Dawn Brocco's Life & Design Blog

Just read Kristin's blog this morning, as I do every morning, a she's SO creative, way past me, for sure!, and ya just gotta go look at these 2 blogs about wild tea cozies, even if you don't LIKE tea cozies - they're fabulously artistic: Grand Purl Baa, Queen of the Tea Cozies and Wild For Tea Cozies. Oh, I just got that! Grand Purl Baa, as in Grand Poobah!

Hubby's gone to do the food shopping and library book return, before DD and her beau arrive. But I gotta rest my throat today - smack me if I talk too much. Actually, I won't even have to smack myself, my glands are talking loudly enough to be heard. It IS a strain on the system, with the reduced immune levels. Bah on chemo!

Another reason to love writing (as if I needed another reason!), voice not needed! But I still have another brother to phone for the holidays, but an hour on the phone will put me under for days, as all the Christmas phoning and DD visiting is doing to me, so maybe I'll just wait 'til New Year's and hopefully can handle it by then.

The capelet *seems* to be working out better this time around. One of my errors, the first time around, was not accounting for the row take-up of the slipped stitch patterning when working out the decreasing sequence. Big duh, I know.

Am undecided about the yarn substitution for the Chill Chaser Vest. I swatched 2 strands Alpaca Boucle - love the fabric, too large a gauge.

Swatched 2 strands La Gran mohair - love the fabric, too large a gauge and way too visually thick for a larger-sized garment.

Swatched 1 strand each of the La Gran and the B&L Softspun - now this I love a lot. It's a nice filed in enough fabric, and it gets gauge! But will knitters NOT MIND using 2 yarns from 2 separate companies, to knit a garment??? La Gran comes in SO many colors, it should be easy enough to either match the Softspun wool's colors or coordinate with them.

Then there's the 2 strands of the Softspun, which gets gauge, but I'm not sure about the fabric density. Have to go pull out the original sample, knit in the Bear Creek and compare the fabrics. And I still have to swatch the Country roving, when it comes in, but it IS more rustic that I think many knitters would prefer, not as much as Lopi would be - which I also swatched double - too large a gauge - but still not as soft as many prefer.

The Softspun *says* 240 yards/4 oz, but I'm not so sure. I measured the hank's circumference - 5' - and the # of strands in the hank and it comes up near their Heritage yarn about 215 or so yards/4 oz, which is further supported by the 4.5 sts/1" gauge it wants to knit at.

NOW, I've only measured 1 hank, so don't hold me to this info, as yet - it could be an anomaly - so I'll be counting more hanks, to make sure, when they come in. Personally, I prefer the thicker yarn, but, as I've found with another small millspun yarn, the labeling of yardage really should be as accurate as possible, or it will mislead knitters, especially newer knitters who may not be able to just look at a yarn and know the yardage and gauge it will get, like experienced knitters can do.

I think that's it for now. Gotta go dress and put on a face!

Labels: Alpaca Boucle, Briggs and Little Softspun, capelet, Heritage, La Gran, Lopi, tea cozies