Tag Archive | lace shawls

Review: Boca Chica yarn

A while back, you all helped me choose a pattern for some new yarn. That yarn, which is a brand new base called Boca Chica from A Good Yarn Sarasota, was for a review, and I’m happy to report the shawl is done and blocked!

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This is a fingering weight merino wool dyed in gorgeous, bright colors, both solids and variegated. Boca Chica Key is an island in the lower Florida Keys, and the colors are all named for things found in the Florida Keys. I had to pick the hot pink, Duval Street, and the pink/gray variegated, Rainbow Reef, and I was impressed when my package arrived. Not only was the yarn beautiful, but it arrived with extra goodies! The gauge/ruler tool is a thick, sturdy plastic and has come in very handy already, and the bag lives in my car for those unexpected shopping trips.

After much pondering and discussion, I chose the Delphia shawl pattern and I think it was a great choice for these skeins. The pinks matched up perfectly, so the shifts from one colorway to the next were subtle. The first thing I noticed as I was knitting was how lightweight and airy the yarn is. I’m pretty sure that’s thanks to the fact that it’s a chainette yarn. With chain construction, the fibers have already been “knit” into a tube, which leaves air between the fibers and provides a lot of drape and breathability. Even after using almost both full skeins, the finished shawl is light and comfortable for spring and summer evenings.

This was a really fast and fun project for me. I liked the chain texture of the yarn, though I found it to split easily. I was using my Addi Turbo Lace needles with a pointy metal tip, so maybe that split the fibers more than another type of needle would. It didn’t affect my experience too much; it just meant I couldn’t do the lace portion without looking. And I LOVED the colors. They do recommend prewashing high-contrast colors, and I would agree with that. The water after my shawl’s bath was really pink, but I didn’t notice any fading or bleeding with the finished shawl. The gray was still perfectly gray.

The skeins are generous, with 480 yards per 4 oz, and retail for around $28 on their website. Even though it is superwash merino, they recommend hand wash/dry flat for best results, which is what I did. It blocked out wonderfully, with the lace opening up nicely and the picot edge all pointy and defined. Overall, I think this is a great yarn for spring and summer pieces. You can find it here: http://bit.ly/AGYbocachica

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Thank you to Stitchcraft Marketing and A Good Yarns Sarasota, who generously sent me two skeins of Boca Chica (retail value $56) for free. I received no other compensation for this review. All opinions and photos are my own.

Almost Done

Apr23

This morning I had some waiting room knitting time, and I took my Delphia shawl with me, hoping to get through a few rows. I did better than that, though: I’m ready to bind off!! Now the question becomes: is a picot bind off really worth the time and effort? I mean, I’ve got over 365 stitches here.

With any luck, I can get through the bind off tonight and start weaving in ends. How long does a picot bind off really take, right? I’m ready to be done, yes, but I also have my next shawl project planned and I want to use these needles!

I’m doing another test knit and needed over 500 yards of fingering weight yarn. I was worried at first since all of my fingering skeins are 3 oz and between 400 and 450 yards. Then I found these two skeins of Araucania Huasco that have been in my stash for over three years, and I think they’ll be perfect. I just need my shawl needles now!

Delphia Progress

Apr19

As I said yesterday, I have been getting a bit of knitting in here and there this week. The weirdest thing is that I’ve been a monogamous knitter. I’m not sure that’s ever happened in my knitting life. But I’ve just been merrily going along on my Boca Chica Delphia shawl, enjoying the mindless garter stitch with a few stockinette rows thrown in for fun, and what do you know? It’s grown a lot!

fullsizeoutput_2097 I’m loving this pattern, and the colors of the yarn. I’m also really glad I didn’t try to use these yarns for Straight and Arrow because it definitely wouldn’t have been enough contrast to do it justice. The color changes are super subtle.

fullsizeoutput_2098 See those stockinette rows? Those are the ones with Color B (aka the solid pink). They don’t stand out as much as I anticipated, but it’s fine. I’m starting the big lace section now, which means this won’t be my mindless knitting anymore. Pretty sure that means I need to cast on some new vanilla socks today!

New Shawl

Apr13

Thanks for all the feedback on my next shawl choice! I really do love both patterns so it was hard to choose, but I finally decided Delphia was the better pattern for this particular set of skeins. As I was winding the gray/pink skein, there was more pink in it than I originally realized, and I want more contrast when I knit Straight and Arrow. I’m almost through the first big garter stitch section.

fullsizeoutput_208a Soon I’ll start striping in some of the solid pink, and then eventually I’ll get to the big pink lace section. I’m loving the colors in this yarn! (Which is Boca Chica by A Good Yarn, a brand new yarn!) I’m also loving the comfort knitting of squishy garter stitch.

But fans of Straight and Arrow, do not fret, for I have also picked out the yarn I want to use for that pattern, and it was even from stash!

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The only problem with spring knitting is that all I want to make are shawls and lightweight sweaters, and those are bigger projects that take more commitment. I guess that’s what socks are good for, right?

Help me choose!

Apr10

My new review yarn came this week and I’m finally excited about casting on a new project! This is called Boca Chica from A Good Yarn, a yarn store in Sarasota, and I’ve got a super bright pink and a gray/pink variegated. Plus they included a couple of goodies!

Originally I’d planned to knit Delphia, a crescent shaped shawl with a big lace section. But then I remembered Straight and Arrow, which has some really fun striping and chevrons.

Delphia, on the left, is a lot of garter stitch and uses less yarn, so it would be a faster project and I’d have enough yarn left for a second, smaller project. But Straight and Arrow would put every yard to good use, and it’s a slip-stitch pattern so it wouldn’t be that much slower to knit. Help me pick!

WIP Epiphany

Feb23

I was finishing up the toe of my Granola sock this morning, just some easy knitting that let my mind wander, and it wandered to the Mermaid Shawl that I started almost six months ago and then ignored. I thought about how I’d planned to order the colors, and I thought about the book that inspired it and how the book made me feel, and suddenly I figured it out: I was doing it wrong! I had my colors backwards!

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I’m doing an enormous half-circle shawl called River of Time, and I originally decided to have the lightest color on the outer edge, like seafoam on a beach, and progress into the deepest part of the ocean. But that was wrong, and I think that’s why I got stuck on the third row.

The book is about the main character, Kathleen, accepting her deep love of the sea, accepting that it’s her destiny. It’s about her being in love with the water and desperately wanting to be down in the blue-purple depths. And the way the author wrote that longing was so clear and powerful, I could see the colors as Kathleen went deeper. I could feel the chill and taste the salt. And that’s why I wanted to knit this shawl. It’s about embracing your fate, your desires, and diving into that ocean. The shawl needs to emphasize the depth, not the surface.

So this morning I frogged what I had, which wasn’t much, and cast on anew with the darkest color, the Dream in Color in Galaxy, and it feels right. It starts out with 426 stitches so it’s slow going, but I’m loving it.

If you’re interested, the book is The Mermaid’s Daughter by Ann Claycomb and it’s easily in my top ten all-time favorite books, if not top five!

FO: Rainbow Wave Shawl

Feb10

As I’d hoped, I finished another WIP yesterday, my Rainbow Wave. I only had about six rows left but each one had increases and they felt like really long rows! But it’s done and washed and blocked and everything!

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The yarn is Manos del Uruguay Alegria in Locura Fluo and I absolutely adore it and wish I had ten more skeins. I mean, these colors! I am swooning, and I don’t think it’s just because I’m so tired of all the dreary gray around me. No, this is just a swoon-worthy color. Another blogger made a sweater for her young daughter out of this yarn; I think I need one too! (Don’t worry, I wouldn’t wear the shawl with the sweater!)

This was an easy, relaxing knit and I blocked it into an easily wearable crescent shape. The pattern shows it more triangular, but when I laid the wet shawl out, it just seemed to want to be a crescent, so that’s fine. I’m not one to argue with my shawls.

This takes me down to only FOUR WIPs, guys! One is a sweater, one is a big shawl, and the other two are one-skein projects. Now I’m torn between pushing forward on completing WIPs, or casting on something new. I know I need to cast on a new sock because I have to have at least one sock on my needles. But I’m really tempted to cast on a cowl with my new Woolfolk LUFT today, since it’s slick and gray and wet outside, and a warm cozy cowl project sounds perfect. What do you think, cast on or finish more?

Knitting in the new year

Jan3

When I sat down to think about my knitting for the new year, I had two options. 1: I could focus on my five current WIPs, which include one review project with a deadline. Or 2: I could cast on new project(s)! I really thought I was going to focus on the current ones, that adding more to the mix would just be overwhelming. But then I was sitting in my craft room and I started playing with my pretty yarn and before I knew it, I was winding four skeins of yarn. By the end of the day on January 1st, I had three new projects on my needles. (The fourth is a paid pattern so I’m waiting until payday to start that one.)

First up is a basic ribbed beanie which will get a beautiful furry purple pompom. But I’ve got nine inches of ribbing to knit, so this will be a good carry-around project. Yarn is Jasper from Primrose Yarn Co. in the color Mischief Managed, and the pattern is Standing Rock Hat.

Then I had to cast on a sock with my amazing 80s yarn from Show Me Yarn, called Hit Me With Your Best Shot. OMG I love this so much, and I love that the stripes are different widths and that they change so often. This is crazy addictive. I kind of made up a pattern, with a 1×1 ribbed cuff and a 3×1 ribbed leg.

Finally, this is my favorite of the three, even as much as I love the new sock. This yarn is Manos del Uruguay Alegria (I told you I love their yarn) and the color is Locura Fluo. It is STUNNING. I chose a lacy shawl pattern called Wave and it’s also very addictive. It alternates between lace and garter stripes so it hasn’t gotten boring yet.

Now, it will be interesting to see if/when I can make myself go back to my old WIPs! Who else has cast on new projects already?

Delicious Yarns Review: Yum!

Oct23

A couple of months ago, I was offered the opportunity to review Delicious Yarns‘ newest offering, their pairings of two complementary colors. I was going to skip this one, since I had so much going on, but of course I had to take a peek at the yarn. Oops! That first glimpse of the pink and orange sealed the deal: I needed to knit those yarns!

The first impression was charming, with that cute ribbon around the skeins and the tags like nutrition labels. Then I was impressed by how vivid and saturated the colors are; they’re gorgeous. I chose Pairing 1, and while the site doesn’t specify which colors are in each pairing, these colors are Raspberry Swirl and Burnt Orange Frosting. I also received the pattern for the Piece of Cake shawl, designed specifically for these pairings. I love the jagged teeth and that lace section the best!

The pairings are available in Fingering, Sport, and Worsted. I chose the fingering since I’m all about shawls these days. The colors make this a perfect fit for my wardrobe. The yarn is crisp and smooth, making it a pleasant knitting experience and giving good stitch definition too. It has a little bit of spring to it, so the drape is a bit more firm, if that makes sense.

The yarn is 100% superwash merino, hand-dyed in California, and each color is designed to create different patterning when knitted or crocheted. I especially liked watching the Raspberry Swirl shift from dark pink to light pink to white and back again. There are short sections where you work two rows of each color to blend the colors. That plus the short row sections make for a nifty effect when you stand back and look at it, almost wavy. It makes me think of candy, for sure!

I only have two small caveats. One: as the tag warns they might, the yarns definitely bled when I blocked the shawl. They recommend steam blocking if you’re concerned about bleeding but I wanted to open the lace aggressively. Fortunately it didn’t seem to affect the white tones, but I’ll handle it carefully in the future. And two: the pattern had a couple of small errors. I was able to work past them pretty easily, but they did make me stop and think and scratch my head for a little bit. Still, I liked the yarn well enough that next I’d love to try their Speckles Chunky!

The colors were absolutely the best thing about this project for me, and they have so many other delicious colors on their website too. Plus I can’t help but be enchanted with the “delicious” theme and the idea that each skein is one marvelous sweet treat! The fingering runs around $31 for 450 yards, making this comparable to many of the other high-end, small-dyer yarns I buy, and the high quality is comparable too. I really enjoyed knitting with this yarn!

If you’re tempted to partake, you can use the code DYBK2018 for 10% off all online orders through the end of November. And if you sign up for their newsletter here, you’ll get two free patterns plus a “sweet surprise” within a few weeks of signing up.

A very special thank you to Stitchcraft Marketing and Delicious Yarns, who generously sent me 1 pairing (2 skeins) of Superwash Merino ($61) for free. I received no other compensation for this review. All opinions and photos are my own.

Travel Knitting

Oct9

I understand now why knitters always pack so many more projects than they think they’ll need. The unthinkable happened when I was visiting the girl last week: I was at risk of running out of knitting! *gasp* How did I let that happen, you ask? Well, you see, I finished a second sock on the plane there and cast on another sock the next day, but I had a lot of knitting time so that sock got done by mid-Monday.

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Mostly it’s the fault of the mermaid shawl: I hadn’t realized I was so close to needing the second color, and hadn’t brought it, so I was only able to do two rows on that shawl, which is what I’d planned on knitting when I was hanging out in the dorm by myself. That left one project, my Hogwarts cowl, and I confess I didn’t even finish it. I’m actually a little stuck on it because it’s getting so tall. I was basing it on this pattern which is also a tall skinny cowl and it’s coming out like it should, I think, but I’m not convinced I’ll enjoy wearing it. I’m half tempted to frog and make a wider, shorter cowl. Thoughts?

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But we made a stop at the Longmont Yarn Shoppe on Sunday and I bought a beautiful little skein of Baah! super bulky Sequoia and had to knit that up right away. (See my two-hour cowl.) And after knitting with super bulky, I wanted more, not my fingering weight Hogwarts cowl. So yeah, I made another detour to Joann and used a coupon to buy a $3 skein of super bulky for a quick gray cowl that I left for the girl. It must be getting cold if I’m itching to knit all the bulky yarns! Still, when I got home and cast on a new project (because of course I did), it’s a sport weight, not bulky.

This is my new Manos del Uruguay Feliz and I’m loving it so far. The pattern is Late Harvest and I’m excited to get to the lace section. I’ve also made good progress on my boy socks, once I had him try them on and I measured his foot. The first one is *thisclose* to being done, and the second one should go a lot faster.

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But I swear, the bulky knitting will be happening soon!