Saturday, November 17, 2007

YotM November

My beautiful, loving, wonderful wife - who doesn't always "get me" but totally comes through when it counts - signed me up for a Yarn of the Month club (like I said, she's awesome). I just today opened up my first delivery (though apparently it came in the mail a couple days ago and has been buried under a pile of stuff on the couch).

It all came nicely packed in a Tyvek-like envelope with a pattern (knitting, unfortunately), a bi-monthly newsletter (this one about fibers from Camelids - camels, llamas, alpacas, etc), and four samples of yarn. No cheapie Red Heart Super Saver here, this was awesome stuff!!

It didn't come all crocheted up like this, by the way. Just wound in a little ball. I used the same process to crochet all four samples: My favorite hook (which isn't anything special, just an aluminum H hook, but it's purple) 10 sc wide and however many sc rows I could fit without running out of yarn.

The first one I pulled out and worked with was Camelino by Knit One Crochet Too. Felt like worsted weight, I'm pretty sure. It's 90% Merino Wool and 10% Camel. I've never worked with wool before, or camel for that matter, so this was a new texture to me. I'm not sure I like wool. But it was fairly soft and on a slightly larger hook, perhaps a J or something, probably would have draped nicely.


The second was Pastaza by Cascade Yarns. It was chunkier, not quite bulky but thicker than worsted weight, and 50/50 Llama and Wool. It's got some stray fibers (you can see it better on their website than in this picture) which I didn't like, but it was neat to try out anyway.


Third out of the bag was Camelon by Zaol, 80% Merino and 20% Camel. This was my second favorite of the four, not too fiberous and fairly soft. It's also about worsted weight (4.5 st/inch according to them, but that's knit).


Last, but by far my favorite, was Lacampo by Karabella Yarns. 60% Dehaired Llama, 40% Cotton, DK weight, and ooooooh so soft. This felt SO good to work with, I WILL buy it in the future. And until then, I will visit the website often to covet and drool.


And so ends my first month of YotM. My swatches have gone back in the plastic baggies they came in, and the baggies have gone into a Crocs shoe box. I'm going to keep them all and eventually patchwork afghan them.

Until next month (or, next blog)!

1 comment:

Vashti Braha said...

Hi Zarah, I'm so glad you're enjoying the Yarn of the Month Club! I love yarn clubs and I blogged about 3 of them (Sept. 5th and 14th entries). Not a lot of crocheters seem to know about them.
I like seeing yours crocheted up in sc. Haven't played with mine yet, might have to make another coffee cozy :-)