Yarn Choices

When I learned to knit and crochet at 10 years old there was no where near the choices of yarns that there are today. And I was not shopping at a yarn store for yarn. Today it is a yarn explosion of companies, colors, textures and more. But one thing I never want to become is a yarn snob. Just like people in general come in all shapes, sizes and nationalities. People have different priorities, spending amounts, circumstances and responsibilities.

It's OK to just shop at a yarn store just like it is OK to just shop at a craft store. With everything that is happening today just to be able to have a de-stresser in our lives is a plus. As for me, I would not be respecting my students that can't afford to frequent a yarn shop if I only want to work with the yarns from there. And I don't have that kind of money either for the more pricier yarns. I'm thankful that I do work at a yarn shop so that I can try a variety of different yarns. But at the end of the day it is all good because there are some beautiful items that I've seen with a variety of yarns including acrylic. I also think of those preemie babies, children, special Olympics, seniors and ones battling cancer that I had the privilege of making items needed and donating them for ones to enjoy and to stay warm.

But my take is this, I love a lot of the acrylic yarns I've worked with from craft stores and my projects came out nice. But I think everyone should experience working with the yarns from a yarn shop as a special gift to yourself or a love one. The yarn shop I work at again is Knits Fabulous. You can click right on the name to go to the website. There are fabulous choices of yarns at a very nice range of prices and I love that.

I think that people feel all the yarns in a yarn shop are expensive and they are not. The yarn shop is really trying and I think doing a successful job at tilting the scale from high price and affordable price. So if you are one that feels I can't afford shopping at a yarn shop don't rule it out because it doesn't have to be a big project to taste some new flavors of yarn. There are store sales to consider as a time to treat yourself.

So if you are near the yarn shop or are itching for a road trip destination with yarn then come check us out and you won't be disappointed

I've been busy as usual with a couple of UFO's and new stuff.

One of my new items is this knitted slouch hat that I love. Especially since it uses buttons as an accent and I have lots of buttons. The hat is from the magazine: Make it! Knits. I picked it up while in Florida because I loved several items that I wanted to make. The name of the hat is Veronica Slouch. It fits great and I love that it has a different cable design to be worn on the side. And I just happen to have three great size charcoal color buttons that goes perfectly with the hat design.

The yarn I used was the Bergere Duvetine. It is a nice soft yarn but it is spun very loose, almost like roving with a thread wrapped around to hold it together. My needle kept lifting the string up so it got on my nerves after a while. I love how the hat worked up and I chose it because I do have to be careful of total wools on my head because it can cause my hair to break. This is 73% Acrylic, 19% Polyamid and 8% Polyester. Unfortunately, you have to make adjustments when your skin or hair has issues. For other items, I'm glad that a lot of the wools I can wear but need to test against my skin to see if it would be too itchy.

The second project is a knitted cowl from the same magazine. The name of the cowl is Ambrosia Cowl. I love the slip stitch design that flows diagonally and used also as a ribbing affect. The yarn I used is Land West Tweed. I loved how the color streamed and looks. It is 47% Wool, 47% acrylic and 6% Viscose.

I have one more to share. The name of this scarf pattern is Pearl-barred Scallop Scarf. It is a free pattern through Ravlery. The yarn for this one is the Baah Aspen - very soft and nice to work with. It is 75% Merrino, 15% Silk and 10% Cashmere. The pattern is a 12 row repeat but easy to do. I can see that this yarn is really going to block well.

I love opening up my world to new things. In this case working at the yarn shop has opened up my world to new yarn choices so I can work across the horizon of yarns. It has been really nice to sample these yarns.