Pattern and yarn reviews

I have a new favourite pattern! Skoodlet (ravelry link), by Leethal, who makes various wonderful things. It's awesome, a hood/scarflet thing, it is absolutely delicious. I made a giant one (to accommodate my dreads and to make me look more mysterious) out of Nashua Handknits Granite, which is quite a lovely yarn. (ravelry link.)

The pattern is written to work with any yarn you want; you measure your gauge and put it into the formula. It's super easy to figure out, just simple multiplication and putting in numbers. I do recommend printing it out to write the numbers in - it's too confusing otherwise! Luckily, leethal has written the pattern so that only 2 pages actually need to be printed out. Suggestions for possible modifications are given in the pattern, so it was super easy to make it big enough for my overlarge hair. All the techniques she uses (including a figure-eight cast on I hadn't used before) are clearly explained at the start of the pattern. There were maybe a couple lines I had to read through a couple times, but for the most part everything was very clear. And of course, the skoodlet is absolutely ADORABLE, I wore it all day today and never wanted to take it off. EVER. It's sitting by my bed where I can reach it at a moment's notice.

5 stars for an awesome pattern!

The top and bottom buttons on it are ones I've drawn on - <3 drawing on buttons.

The yarn I used was Nashua Handknits Granite in "Deep Mix." I didn't have super high expectations of this yarn: the colours seemed nice, and I love slub yarn, but 70% wool, 30% acrylic doesn't tend to inspire blind confidence, simply because there's so much variation in the quality of both fibres. I was pleasantly surprised though, it's lovely and soft! All the thick sections are coloured, the thinner sections grey, so it has a really awesome texture when knitted. This is one of the few yarns I actually like better when it's knitted, I usually prefer the look of skeined yarn. It has a nice drape without being too heavy. While it doesn't reach the extremes of fabulousness some other yarns do, it's a very nice yarn indeed and I want more of it!

4.5 stars for great yarn!

A yarn I am less happy with is Twilleys of Stamford Freedom Spirit. I've used it before and it didn't seem so bad, but I guess I've acquired taste now. It's rather scratchy, and splits very easily. I bought it because I really like the colours as they appear on the ball, but they're muddy an disappointing when knitted up. I'd planned on using sections of reverse stockinette, but it ended up looking like such a mess that I had to use the other side. It might just be this colourway that's like this, I've used a different one before and it didn't have these problems...but I was crocheting....maybe I should just crochet with this yarn? But I'm halfway done a knitted hat! Anyway, I'm super disappointed with this.

2 stars for crappy yarn. Boo.

My other WIP is a purple lace dress, using Mari Lynn Patrick's Featherlight Lingerie Dress pattern from Lace Style.

The pattern is fine so far, even though it has some seaming, and picking up 450 stitches. I nearly went insane, and I'm only done the skirt part. I feel like this could have been designed to incorporate less seaming and picking up stitches, and if I'd thought about it I would probably have tried to do that myself. Too late now though. This project is on hold for a little, until I've gotten over picking up all those stitches.

3 stars for a decent pattern that could have been designed better.

The yarn I'm using is Maseru by Fleece Artist. I bought it for the gorgeous colour, bright vibrant purple! I got one skein of straight purple, and one matching varicolour skein, and I'm alternating every few rows (which is where that half-striped pattern is coming from). This yarn is soft but scratchy, which is not really surprising at 60% mohair, and it's very light and floaty - great for a dress! It's never going to be my favourite, I wouldn't be able to wear it against my skin, but the colours, floaty-ness, and price ($10 per 545 yard skein) make it a great choice for mohair projects.

4.5 stars for bright purple yarn!

Yarn Shopping in Ottawa

Oh. My. God.

SO MUCH YARN.

I have had the BEST day! I'm in Ottawa, and I went yarn shopping. I went to four stores, all around downtown. So exciting!

The first place I went was Yarns, Etc, right near the Rideau Centre. A tiny little shop, but they had a great selection of yarn in a variety of qualities, for pretty reasonable prices! I was surprised how much could fit. The owner was super nice, too, I had a lovely chat with her. I'd definitely go back there again! The only thing was that they didn't have any spinning stuff apart from a couple bundles of roving (which looked a bit bedraggled). There was a lot of embroidery stuff there too, which is useful to know if I take up embroidery again. 4/5 stars.

Yarn from Yarns, Etc.

The second store I went to was Yarn Forward, in the north part of the Glebe. They had a really large space, but somehow it seemed like they had less selection than Yarns, Etc. That said, there was some great yarn there! The only stuff I really wanted was too expensive though, everything was a bit on the pricy side. They had a few colours of roving (more than Yarns, Etc), so I got a bit of that. The staff were pleasant but not really friendly, I felt a little awkward there. 3/5 stars.

Fibre from Yarn Forward.

The third store was Knit Knackers, farther north on Bank. This store was AMAZING, look at the pictures on the website, it is GIANT! And all for yarn and fiber! I am still buzzed from going to this store, and it's nine hours later. It took me at least an hour to go through all the yarn they had; a fantastic selection, from cheap to gorgeous expensive. There were some great bargains, I couldn't believe the prices on some things! They also have bags of yarn to buy in bulk with ridiculous savings; I almost bought a bag of 10 skeins of bulky wool for $80, cut down from something like $150. And the fiber they had! Some of it I didn't even know existed, like fiber from milk and corn?! They had a crazy variety, including llama, several types of wool, alpaca, silk in different forms, cotton, linen, soy silk, angora, sea silk, the list goes on, it's just so wonderful! Most of it is undyed, but there's a wall of dyed wool top in loads of colours (and I think there was dyed silk as well?). PLUS (I discovered by accident), if you buy more than a kilo of fiber, you get 10% off your fiber purchase; and if you buy more than 10 skeins of yarn you get 10% off that too! The staff were super friendly and patient (and they had to weigh a lot of fiber for me) and helpful, happy to chat and really eager to help! I just can't express how excited about this store I am!! If I still lived in Ottawa I would be here all the time, and spend all my money. 6/5 stars!

Yarn from Knit Knackers.


Fibre from Knit Knackers and Wabi Sabi.

The last store I went to was Wabi Sabi, in Hintonburg. I used to live literally right around the corner from here, but I don't think this store existed then. This felt very much like a Fiber Art Store (with the capitals), not a yarn or knitting store. There was a decent amount of yarn, mostly Berroco. It was fairly pricey though. There was a nice selection of dyed roving, including a lovely wool-silk blend (that I bought some of, it's the blue fibre in the top left corner above) in a bunch of different colours. They also had needle felting and other fiber art supplies, plus some lovely finished artworks. The owner was busy but nice and happy to help! The railing in the doorway had been yarn bombed, which I was excited about! A lovely store, but limited amounts of yarn, and a bit above my price range. 4/5 stars.

And then I went home because I had spent all my money at Knit Knackers. Oops. Heh. There are a bunch more knitting shops around Ottawa, but they are farther away and difficult to get to without a car. But I am definitely satisfied with what I got.