Yarn Tastings, I Am For Them
I attended a yarn tasting organized by Yarn on Front, a shop in the little town of Dowagiac and discovered I am all for yarn tastings. The idea is that a company creates small samples of the new yarns in its lineup, in this case Berroco, so that you can play with them before committing to buying a skein or a bunch of skeins for a project. Then there is a little project, in this case a kerchief. The one pictured here was one of two knitted kerchief patterns offered by the shop; Berroco supplied a different knitted kerchief pattern than the one I began and my friend’s version looked very nice using all the yarn samples. There were also crochet patterns.
I say, “I began” because I abandoned my kerchief project when I found I kept splitting Remix Chunky (the yellow on the tip) when I did an e-loop cast on to add the fringes. Instead of continuing to make myself cranky, I switched to simple swatching and realized I would probably like Remix Chunky just fine for a circular sweater. I also liked Lucca, a luxury worsted weight that was half cashmere, see the brown on the kerchief sample.
To my surprise, what I really liked was Dulce, a mostly cotton blend with nylon, alpaca and wool which turned out to be fluffy and surprisingly easy to work with. The onyx color comes across as charcoal because of the small streaks of blue and of rust running through it. I showed the swatch to my husband and ended up buying enough to finish a scarf for him. I am pretty sure I would like to get my hands on some more of this yarn and ponder a sweater.
In addition to trying out the yarns, I also learned an easy method for making e-loop cast-on, and most importantly while working with a mohair blend called Aerial Color: Do not yank on the mohair if you need to frog. My husband said that last sounded like a identification code for Cold War spies, but it meant a hopelessly snarly mess.
If your local yarn store or LYS isn’t organizing a yarn tasting, and you want to organize your own, you can have them get the kit drop-shipped to you according to the Berocco website: https://www.berroco.com/dropship/home-yarn-tasting-kit-fall-21
You can find Yarn on Front here: https://www.facebook.com/YarnOnFront/
