Category: yarn

Posted in knitting, yarn

Yarn Tasting

Posted on by kymhretz

A couple of weeks ago I signed up to go to my LYS, the Flying Needles, yarn tasting event. Kim Dyes Yarn was the featured Indie Dyer. I new this would be a fun easy going evening and I new I would be ready for a break after almost two full weeks of moving work. My boys kept asking me when the wine tasting I was going to was. Too funny.

Kim Dyes Yarns offers a large array of colors, weights and fiber choices. There was a cute berry basket filled with 5 different yarns, they were wrapped around cute little wooden tags, a nice typed up sheet giving the yarn details and there even was a piece of chocolate. Kim was charming and sweet. Her enthusiasm about the yarn bases was contagious. She has chosen a really great selection of yarns to dye. She has named all her bases after different foods. How fitting since delicious is a word I often use to describe yarn.

Kim has a great eye for color and has so many beautiful colorways she invented. Some are themed around music and tv shows. There’s a  nice sprinkling of tonals to blend in with some of the louder color combos.

One clear favorite among the group was her sparkle yarn. This is different than many sparkle yarns I’ve encountered. The sparkle is a single strand that is plied among the other fibers rather than bits and pieces blended in.  She called this one Sugarcookies. It is 92/8% Superwash Merino/Lurex. It is a very round, bouncy yarn that is super soft and……. well it’s delicious.

Kim debuted a new yarn at the shop as well. Angel Food; it is a luxurious worsted MCN blend of 80/10/10 Merino/Cashmere/Nylon. This one. too, was a favorite. I myself would love to use this to knit the Central Park Hoodie.

I, of course, had to buy myself some yarn. You know, since I don’t have any yarn to knit…. I picked up a skein of Sourdough Sock. I felt this was the perfect type since my husband is quite good at making sourdough bread. I chose the color way Dark Forest Bright Sky. It is so “me” colors.

I also really needed the Flan Fingering single ply yarn in the color way Murky Pond. This is a 70/30 superwash Merino/silk. I just fell in love with this yarn. and the color.

To round out my purchases I managed to snag one of the few Thrummed Mitten kits. The yarn is Granola Bar Aran which is a tweed in the color way Robin. The fiber is a beautiful rainbow of bright colors.  I can’t wait to get started on this.

It was such a pleasant evening. I’m really glad that I took the night off and joined in the fun. I very much miss my friends and the camaraderie of knitters.

 

Happy Knitting xoxo

Posted in knitting, Ravelry knit projects, yarn

Two is Better than One

Posted on by kymhretz

I decided [since I had started my Find your Fade with a different color than I had planned] I may as well knit another shawl. The color order I had chosen can be found here. The  other shawl will be the same colors just in a different order.  This will be interesting.  I will have an excellent example of how colors can blend as well as a second shawl that can be a gift.

  1. Tosh Merino Light, Plaid Blanket
  2. Black Elephant, Acheron
  3. Malabrigo Mechita, 5 Aniversario
  4. Black Elephant, Sunflowers
  5. Dragonfly Fibers Pixie, Middle Earth
  6. Tosh Merino Light, Coquette Deux 341
  7. Malabrigo Mechita, 866 Arco Iris

 

 

I think I need to purchase only two, maybe three, additional skeins to do this. Which means I will use most of my yarn up. Always a win. I’m pretty sure I will need a second skein of Dragonfly’s Middle Earth and Madeline Tosh merino light in Coquette Deux. Everything else should be ok.  Maybe.  I’m going to concentrate on completing one and then I will weigh the leftovers and math to see where I’m at.

 

I’ve decided to put my traveling socks on hold. I’m using Wolmeise. I am making Hermione’s Everyday Socks by Erica Lueder. The heel is Susan B Anderson’s Smooth Operator Heel, so that my swirl will be maintained throughout the socks. I want to make the heels and toes with a blackish Wollmeise skein I have. Unfortunately that skein is in storage. Hence the on hold. I really like the way the yarn is knitting up and I totally can picture the black heels and toes as icing on the cake.

We have the moving truck delivering all of our stuff in less than a week. I doubt I’ll have much time to knit but I will be able to find that black skein of yarn!

Happy Knitting.

Posted in Instagram, Ravelry knit projects, yarn

Knit on

Posted on by kymhretz

I am super excited to be partaking in the Find Your Fade KAL with the Flying Needles Yarn shop. Unfortunately the weather was bad the night of the cast on party so it was canceled. I cast on at home as did others or they cast on at the shop on other days, posting to social media via Instagram, #flying needles2018KAL or Facebook.

I tried to find a moment or two each day to add a few rows. I started knitting on my color 2 four days into the project. As I was knitting along on Color 2, Madelinetosh’s Tosh Merino Light in the color Plaid Blanket, it hit me. I’m using Color 1 as color 2. [Insert image of me hanging my head head in shame here] I mislabeled them when I put the yarn labels together in order 1-7.

You can see I did it almost from the beginning, before I even took my official photos for my Ravelry project page. I guess I had a brain fart. I new what the swatch order was so I cannot explain it. Today I will be starting over, in the correct order.

Just for the official record the color order is as follows;

  1. Black Elephant, Acheron
  2. Tosh Merino Light, Plaid Blanket
  3. Malabrigo Mechita, 866 Arco Iris
  4. Tosh Merino Light, Coquette Deux 341
  5. Malabrigo Mechita, 5 Aniversario
  6. Dragonfly Fibers Pixie, Middle Earth
  7. Black Elephant, Sunflowers

At least this way I get fun extra knitting on this project. Really get my money’s worth out of the yarn by knitting it twice. Get the chance to start the KAL again! Just trying to get enthusiastic about restarting…..

Happy Knitting.

Posted in yarn

Louise Cardigan

Posted on by kymhretz

I have finished my sweater, Hanna finished her sweater and Peggy finished hers! We all used the Louise Cardigan pattern. We all used Cascade Eco + yarns but Peggy’s purple yarn was one she picked up in Germany.

My finished sweater

 

I used buttons recycled from dishes

 

Hanna’s sweater, she used antique buttons
from my grandmas button box

 

Peggy’s sweater, she used wood buttons

 

Peggy added a touch of fairisle to hers. I made my sleeves too long so I think I may go back and shorten them. There’s always room to make a pattern your own.
SO…. I want to talk about the pattern itself. I purchased the pattern on Ravelry and was excited about it. I loved the look, it was my first bottom up adult sweater so I was looking forward to working on the new-to-me style. It went really quickly, I knit the body and the sleeves, all going well. At the joining part for the yoke it all seemed chaotic… unaddressed things, omitted things, confusing things, I know I talked about this before. I worked my way through it, I made notes, helped Hanna sort the pattern out and she finished hers. Talked extensively with Peggy about the pattern as she worked through her sweater. Now, Peggy is an extremely experienced sweater knitter, she agreed the pattern had some issues. She went through all the notes on Ravelry, as I had, finding no significant complaints either. SO bizarre.
I contacted Madder, they responded to my email. Madder said they would review my notes and see if they felt the pattern needed an errata or updating. As of today I haven’t seen any changes to the pattern on Ravelry.  That’s okay. I’m happy with my final sweater, Hanna Is happy and Peggy is happy. Bring on the sweater weather!
Happy Knitting xo
Posted in yarn

Shusui Shrug

Posted on by kymhretz

The Shusui Shrug by Susanne Sommer, I am seriously obsessed with this pattern! I have done Brioche just enough to understand the concept. I by no means am an expert.  This shawl/shrug is changing that rapidly.

I first heard of this pattern on the Wool Work Shop youtube podcast.  The construction is very unique,  it has a combination of brioche and garter stitch.  Susanne has also provided a youtube video for the set up. That was a huge benefit for me. I started this shrug several times. Not because it was so hard but rather I had color combo issues.  I strongly advise totally different color choices for your light and dark. Really, like colors that you don’t even think match.

Wollmeise PinBall Wizard and PotzBlitz

This was my first choice. I ordered this yarn specifically for this project. I was thinking summer trees turning into fall trees. The tone of the colors is much too similar. also having the color variations it’s too jumbled to see the design of the pattern.

Knit Picks Hawthorn Speckle
Cosmic and Italian Ice

This was the second combo.
The colors are again too similar once knit up in the pattern, too much the same tone. You couldn’t really see the pattern.

Knitpicks Hawthorne Kettle Dyed and Speckle
BLackBird and Cosmic
This is the winning combo. I decided to knit this for my daughter, Hanna. It reminds me a bit of a skeleton in this color combo. A win for this girl, I’m quite sure. Find my project on Ravelry to follow up dates.
Loving this combo!!!!I

I’m working away, ticking off all the repeats in the first section. I am using the Knit Companion app, I like to for any pattern that has multiple charts or instructions. I have the paid version and it is well worth it. I like that I can create new pages with my chosen parts of the pattern, really letting me focus on the immediate instructions.  As an example I pulled the repeat of rows R3-6 out of the section on Page 2 to of the pattern, originally this section has rows R1-6. Then I added in colored highlights to make it very clear which were light colored rows and which were dark.

A snippet of the pattern, in the app, so you can see what I mean.

The app enables so many other things. A row counter, a highlighter with many color choices, a pop-up legend and notes section, row bars you can move along as you go, so many I couldn’t possibly cover them all. Check out the Knit Companion app. It’s so good.

Until next time, Happy Knitting, Happy Life.