It’s a Good Mail Day

Yaaay!

The package was crumpled. The package was late (it had weird redirect sorting stickers on it – I think it got temporarily lost). But now it is here, and the yarn is fine. So all is well! Here we have my recent Knitpicks ‘sample’ order. I placed it over two weeks ago during the summer yarn sale. I’ve been meaning to test-drive some of their yarns, and since they were reduced, I decided to give this particular set of yarns a try.

Here are closeups and some first impressions of these fiiine fibers (sorry about the dark and vaguely blurry pics). First, Spinnaker (100% Pima Cotton)!

I drastically changed my opinion about this yarn once I got my hands on it (the only real surprise in the package). I have to admit, I thought it was an ugly yarn. I mean really – look at this. Or this. Please don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing the matter with the designs. I just feel that the texture of the yarn is ill-suited to these garments. Or perhaps, any garments. However, I laid my eyes on a skein of it and realized that this is an oddly attractive, tactiley appealing yarn. The cotton is very soft, and the bumpiness is pleasing (when it’s not being strangled into a sweater), both to the eyes and the touch. I’m not sure what it wants to be – I’ll have to play with it – but I think…I like it.

Oh, and I’ve heard people say it’s ridiculously expensive for a KP yarn (I thought it myself), but perhaps they didn’t realize that one skein is 200 grams. Most other yarns from Knitpicks are sold in 50 gram skeins. The price (per 50 grams) is comparable to other yarns that they carry. Moving on, though!

The Main Line feels lovely.

75% Pima Cotton, 25% Merino Wool, it has a lovely twist to it. Unlike the shiny-ness and smoothness of the Shine, it’s just a wee bit fuzzy. You can’t really see it, but you can feel it on the strand. And, while it isn’t shiny, it does have a lovely sheen. I can’t wait to get my hands in this stuff. I may actually start stashing this yarn just to have it, something I have never actually done. Knitpicks, you are daaangerous.

Next we have the Shine Sport -

and the Shine Worsted.

This is also a lovely yarn, 60% Pima Cotton, 40% Modal. Smooth, shiny, very soft. I like! I’m sooo pleased with the pliability of the yarn. I don’t have a clue what Modal is, I don’t know why Pima Cotton is special, but it doesn’t compare in the slightest with the cotton yarns I’m familiar with (Peaches & Creme, Sugar’n Cream, etc). I like it, it’s awesome, I could totally see using this yarn for a garment. The sport is eminently suitable for baby items, and unfortunately I can see myself dropping quite a bit of the yarn budget in that department, as well.

Once I get these worked up I’ll post further reviews on them, but I’ve got quite a few things up in the air that (sadly) push these yarns down the list of crafting priorities.

Oh, Anthropologie…

Why do I even look? And the worst part is that I have an insane urge to attempt to reproduce it. Nuff said.

One of These Skeins is Not Like the Others..

Okay, you know the tune. Ready?

One of these skeins is from the wrong dyelot,
Even though they are not s’posed to be.
Can you guess which skein is from the wrong dyelot?
Just click on the picture and see!

Let’s play! Here’s how it works. Look at the closeup, and see if you can guess which skein was bought seperately from the rest. Click the pic, and see if your guess matches the skein with the label face-up. (These pics were taken at different angles, some with sunlight, some with flash. Just to make it fair to the yarn.)

Click here if you want a better look before you guess.

How did you do? Want to try again? Here you go!

Again, click here for a bigger view of the image.

Doing well? Here’s the last one:

Here’s the bigger version.

Well, that was fun. Wasn’t that fun? I tried very hard to capture the shade difference on film, but it was a little tough. They are definitely different, though (at this very moment the offending skein is sitting in the sun with its cousins on the table to my left, leering at me with its slightly different shade of sage) so we will be exchanging the yarn. A mismatched skein is not worthy of all the effort that goes into a handmade sweater. I mean, the last thing you want is for someone to come up to you and – instead of complimenting your creation – mention that the left sleeve is really more of a duck-egg than a sage green. (It’s all about the nuances.)
Fortunately, the answer here is simple. I’m going to go to Walmart, exchange the sage for some more grey heather (I ran out last night – I’m hoping that the heather will help conceal any discrepancies between the new yarn and my WIP made with last year’s purchase. Whatever.) after which I will duck into Michael’s for another skein of their sage. Voila!

Oh, and hey. You know you played the game. Tell us how you did!