Rhinebeck 2015

Although it has been months, I finally got around to photographing my modest haul from Rhinebeck. (You can click to enlarge the photo)

Does anyone else tag your stash with stuff like this? I have the projects I wear tagged with Rhinebeck(year) as well.

I also got a few more skeins that have already been used, a glass circ from the glorious Sheila and Michael Ernst, several needle felting kits from Going Gnome, buttons, cards, and project bags.

My knitting mojo has been gone lately, but I am about to pick up this lovely Neighborhood Fiber Co.  Studio Worsted to start my 2016 Rhinebeck sweater. 

I'm thinking another Joji pattern is on the way... As long as I can talk myself into picking up my needles again!

-YX

Park Avenue Yarns

So recently, I headed down to League City, Texas to check out a trunk show at Park Avenue Yarns. I'm saving my post about the trunk show itself for another day (perhaps another yarny day, with lots of lovely yarny giveaway potential. Indeed, I may have shopped for you while I was out!)

But I was so excited because I just absolutely love this yarn store, and I want to tell you all about it.

So if you go to the website I liked above, you can see the front of the store. It's a cute little house on a street with some other shops-in-houses. As I walked up to the front entrance, I was amused by the yarn bombings on the porch:

It was super cute. Once I got in, I was immediately overwhelmed. In a good way.

Square shelving units create "aisles" of yarn, and there are two back rooms- one with couches for hanging out (this is where the trunk show was) and one with a large table for classes. Everything in the shop is tidy and organized, so walking through, it was quite easy to see things and compare items.

Each table is curated and displayed with intent. It's so nice to walk in a store where a display table has a clear feature. Yarns were piled in baskets or bowls, not left on a table to fall all over the place. The store recognizes knitting, but also crochet (a large selection of books and hooks) and spinning (you can see the wheel, and they carry fiber and if I recall correctly, a few drop spindles).

My favorite thing about this store is definitely the variety of products. Normally, when I go into a yarn store, the owner or merchant's preferences are super easy to predict. There are lots of yarns in a specific color range, for instance. Or fifteen different kinds of Debbie Bliss, a handful of Rowan, and no indies. Park Avenue has a nice spread of local indies, small, specialty brands, and big names. Aside from the Vice yarn, I picked up two skeins of Classic Elite Chalet, which is a wonderfully squishy braided ply yarn. The friendly lady behind the counter was making a project with it, and we chatted for a bit about the yarn and how it works. She even showed me her project, which was lovely.

It's nice when employees are invested in talking about your project plans. I had an excellent experience at Park Ave, and my only complaint is it's woefully far from me- 40 minutes in the car, as opposed to the 10-minute hop to my current LYS. Regardless, I think Park Ave is going to be my primary stop for projects. I know I'll find something I like there, and probably a bunch of other things I didn't plan on buying!

Next week, I have a guest post planned. I was going to set it up this week, but my lovely guest poster has some surprises in store for you, and they'll be perfect to ring in October!
- YX

Wall decor: knitterly pride

Who hasn't seen the fifty billion renditions of the "Keep Calm (Something) On" posters over the past year or so? I was thinking about ways to add more yarn references to my house, and it seemed like the only option I had was one of these ubiquitous posters. Harumph. 

So I did some shopping. 

The first thing I found was this fabulous eye chart-inspired piece. I love the vintage feel of the chart, combined with the knitting references. At $20, it seems like a great art piece for a reasonable cost. 

Next is this great Red Cross poster. Also $20, I love the old-school war propaganda look, and the colors are fabulous. Not to mention, the yarn looks luscious. 

Or, you could go a little more three-dimesional. I've seen about fifteen million yarn-wrapped letters on Etsy and Pinterest, but I really love these yarn letters on Etsy, which are wild and interesting, and could make a great wall installation. 

I love yarny housewares! Do you have anything on your house/craft room walls that you want to share?

- YX

The Mystery Worsted

Okay, so I was in Florence last May, and went to a lovely little yarn store called Campolmi Roberto Filati, which I found via Nicky Epstein. It's a lovely store, large and chock full of fibery goodness. The language barrier was noticeable until an English-speaking employee stepped in to help translate.

I should've bought some cashmere- we picked up a sweater quantity of cashmere yarn for my mother-in-law, who celebrated her birthday just before our trip. When the yarn lady quoted me a price for the cashmere, I started laughing. I couldn't help it! It was about 50% of the cost of similar-quality cashmere in the US. So inexpensive. It was about the same as a regular skein of superwash.

I picked up only two things, but I made them count. Both are GIANT skeins of worsted yarn, dyed in the shop.

These skeins are LITERALLY as big as my head. They're huge. 400g (14oz) of worsted yarn. It's probably close to 1,000 or so yards each.

I love the colors, which have some abrupt changes. The grey skein goes from light to dark smoothly on one side, but has a dark line on the other. It's super odd, in a cool way. I tried casting on for a "huge shawl of indeterminate size", but ended up ripping it out when I decided that I was wasting a great opportunity for a gargantuan sweater.

Yep, a worsted sweater, even though it's currently 103°F (39.4°C) here.

Yep, a worsted sweater, even though I just finished a sweater project and determined I needed a break from major garments.

Yep, a worsted sweater, instead of cracking into any of the various other yarns I have in my stash, doing a lovely little hat or a pair of super-bulky-fun-fur-electric-house-stomper socks.

What is wrong with me? Seriously?!

- YX

June Giveaway

It's June! This month, my sponsor is still Daydee's Doodads. For those who loved her bags, you may want to follow her on Twitter! She was doing a 20% off deal on her store because this month marks a very special time for her.

Remember how I told you she has Cystic Fibrosis? Well, this month marks the anniversary of her successful double lung transplant! How awesome is that?! I love science!

Anyway, this month I'm giving away a skein of DK falkland merino wool from Plum Street fiber arts. It's gorgeously purple and green. It would make a really pretty hat or cowl:

I love the depth of color in this skein. So balanced!

To enter, do one of the following:

Follow Daydee on Twitter

Like her on Facebook 

Or fave her Etsy store, if you're so inclined!

Good luck and have a great June!

February Giveaway

Hey there, yarn fans! In honor of February, our shortest month, I'm giving away some travel-sized products from Aquae Sulis, a knit-related soap shop!

Included in the giveaway are a knitter's balm, which has a really nice lavender scent, and some wool wash:

The set is perfectly sized for your knit bag! In addition, I've included two 50g skeins of Malabrigo Lace in Apple Green and Pearl Ten- they're adorably little and would make a great pair of striped fingerless mitts or a hat:

In order to win this month, go to the Aquae Sulis website and look around, then come back here and post your favorite product! Don't forget to leave your contact info so I can message you when you win!

Happy February! I'll draw a winner at the end of the month!

- YX

An unexpected surprise! January Giveaway

Something exciting happened! Remember when I gave away some awesome Yellow Hobbit yarn over the summer? Well, she's back with another giveaway for January! I was going to take off for the month, but her stuff is too awesome to pass up!

This month, the prize is a winner's choice! I love giving you guys choices! The first option is a skein of yarn made to order (2-ply or 3-ply superwash) in one of these awesome colorways:

Or you could choose a sampling of mini-skeins in a variety of colorways! Woah! If it were me, I'd totally go for the minis. A scrap sweater is in my future, but a cool pair of stripey boot socks would be amazing, too. So many options!

To enter, just join the Yellow Hobbit Ravelry group! Come back here and let me know you joined, along with a way of contacting you in the event you win (email or Rav usernames work well). This is a great opportunity to keep up with Yellow Hobbit's new products and colorways, too. I have a whole tab on my forums page dedicated to dyer and designer pages, just to keep up with the news. I mean, look at this gorgeous skein she just did as a custom order:

Beautiful! So remember: 1) Join Ravelry group. 2) Come back here and comment to tell me you entered and how to contact you if you win! Good luck and I hope you're as excited as I am! I'll pick a winner at the end of the month!

- YX

Edit: some people are having issues commenting. If you can't comment, you can tweet or email me (yarnexploder at gmail) to make the entry comment for you.

Into the stashbin...

Howdy! Hope everyone had a nice holiday...

I took some time to photograph a few things I'd picked up during my recent travels.

First, this gorgeous Anzula Cloud I tweeted about the other day:

Beautifully soft AND machine washable! It's a perfect semisolid dusty rose, which will eventually become a sweater. 4 skeins totals a whopping 2300 yards, so plenty enough for something dramatic. Get in mah belleh!

Next is some tosh sport in "scarlet"... Picked up for a hat project for a soon-to-be older brother. All the babies get attention, so I'm whipping him up a quick project in his favorite color:

It's such a common yarn, so I'll spare you the long description. I WILL say that this is a gorgeous, true, bright red colorway. I had a hard time finding a bright red that wasn't paired with pink or orange... or else had zero depth, whatsoever. Plenty of reds that aren't gorgeous, but this one fit all my needs.

I picked up this Shibui Baby Alpaca DK at Gather Here in Cambridge, and my mouth still waters when I squoosh it:

I love these colors together... Can we say Fair Isle? I also got some Gather Here fabric for Christmas, courtesy of Husband Claus, which is going to become a dress, eventually... But that's a different blog.

Finally, I scored some of the (relatively) new Wollmeise DK a few weeks ago, and it showed up right before the holiday:

For those who are fans of everything -meise, the DK will not disappoint. It has the same feel, strength, and twist of the popular sock yarns, but in a slightly heftier weight. For comparison, I took a shot of the three weights together:

Lace is on the right, followed by fingering and then the DK. The lace looks really thick, but it's only because the skein isn't twisted as tight as the others. You could knock someone out with a skein of WM sock yarn. It's like a little wool Billy club!

Anyhow, 4 skeins of the DK are going to end up in some kind of sweatery end, but exactly what, I'm unsure.

I have a new sweater WIP to show you this week, and I'll need some help picking out a yarn for an upcoming lace shawl project! So please give me your opinions on that when we get to it. Giveaway winners are being picked next week! What happened to December?! We're almost to 2013!

- YX

Review: Debbie Bliss Rialto DK

I'm a bit biased against Debbie Bliss yarns.

Don't get me wrong-- I own a bunch of different ones, and they're great for baby knits and finding dependable skeins in solid colors. Debbie Bliss yarns are great workhorses, and I always know, like Knitpicks or Rowan, I can go to the brand when my other options aren't great.

That said, I've been romanced by semi-solid hand-dyed yarns, and seeing a skein of something so... uniform in color... is a bit offputting.

Luckily for me, Debbie Bliss comes through when I need to knit man items. My husband is appreciates nicer indie yarns, but other guys on my Knit List are more typical. Solid colors. And by colors, I mean navy or black.

I just started a small project for a Christmas gift, and I remembered buying some Debbie Bliss Rialto DK at my local yarn shop. Rialto is a 100% wool DK yarn, and it's apparently washable, according to Ravelry's comments on the Rialto yarn page.

I like it for the squishiness. It has a fantastic bounce, and the fabric (on the 8's I'm using) is so nice and mooshy. The color is deep, too...

Oh, but the color... My new project:

...Really? Sigh. At least I'll have some nice photos of my completed, blocked Jaina sweater for you tomorrow. That's a promise.

And I also promise you some color in the near future...
- YX

September giveaway!

This month, I have a bright giveaway for you:

It's a skein of Madelinetosh Tosh Merino DK in the colorway Pop Rocks. It's insanely bright!

Madelinetosh merino dk is what I made my Raphaelite with:

I love this stuff for the subtle heathering, dimensional dyeing technique, and the one-of-a-kind color. This stuff looks amazing paired with a dark gray. If you haven't tried madelinetosh yarn before, here's a great opportunity!

How to win:
Post a link to the giveaway (or another YX.com entry you love) on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media website. And of course, come back and tell me what you shared, where you shared it, and make sure I have a way to contact you if you win!

Good luck, and happy September!
- YX

Favorite types of yarn

There was a post on Ravelry awhile back about favorite yarn weight... That one's easy, for me: DK. DK (Double Knit) yarn is between sport and worsted weights, and it's thicker than sock (fingering) yarn. For reference, if I hold two strands of sock yarn, I get what is approximately a worsted weight. I like DK because I can sub it for anything from a fingering weight to a worsted and get nice results. That may sound crazy, but it always seems to work out in gauge for me.

That is a dk-weight shawl, made from Tosh Merino dk. The pattern called for lace, but a hard blocking left me with a scarfy shawl that had more substance than a lace would give me. And, if I'm being wholly honest, I tend to like the colorways in dk yarns better than others.

But I wasn't planning on talking weight, anyway. I wanted to talk about structure. And I'm going to use the lovely yarns from Little Red Bicycle to illustrate.

Okay, so there are so many ways to make yarn. There are single ply yarns, which are just spun fiber. They're kind of fuzzy and tend to pill more than their plied counterparts. Here's a single:

2-ply yarns are like singles, except they're half as thick, and two of them are twisted together. A lot of lace yarns are 2-ply, but sock yarns can be, too:

Here's a 3-ply, which adds another ply to the mix. It looks twistier, doesn't it?:

There's a 3-ply technique called Navajo plying, which takes one long single and spins it in such a way that it actually creates three plies as you spin it, which is kind of neat! Here's an example from Eleven Hills on Etsy:

There are a ton of other plying/spinning methods to create yarn, too. Boucle, for example, is made by using two different tensions on singles. So you get loopy bits all of the yarn. My favorite type of ply, though, is a braided ply, like Cascade Eco Cloud:

Can you see the difference here? It's like a bajillion little chains make up the yarn. I find it's wonderfully stretchy and mooshy, and you can knit up something bulky that doesn't weight too much, because the yarn isn't solid... All those teensy gaps act like air pockets when knitted up. It's not as robust as a super twisty yarn, and it doesn't shed or pill as much as a single-ply yarn.

One of my favorite pairs of socks were knitted from a braided cashmere yarn, and I was too much of a beginner to realize how incredible it was... The ball band is long lost, and I wish I could figure out what the brand was! I wouldn't call braided yarns rare, but the few you see are generally pretty plain. I'd love to see an indie dyer experimenting with them, though!

Tell me your favorites, or help me solve my mystery yarn! It's definitely a high percentage of cashmere, and that's just about all I know.

-YX

(I'll be picking a giveaway winner soon!)

Where WERE you?!

Okay, okay, I dropped the ball, and didn't update for, like, EVER last week. But in my defense, I closed on a house, had a root canal, and had a pretty brutal fall (onto my heavy, solid, metal SEWING MACHINE), so my Wednesday to Friday was just wrecked.

Also, I haven't done anything on my current WIP, Jaina, so there's nothing to report there. I HAVE been working on a little design on the side, and hopefully that should be ready to show by the end of this week or early next week. Free pattern, whaaat?!

In other news, remember this?

I got a very nice comment from the designer on the FO post, which was awesome. I love seeing reactions from designers, both here and on Rav. If I ever publish designs there, I'll probably freak out any time someone knits one.

Okay, so now we're updated. Good for us. Hey, let me show you something:

THIS is a terrible image of some yarn I own. It's Jacques Cartier's Heavenly Alpaca, which is a Golden Crown Suri fiber. There are two kinds of alpacas, right? The first type, huacayas, are kind of your typical foofy llama dudes. My Jaina is made from huacaya fiber. Suris, aside from being the progeny of famous celebrity exes, are the alpacas that look like they have dreads. Here is a photo I shamelessly borrowed from the internets:

Hey there, little dude. I shall call you Fernando.

So although huacayas look foofy and soft, suris are actually softer, because the locks are silky. In fact, what you're seeing are gorgeous curls, not matted clumps, although it's hard to tell in photos. The alpaca wrangler cuts off those locks, they're cleaned, processed, and spun in some really nice fiber.

The yarn I showed above is made by Jacques Cartier, a company that is generally known for their qiviut. In fact, I made two shawls from that company's qiviut. Here's one:

The thing is, it's SO expensive. It's like $75 for one little weinery ball, which barely made the FO above. I mean, I got the yarn as a gift, and it's not the kind of thing I can go willy-nilly purchasing.

But the Cartier suri is less than 1/3 of the price. At my LYS, the same weinery little ball is $22.50. Okay, let's be honest: It's still expensive. I can buy some nice merino cobweb for a fraction of the cost, yeah yeah yeah. But the suri is beautiful. It's going to make an incredible gift, and the silkiness actually makes it seem a little more luxe than the qiviut, which is a little fuzzy.

So I guess what I'm trying to say here is, maybe you can't (or don't want to) afford the qiviut right away, but here's something I would consider to be a reasonable substitute without breaking the bank, robbing your family members, or needing a government bailout.

Anyone have experience with it?
- YX

June Giveaway!

Woohoo June! Summer has descended upon our city, and I thought I was going to melt on the sidewalk outside today: 100 degrees is like breathing air through hot fleece! I could really use a sno-cone right about now...

At least I have June's giveaway yarn to cool me off:

Holy gorgeous, Batman! What do we have here?

It's Yellow Hobbit yarn! This is her 100% merino superwash in "Scootaloo"! For the uninformed, Scootaloo is a character on the new My Little Pony cartoon:

What a fun concept for yarn colors! First the Avengers, and now My Little Pony are inspiring dyers to make all kinds of fun color combinations. This superwash has a great springiness that seems like it'd be a breeze to knit with. At 490 yards, you have enough to do a decent-sized project, too!

Okay, okay, what do you have to do to enter this month? Check out Yellow Hobbit's Etsy store, fave something, and then come back and tell me what you faved!

Good luck, and I'll draw the winner on the 30th!
- YX

OMGAWESOME

So remember our May sponsor, Sheepy Time Knits? She just (and I do mean just) tweeted this awesome photo of her Avengers-themed yarn!

I'm not much of a comic book person, but this is awesome on many levels:

1) The colors are based on characters: (L to R) Captain America, Loki, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Thor, Black Widow, and Hulk.

2) It's really easy to READ those colorways to determine the character. Look at the Black Widow skein! I love it!

3) The bases are specific to the character. Captain America's, for instance, has a bit of sparkle. Hulk's is a bulky weight yarn.

Awesome, right? Which is your favorite?

If you like what you see, maybe you should consider entering the giveaway for more awesome yarn from Sheepy Time!

- YX