A Few Of My Favorite Things–Lotus Yarn and Luxury Yarn One-Skein Wonders

I might have mentioned that I love silk. I mean, really LOVE silk! I love how it feels and how it looks. So you can imagine how thrilled I was when we were able to start carrying Interlacement Yarns Lotus 100% silk. It’s shimmery and shiny and oh, so smooth!

And, of course, I just HAD to knit with it. All for you, my dear customers. All for you. The sacrifices I make for this business. But, someone must do it . . .

What pattern, though? I found the perfect one in Luxury Yarn One-Skein Wonders: Blossom Silk SeaCell Shawl. Of course, I used Lotus instead of the SeaSilk, but it was a perfect substitution. Lotus is a super-fine weight yarn with over 450 yards per 100 grams. The pattern is easy to follow and is written in both words and a chart. It is a rather simple pattern with only one chart to follow and no special stitches.

I highly recommend the Luxury Yarn One-Skein Wonder book. It has many projects that are quick to work up and that only take one skein or even part of a skein. They’re perfect for that leftover yarn that’s in your stash or when you need a quick knit when you’re on a trip. While they’re written for luxury yarns, you can almost always find another yarn to substitute that will also give very nice results. But, hey, there’s always silk . . .

Oh, you want to know how the Blossom Shawl turned out? Well, beautifully! Of course, when it was finished, it looked like a big mess of knotted silk. I used lace wires while blocking which helped ensure that the edges that were supposed to be straight actually turned out straight. And the final product is gorgeous!!

 

So, get thee to The Knitting Nest to buy some of this gorgeous Lotus yarn! And we’ll help you find the perfect pattern for your needs – maybe even from Luxury Yarn One-Skein Wonders!

 

A Few of My Favorite Things–Now That’s a Market Bag

When summer comes, knitters sometimes put away the needles until fall, thinking that there’s not much fun to knit when it’s too hot for wool. Perish the thought! Summer is a great time to knit with cotton and it’s a great time for knitting accessories, particularly things like bags that can be used to tote things to and from the lake, cabin, or your favorite getaway.

This summer, I tried my hand at “Now That’s a Market Bag” from Knot Your Mama’s Knitting Patterns in Universal’s Cotton Supreme (100% cotton) Brown. The pattern is well-written and easy to follow. The most difficult thing to handle is the provisional cast-on at the beginning, but the explanation given in the pattern is very clear.

This was my first time using Universal’s Cotton Supreme and I was pleasantly surprised by how soft a hand it has. In fact, I think this yarn is probably better suited to garments than I had expected. Nonetheless, it made a lovely market bag.

 

A Few of My Favorite Things - English Driving Cap

I just finished my second English Driving Cap using the pattern Inishmore by Cheryl Andrews of Wooly Bear Knits. I chose this pattern because these hats are for some ladies who need chemo caps and they wanted this style of hat. I liked also that this design doesn’t require anything in the brim for extra stabilization.

The first hat is made from Universal Cotton Supreme (100% cotton) in Ecru. The second is out of Cascade Sierra (80% cotton, 20% wool) in Plum. The pattern says that it is for experienced knitters because it is challenging. I would have to agree. There are no difficult stitches, but keeping up with the short rows as well as knitting such an “architectural” item requires experience in reading patterns and close attention. Even with that, I had to “tink” and “frog” sections at times. I don’t want to discourage you from trying it, though! It is quite rewarding when you are done! And now that I’ve made two of them and I’m about to make a third (for myself), I’m happy to help if you get stuck.

Both the yarn and the pattern (as well as needles and notions) can be purchased from The Knitting Nest in Weyauwega. Stop in and check us out!

A Few of My Favorite Things–Knit Noro Accessories and Debbie Macomber Gerbera Print Yarn

Debbie Macomber Blossom Street Gerbera Print Yarn from Universal Yarn has to be one of my favorite variegated yarns.  It is 100% wool, single plied, worsted yarn, but the colors are what make it stand out.  Each colorway has several rich colors that complement each other and give a beautiful effect when knitted.

The Knit Noro Accessories book is full of beautiful patterns originally knit in Noro yarn.  However, they work up beautifully in many other brands of variegated yarn, particularly Gerbera Print yarn.  There are a variety of types of accessories in the book and the patterns are well-written and easy to follow.

I chose to use Gerbera Print yarn in color 204 – Lazy River – and the pattern Riverbed Rib Hat.  I’m immensely pleased at how it looks.  The colors are bright and beautiful and the hat fits very well.

The next time you are looking for a book of patterns for accessories, particularly for variegated yarn, you really can’t go wrong with the Knit Noro Accessories yarn.  And I really love the Debbie Macomber Blossom Street Gerbera Print yarn and I think you will too.

Come check out both items at The Knitting Nest!!  We’d love to see you!!

A Few of My Favorite Things–My Kind of Saturday in Kollage Riveting

 

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have knitted items with that same comfortable well-worn feeling as an old pair of jeans?  You can!  Kollage Riveting yarn is made from recycled blue jeans (80% post-consumer content) and it feels amazing!!  Right now, we carry the DK weight in night denim, lava denim, forest denim, sand denim, and pebble denim.  You have to see and feel this yarn to believe it!

Kollage also sells the pattern “My Kind of Saturday” which is a one skein lacy cowl.  So, of course, I had to make one.  And it is just luscious.  We have had customers pick up the cowl and ask if it is silk!  No, it’s not silk.  In fact, after I was done with it, I machine washed and dried it!  The pattern is well written with the lace pattern both written and charted.  (And, it doesn’t use the whole skein, although it does use more than half, so you can’t quite get two cowls from one skein.)

 

Kollage is very clear that you need to swatch and block your swatch before you start your project.  Riveting is easy to care for once it’s knit up, but the row gauge tends to shrink on blocking so you have to take that into account before you start your project.

Stop in and check out this yarn soon!  We also have several more patterns from Kollage written specifically for this yarn.  We look forward to seeing you!!

A Few of My Favorite Things–c2knits

Despite the recent temperature drop and threat of snow for us here in and around the Northwoods, spring really IS on it’s way.  And that means knitting short-sleeved sweaters, bags, hats, and other spring and summer items.  I’m especially excited about this because I really have very few spring and summer knitted items in my wardrobe.  How has that happened if I’m such a dedicated knitter?  Simple.  I give away much of what I knit.  This year, though, I decided that I wanted to make some sweaters to put in my own wardrobe.

My first sweater is a top-down short-sleeved raglan T-shirt made with Cascade Ultra Pima Cotton yarn using c2knits pattern Zoe.

I love the sweater and the pattern!  The pattern is easy to read.  It tells the knitter exactly where to put the stitch markers and how and why to use two different colors of stitch markers.  There is some flexibility in making the sweater a bit more fitted by casting on fewer stitches under the arms (which I’ll probably do next time), but that really doesn’t add complexity if you just want to work the pattern as written.

One issue I had was that the sweater turned out longer than I’d like, but that is because I was lazy and did the measurement while holding the sweater in my lap.  Next time, I will get up and measure the sweater while laying it out on the table.

The other issue I had is that the pattern called for the edging on the bottom to be done in reverse stockinette.  I have never had success with this kind of cuff on the bottom of a sweater – it always flips up unless you steam iron it every time you wear it.  I was very loathe to try it again, so I tried doing a hem, but that was flipping up as well.  I ended up switching to smaller needles and just finishing it in stockinette which made a nice rolled edge, which I also like.

Since I loved this pattern so much, we’re carrying several of the c2knits patterns in the shop.  I’ve got another sweater on the needles using Sierra (a cotton/wool blend) that I think is going to be lovely as well.

Stop by the shop and check out our new patterns and we’ll help you find a wonderful yarn to complement the pattern and give you a great new summer sweater!!

A Few Of My Favorite Things–Marina, Flora, and Tundra Glitz

We’re having an obscenely warm winter here in Wisconsin, so we haven’t needed to break out the heavy-duty coats, scarves, and hats every day like we usually do.  In fact, this has been the perfect year to wear purely decorative scarves.  And the Knitting Nest has just the yarn to make them!

Marina and Flora are two specialty yarns made by Universal Yarns that make it easy for even the most novice knitter to create fancy scarves to brighten up any outfit.  Marina is a ribbon yarn with large holes that makes a ruffle effect when knitted or crocheted.

 

Flora has smaller holes that require less precision when knitting and give a more lily-type look to the scarf.

Tundra Glitz is a sparkly ribbon yarn with holes along the top for ease in knitting and crochet.  It forms a more dense material with lots of shine.

Any of these yarns will make great scarves.  And you can use your imagination to make all kinds of other items as well – the sky is the limit!  Come check them out!

A Few Of My Favorite Things–The Ablet

The Ablet, AKA knitting abacus, is a bracelet and knitting counter all in one.  How cool is that?  You get to wear a beautiful piece of jewelry that helps you keep track of your knitting rows!  This is one of my new favorite knitting notions.  It’s pretty.  It’s useful.  How can you go wrong?!

The Ablet is made with 18 beads strung on two sets of ribbons side by side to make an abacus.  It works just like an abacus.  You slide the beads of the “ones column” after each row until you have done all nine beads.  Then, you move the “ones” beads back and slide the first “tens” bead down and repeat the process.

My Ablet is made with blue beads so it matches just about everything that I wear.  There are designs, though, with wooden beads, multicolor beads, and sparkly beads.  The beads are very easy to move and don’t require you to drop your needles.

One of these would make a great gift for a knitter.  Prices range from $18 – $35.  Stop by the Knitting Nest to check them out!

A Few Of My Favorite Things–Bamboo Bloom

 

Bamboo Bloom yarn by Universal yarns is a blend of wool and viscose from bamboo.  What’s really interesting about it is that the two fibers aren’t evenly blended.  Instead, there are sections of bamboo viscose that are about worsted weight interspersed with sections of wool that are more lightly twisted and are bulky in weight.  The structure of the yarn means that it has very different looks depending on what size needle you choose.

This cowl (from CowlGirls – more on that book in another post) was made on size 13 needles with Bamboo Bloom.  The bamboo sections looks very open and lacy with the wool section having a more traditional ribbed texture.

This mobius cowl/scarf was made on size 8 needles.  In this case, the bamboo section looks like you’d expect worsted weight yarn to look while the wool sections kind of “bush out”.

The bamboo viscose part of the yarn is wonderfully silky and shiny while the wool section has the consistency you’d expect of lightly twisted wool.

Bamboo Bloom comes in some beautiful handpainted colorways along with coordinating solids.  In the examples above, I used Fallen Petals (the handpainted yarn) and Jasmine (the solid).  This yarn is great for cowls, scarves, shawls, hats, and more and is great to work with!

Stop by The Knitting Nest and check out this gorgeous yarn!

A Few of My Favorite Things–Old 92

 

The Knitting Nest in Weyauwega is just 50 miles from historic Lambeau Field in Green Bay Wisconsin, the home of the Super Bowl Champions, the Green Bay Packers.  Like the rest of the community, we take our football very seriously!  We made sure to include in our first yarn order plenty of colors that could be used to make items to show our support for out local football teams – Green Bay Packers, Wisconsin Badgers, and the local high schools.  (Patrick and I are long-term LSU fans, being alums of that school, but we don’t have many purple and gold items in the shop, those colors also being the colors of the Minnesota Vikings.  I’m sure you can see why!)

Several months ago, Patrick came across Dear Husband yarn on Ravelry.  He was, naturally, interested in learning more about another man in the yarn business.  Dear Husband yarn sells hand-dyed (or “man-dyed) yarn by Tim Pintsch.  Tim lives in Pennsylvania, but he is from Escanaba, MI and has family connections to Wisconsin.  Being a lifelong Packer fan, he was interested doing a green and gold colorway sometime.  And our shop was a great excuse!

We now carry worsted weight wool, bulky weight wool, worsted weight superwash wool, and fingering weight wool/nylon blend in “Old –92”, a beautiful colorway in green, gold, and white.  Why 92?  In 1992, the Packers signed a young quarterback named Brett Favre.  The next year, they signed as #92 Reggie White.  These two events helped the Packers to win the Super Bowl in 1997.  Hence, the name “Old –92”!

 

This would make a great hat, pair of mittens, or pair of socks for the Packer fan in your family. 

Have a great time watching the Pack beat the Vikings tonight and, later this week, stop in and check out this wonderful hand-dyed (and “man-dyed”) yarn!

A Few of My Favorite Things–Knit, Swirl

Have you heard of Knit, Swirl yet?  No?  Well, be prepared to be amazed!

Knit, Swirl by Sandra McIver is a book about knitting “swirl jackets”.  Sandra has developed a wonderful technique of knitting these jackets in a large circle and then making sequential decreases.  In the center, half the stitches are bound off and the bodice and sleeves are worked back and forth.  After the garment is blocked, only one seam is needed to complete the swirl!  When you are done, the large circle drapes around the collar as well as forming the lapels and bottom of the swirl.

Confused?  That’s OK!  It sounds complicated, but the techniques that are used to make the swirl are well within the reach of anyone who can knit a sweater.  Sandra includes helpful charts and diagrams with stitch counts to keep you from getting lost.

You might wonder why she has a whole book of patterns based on just one technique.  The reason is that she has created some cool variations.  I made the very first swirl which has a circular shape with a circular opening set in the center.  The variations in the book include circular or oval shape, circular or oval opening, and center or off-center opening.

I loved making my swirl.  I followed directions carefully and was a little concerned because it looked like I was using more yarn than I was supposed to.  It did block a little larger than it should have, but ended up turning out well.  (Definitely block your swatch!!  That’s a step you really do NOT want to skip!)  My swirl is made from Cascade 220, so it’s plenty warm.

This is a great book for some new and innovative project ideas, if not for you, then for another knitter in your life!

A Few of my Favorite Things–Cascade Heritage

 

I love knitting socks.  Socks are a great little project that I can carry with me.  It’s also pretty cool to start knitting a tube in one direction and then make the heel so that the tube turns 90 degrees. 

Socks can be knit in a variety of yarn fibers and yarn weights, but most people (including me) prefer a wool/nylon blend in sock or fingering weight.  Wool is preferred because it is warm and keeps feet dry.  However, nylon is often added to give some extra strength.

Which brings us to Cascade’s Heritage yarn.  This is a 75% superwash merino/25% nylon blend sock weight yarn.  What I like about it right now is how good it feels to knit.  It also doesn’t split, which is very important when knitting socks on size 0 needles and trying to do “M1R” and “M1L”.

However, you aren’t limited to socks with this yarn.  It works up very nicely for garments and is washable – great for kid’s clothes!

Heritage is available in solid colors, tweeds, and paints, giving you lots of variety from which to choose.

Next time you’re looking for a sock-weight yarn, stop by The Knitting Nest and check out our selection of Cascade Heritage yarn!

A Few Of My Favorite Things–Cascade Ultra Pima

It’s almost Fall, the time when a knitter’s thoughts turn toward wool. But not quite yet! It may be almost September, but I want to tell you all about a wonderful 100% cotton yarn – Cascade Ultra Pima.

The first thing I noticed when I saw the Ultra Pima is how shiny it is! It’s perfect for making garments that you want to have some luster, but still have the characteristics of cotton. The Ultra Pima works up in a very nice fabric that isn’t stiff and has a very pretty drape to it.

I made a shrug using a HiyaHiya pattern and I’m thrilled with the results. It’s light enough that I can wear it in the shop when I get a little chilly, but not as warm as wool.

The left-sided picture is the shrug laid out on the floor and the right-sided picture is detail of the lace pattern.

When you want a shiny, worsted weight yarn for a garment, Ultra Pima is a great choice. The Knitting Nest carries 11 colors of this lovely yarn. Stop in and check it out!!

A Few Of My Favorite Things–HiyaHiya Needles

 

I love using circular needles for just about any project.  I use them instead of straight single-point needles, to knit in the round in place of double point needles, and to knit in the round using Magic Loop technique.  Unfortunately, really good circular needles are pricey.

I’ve found a solution – HiyaHiya circular needles.  Why HiyaHiya?

1. The needles are stainless steel with a finish that lets the yarn slide smoothly, but not so slick that the yarn slides off all the time.

2. The cable is very supple.  When using the Magic Loop technique, the cable needs to be able to bend easily, and the HiyaHiya cables do just that.

3. The join between cable and needle is very smooth.  The yarn moves smoothly from the cable to the needle without catching.

4. The price!!  HiyaHiya needles are about 30% less than Addi Turbos.

The Knitting Nest will carry HiyaHiya circular needles with 20 inch and 40 inch cables from size 000 to 13.  We are happy to let you try some out (after we open on August 23rd) in the shop.  I’m convinced that you’ll find them perfect for your next project!

A Few of My Favorite Things–Cascade 220

I love Cascade 220 – one of the “workhorse” wool yarns that is very popular with knitters.  How do I love, thee, Cascade 220, let me count the ways!

1. I love that you are 100% wool, but still not scratchy.
2. I love that you come in a zillion colors (even though The Knitting Nest is only starting with about 20 colors).
3. I love that you felt beautifully.
4. I love that you feel so nice to work with.
5. I love how warm you are when you are made up into a scarf or hat.
6. I love how consistent you are.

The 220 in the name Cascade 220 refers to the fact that the original worsted yarn has 220 yards/100 grams.  Nowadays, though, you can get Cascade 220 in other weights, etc.  The only possible downside to this yarn is that it comes in hanks instead of skeins.  However, we will have our swift and yarn winder at the shop and will be happy to wind your hanks of any brand of yarn into center-pull balls.

Here’s a picture of a scarf I made using brioche stitch so that it’s red on one side and black on the other.  I love how deep and strong these Cascade 220 colors are!

 

How do you love Cascade 220?  Leave a comment and let us know!