-ply wool yarn. Why wonder it's so thin! I've tried Noro Silk Garden before as well, and, to be honest, I don't like either very much, the sock one least. Silk Garden would actually be quite a nice yarn to work with, if it wasn't for the fact that it was speckled throughout, from start to finish, with what looked like bits of wood, straw, and some sort of dried spiky weed. What do the manufacturers store their yarn in? A garden shed? Initially I thought that maybe I was just unlucky and selected a bad egg. BUT, I found a similar problem with the Kureyon sock yarn (though the problem was not as bad)! Another let-down with the Kureyon Sock is that it feels very rough, not unlike knitting with brown string. So why did I buy the sock yarn, I hear you ask? For the simple reason that the pattern calls for it. For the above reasons, I've pretty much lost interest in knitting the lace scarf. That, plus I've sort of stuffed up the lace pattern at the beginning :P
I had a hard time picking out a colour, but I eventually settled with Thai Tea, because I thought it would be nice to knit with a natural looking colour. I sort of wish I had chosen a pink or a purple now. The yarn has a nice sheen to it, and looks like it will knit up with a nice drape. In case you're wondering about the little packet of lollies in the first picture, it came in the parcel with the yarn :P
At the expo, I also bought a skein of Haiku, a lace-weight yarn made of 40% silk/60% mohair in Evening Pink, by Alchemy Yarns of Transformation ($30/25g). I bought this with the intention of knitting the lace scarf the stall displayed. When I tried making it, however, the number of stitches stated in the pattern didn't produce the right width measurement. I tried knitting with VERY loose tension, but even then, it didn't look right, and the loose tension made the design look really gappy and unattractive. As such, I decided to unravel what I'd knitted, having to cut off long lengths of yarn that were too hard to untangle, in the process. And now it's just sitting in a bag, waiting for inspiration to kick in.
Another purchase made that day was a ball of Noro Kureyon Sock Yarn, 70% wool/30% nylon ($24.70/100g). Interestingly, it's a 'sock yarn', but I've just noticed, while reading the ball band, that it's actually a single-ply wool yarn. Why wonder it's so thin! I've tried Noro Silk Garden before as well, and, to be honest, I don't like either very much, the sock one least. Silk Garden would actually be quite a nice yarn to work with, if it wasn't for the fact that it was speckled throughout, from start to finish, with what looked like bits of wood, straw, and some sort of dried spiky weed. What do the manufacturers store their yarn in? A garden shed? Initially I thought that maybe I was just unlucky and selected a bad egg. BUT, I found a similar problem with the Kureyon sock yarn (though the problem was not as bad)! Another let-down with the Kureyon Sock is that it feels very rough, not unlike knitting with brown string. So why did I buy the sock yarn, I hear you ask? For the simple reason that the pattern calls for it. For the above reasons, I've pretty much lost interest in knitting the lace scarf. That, plus I've sort of stuffed up the lace pattern at the beginning :PI'm surprised that no one else seems to be having any problems with this yarn. Or maybe they don't mind it. Some people like working with fibres that have 'texture', if the oohs and ahhs of admiration coming from the expo stalls featuring Habu textile yarns is anything to go by. Some of these yarns are lovely and a lot of the patterns using them are gorgeous... but stainless steel? Seriously? That's what I call fashion over function (unless you're going to use it in the kitchen).
I bought the above yarn, Bamboo and Pearls DK (70% Bamboo sourced viscose/30% Pearl sourced viscose) - a new 2010 Spring/Summer yarn by Sublime - a few months back, after spotting a gorgeous 3/4 sleeve top with bow feature, in the Bergere de France Origin' pattern book. The original patterns calls for Bergere de France Bambou yarn, but I thought that since the cost of the yarns are similar, I might as well buy one that I've wanted to try for ages (and hopefully it will knit up to the same tension!). How special does PEARL yarn sound? I am a bit obsessed in the allure of pearls, so when I first read about this yarn, I was super excited.
I had a hard time picking out a colour, but I eventually settled with Thai Tea, because I thought it would be nice to knit with a natural looking colour. I sort of wish I had chosen a pink or a purple now. The yarn has a nice sheen to it, and looks like it will knit up with a nice drape. In case you're wondering about the little packet of lollies in the first picture, it came in the parcel with the yarn :P
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