{"id":224,"date":"2022-05-11T20:41:30","date_gmt":"2022-05-12T01:41:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shelsdreams.com\/?p=224"},"modified":"2022-05-11T20:41:35","modified_gmt":"2022-05-12T01:41:35","slug":"yarn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shelsdreams.com\/index.php\/2022\/05\/11\/yarn\/","title":{"rendered":"Yarn"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Acquiring yarn makes me happy.\u00a0 And I\u2019m a happy fiber witch these days, because I\u2019m pretty much swimming in yarn.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I went hunting for mini skeins, because when Elaine (Master of Enablers) sent me that first \u201cI\u2019m-going-to-get-you-hooked-on-the-good-stuff” box, there were a ton of adorable mini skeins in there.\u00a0 And I can\u2019t stand to have yarn and not know what I\u2019m using it for, so I went looking for a project to use them in.\u00a0 What I found was the Battenberg Blanket by Cherry Heart, (https:\/\/www.cherryheart.co.uk\/2018\/12\/battenberg-blanket.html) which I fell in love with immediately.\u00a0 It\u2019s named after the UK favorite dessert, (should have heard my boss\u2019s reaction when I asked him about it!).\u00a0 It\u2019s just teeny 3 round solid granny squares made from fingering weight yarn. It takes about a million of them and the project will probably take me another three years, but it\u2019s great getting to add to it every time I buy fingering weight yarn, which has unaccountably become one of my favorite weights to work with.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Battenberg squares on the blocking board Chris made. <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, in the hunt (which ended up at Etsy, naturally), I fell in love with the idea of doing the Battenberg in \u201cthemes\u201d.   So I went looking for yarn that was inspired by things, places, books, etc. that I love. And ohhhhh I found sooooo much\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As time has gone on, and I\u2019ve worked with more yarns and fibers I\u2019ve started having preferences of what I like to work with and what I don\u2019t.   Amazingly enough to me, since I said after I made the first baby blanket I\u2019d done with fingering weight yarn that I\u2019d never do THAT again – fingering weight and sock yarn is now one of my favorites for shawls and ponchos.  In the more expensive yarns, I really like a merino\/silk blend, but I don\u2019t enjoy winding it, because it is slippery enough that it will slip off the forming cake and pool at the bottom of the winder if you don\u2019t slow way down while you\u2019re winding. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another favorite is gradient cake yarns.\u00a0 Most of these have about 875 to 1094 yards per cake, which means you can get one shawl or poncho out of one cake, which is handy.\u00a0 Keeping that in mind though, the per cake price is a little high.\u00a0 I\u2019ve become accustomed to the sticker shock and now realize that it comes out fairly cheaply when you realize you only need one.\u00a0 And I\u2019m determined to have shawls and\/or ponchos to match most of my outfits.\u00a0 I just got through ordering like six more colorways.\u00a0 In the gradient cakes, what I\u2019ve used most of is Hobbii Sultan, which is four\u00a0unplied strands of 100% cotton.\u00a0 I\u2019ve found I actually enjoy the Twister and Scheepjes cakes more, though, which are acrylic\/cotton blends, and have just that little bit more stretch and softness.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One of my favorite brands is Scheepjes.\u00a0 I\u2019ve used and loved their Whirls, (same fiber and yardage as Twister)\u00a0 and drooled over their Stonewashed and Riverwashed lines.\u00a0 The only thing that\u2019s so far stopped me from ordering the adorable sample pack is that those are DK weight yarn, not fingering, so I couldn\u2019t use them for the Battenberg blanket.\u00a0 But I was highly excited to find out they have a silk\/cotton line called Secret Garden, with a shawl pattern (unfortunately in knit only, boo!) to match. \u00a0 I ordered 10 balls of it in various colorways to make my own crocheted version, and I am SO excited!\u00a0 (More on this to come\u2026)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Scheepjes Secret Garden and Whirls<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Another favorite is Malabrigo.\u00a0 Again, I was introduced to this brand by Elaine the Enabler, and it was love at first feel, because she sent me a CASHMERE blend. OMG the soft.\u00a0 I made a small shawl out of the three hanks I had, which one of the cats promptly CHEWED.\u00a0 I was heartbroken.\u00a0 Who knew cats loved cashmere as much as I do? \u00a0 I\u2019ve now replaced the yarn (plus two additional hanks, because I like my shawls generously sized), and plan to remake the shawl when I have room in my projects list.\u00a0 I also got 5 hanks of their Silky Merino in the Zarzamora colorway.\u00a0 And then\u2026and THEN I found out that Moon Trio Full (the original colorway from Elaine the Enabler) is part of\u2026.wait for it\u2026.a TRIO.\u00a0 Yeah, there\u2019s also Crescent and New moons.\u00a0 Well y\u2019all know this Cancer baby had to have the whole set.\u00a0 The whole set only comes in their Mechita, a single ply, 100% merino,\u00a0 but it is also in fingering weight (where the cashmere blend is DK), so I was okay with that.\u00a0 And I found the coolest pattern just made for a three shade fade effect, the Flatiron Shawl, by Toni Lipsey (who seems to be EVERYWHERE these days.)\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Malabrigo Mechita Moon Trio New, Crescent, Full<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

And then, there\u2019s the indie dyers.\u00a0 After a few missteps where I seemed to have a genius for buying yarn from people who turn out to be pieces of bovine excrement,\u00a0 I\u2019m slowly finding favorites.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sundara (another from Elaine the Enabler), Hypnotic Yarn, Weird Sisters, Bashful Armadillo Fibers, Bad Sheep Yarn, Six & Seven Fibers, Destination Yarn\u2026.just typing the names makes me happy.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I\u2019m surrounded by pretty, soft, squishy yarn and planned projects, and am growing more confident that the crochet bug isn\u2019t going to up and leave me high and dry with all this.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Acquiring yarn makes me happy.\u00a0 And I\u2019m a happy fiber witch these days, because I\u2019m pretty much swimming in yarn.\u00a0 I went hunting for mini […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":227,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[8,11,12,9],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shelsdreams.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shelsdreams.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shelsdreams.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shelsdreams.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shelsdreams.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/shelsdreams.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":229,"href":"https:\/\/shelsdreams.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224\/revisions\/229"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shelsdreams.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shelsdreams.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shelsdreams.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shelsdreams.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}