The Decorator Crab

For the love of swatching

When my yarn arrived last week, I was decidedly nonplussed.  The colors were....meh.  The texture was...meh.  The Babette square that I made as a swatch was wonky, and I kept on having problems with splitting between the plies.  I began to worry.  Had I been in such a rush to start this project that I bought yarn that wasn't suited for it?  Had I wasted my yarn budget on crap? 

To be honest, my fear was that my motivation to save a few dollars had backfired, and that I would end up having to order "better" yarn anyway, while not being able to return the yarn that I had bought on sale.  I worried that I had been cheap to a fault.  I decided that what I really needed to do was make a decent double-crochet swatch with the yarn, as well as swatches with a few others.  I ran to some local shops to buy different brands and types of yarn, both less and more expensive than the Jaeger Matchmaker. 

I swatched with Brown Sheep's Lamb's Pride Worsted, Heirloom Easy Care 8-Ply, Louisa Harding Kashmir Aran, and RYC Cashsoft Baby DK. The Lamb's Pride, Easy Care, and Kashmir were chosen because they had a different texture or build than the Matchmaker. The Lamb's Pride (LP) is single-ply (which I love working with for it's simplicity and texture), but it's not superwash (machine washable). For that reason alone I knew that I wouldn't make the blanket out of LP, but I wanted to swatch with it anyway (I'm the boss of me, dammit!). The Easy Care (EC) has a weird (in a good way) "cable spin" that produces its interesting texture, and also makes the plies all nice and stuck-together-like. After my troubles with the Matchmaker, I wanted to try yarns that didn't split as easily. Enter the EC.  I bought the Kashmir for its chain construction, which I also figured would be easier to work with than splitty plies.  It also has cashmere in it, and is super soft and squishy. The Kashmir also fell into the "more expensive" category that I wanted to delve into a little bit.  Also in that category is the Cashsoft, a wonderfully soft yarn with some beautiful colors available.

Here is the lot of the yarn, plus my swatches:

I swatched with one hook size (5mm) for the Lamb's Pride (orange) and Kashmir (green), but used two hook sizes (4 & 5mm) for the Cashsoft (beige), Easy Care (yellow), and Matchmaker (cream). I haven't swatched with the Emu (dark brown) because it just arrived from England today. 

So, what did I think of the yarn selection?  Wow - it was quite a learning experience.  My feeling that the single-ply, chained, and cable-plied yarns would be easy to work with was justified.  They sailed through the hook(s) very easily, except the Lamb's Pride, which kind of got hung up on my wedding rings a little. The Kashmir and Cashsoft both had that cashmere softness that is so tempting. The Easy Care was easy indeed, but the swatch was not as soft as I had hoped, and I also didn't like the texture of the swatch as much as I thought that I would.

Finally, the Matchmaker swatch was...wonderful!!  It turns out that swatching with a Babette square was just a bad idea, and I should have done a double-chain swatch in the first place.  I didn't have trouble with splitting, and the yarn was fine to work with.  Now that the balls have been out of the box and sitting on my craft table for a few days, they have fluffed up and the colors have grown on me.  I will definitely be replacing a few skeins (bluer blues, better light browns and a green), but I am very pleased with the selection as a whole.  The yarn is softer than I had thought at first, and I don't think that it would be worth spending the extra green on an entirely Kashmir or Cashsoft blanket.  I still can't decide if I like the look and feel of the 4mm or 5mm part of the swatch better, but there is time to figure that out later.

I am beyond stoked that my initial impressions of the yarn were wrong, and can not wait to begin crocheting the 100+ hexagons for the blanket.  I'm still waiting (not so patiently now!) for the book with the pattern, and for a few more balls of yarn, to arrive. 

BTW - individual photos of the balls can be found at my Flickr page or my Ravelry Stash page (if you're a beta member).  Photos of the swatches (in all of their unblocked glory) can be found on Flickr.

Choose Your Weapon

Since no one wants to see the same piece of crocheted bag binding over and over as it gets longer and longer, today I talk about crochet hooks.  I am a total newb to crochet, but I've already tried out a few kinds of hooks to see what works best for me.  Surprisingly, I have actually found that I much prefer certain hooks over others.  Here are what I've tried:

From L to R: Susan Bates Quicksilver Aluminum, Susan Bates Crystalites, Addi Color Coded, and Clover Soft Touch. They are posed from my favorite (Quicksilver!) to my least favorite.

I bought the Soft Touch and Addi hooks thinking that the handles would be more comfortable, and that the smaller heads would be easier to get into loops and stitches. Experience proved me wrong on both counts! I found that the Soft Touch was just too bulky, even for my lanky man hands.  The Addi hook was comfortable enough to use, but without a flat edge anywhere, I found that I had to re-adjust my finger position on the handle more often. Though the heads are smaller, and seemingly better suited to slipping in between stitches, I found that the roundedness actually made these hooks more difficult to insert into my crochet. They would sort of slip off the stitch instead of diving into it. That was a real surprise.  Kudos to Addi for the color coding - I am totally down with that kind of organization - but I did not love the need hook as I whole.  (I keep typing "needle" instead of "hook"!  Dang the knitter in me!)  These two needles, the Addi and the Clover, are not what are called "inline" hooks (see here), like the two on the left. Maybe I am an "inline" gal? 

I found that the two Susan Bates hooks were the easiest and most comfortable to use.  I started with the plastic one, but moved to the aluminum hook pretty quickly.  I like having a little more heft in my hand, and I find that the Quicksilver finish is nice and slippery, but not too slippery.  I guess I should have started with the SBQ, since they are actually among my favorite needles for knitting. The knitting needles are nice and pointy, and again, I like the finish on them. I also like the flat, contoured thingamajig for my thumb - it is a really comfortable, smart design. 

So, in summary:

What kind of hooks are your favorite?  Do you actually care? 

Next time, photos of actual crafts.

A bit of diversion...

I don't have anything to show for the weekend (too much wine, not enough crochet), so go take a look at my next crochet project...  LINKY.  Trust me - go look - it's totally worth it.  I'll wait. ...  Wish I could post the photo directly, but it's not mine to post.

The pattern is from a Japanese crochet book, which I just ordered from Japan.  That's my level of commitment to the project.  I am totally smitten!  In the mean time, I am hoping that I can learn to read crochet charts - it must be easier than learning to read Japanese...

Back in the saddle

Okay, so it took me a couple of weeks to get my shit together and get online.  Sorry 'bout that.  We are working on the house so that we can list it for sale, and I'm trying to tie up some loose projects at my (second) job before we move to Oregon.  So, I've been super busy.

Photos from the cruise can be found here, and photos of Socks that Rock at Sea can be found here.  Enjoy! 

My days on the cruise were quite busy, and night-time hours were spent either working up data, flopping out and watching movies, or very rarely, knitting.  I was usually so tired by the end of the day that sitting idle on the couch was about all I could handle.  Not surprisingly, I didn't get as much knitting done as I had hoped. I finished another Short Row Hat (still not blocked, FO post will be forthcoming), and one complete four-miter block with my new yarn. Observe.

There was another reason that I didn't get more knitting done on the miters.  I am secretly disappointed with the blocks. Still.  The pattern isn't doing the yarn justice.  The yarn is beautiful and soft and drapey, and the miters are crap.  Total crap. My eye for color needs more development, but even I can see that the stripes blend together and that the amazing colors aren't popping.  I need more contrast, maybe?

I am broken-hearted about it, and I don't know how to proceed.  Maybe a random log cabin with a few more colors of STR?  Maybe I should dump the Carbon Dating colorway and stick to the semi-solids only? *sniff*  What I should do is cry uncle and call Tina at Blue Moon to ask for advice on colorways that I can add to the bunch.  Any words of advice from the peanut gallery?  Time for lurkers to sing out in the comments!  Please!

In other news, I started an entrelac scarf.  I've enjoyed the Short Row Hat so much that I figured it was time to see how entrelac compares as a technique to create blocks of color. Inspired by this post on Craftster, I got a couple balls of Patons Soy Wool Stripes at JoAnn and got started. I've been wanting to try SWS for a while, so this scarf was a good excuse to go for it.

I don't find entrelac any more or less difficult than the short row technique that Veronik Avery came up with, but picking up stitches is kind of a pain.  Not really, I guess, but it does slow me down. I need to figure out how to do reverse knitting, and then the entrelac would probably gain an edge over short rows.  It's been a fun project so far, but I am starting to submit to the urge to revisit...crochet!

I've been hankering for a bit of the hook since I saw these coasters over on Streets and Yos.  And then, of course, Ripple, Babette, and the Larger than Life Bag. The bag put me over the edge because I knew that I could never finish one of the afghans while working on my STR  blanket, and I could always use another tote bag. I also really like the block pattern. I stopped by my LYS and they had both issues of Interweave Crochet that I was looking for (Spring 2006, Summer 2007).  Score!  So, I've been reacquainting myself with the hook over the last couple of nights, and will have something to show for it soon.

In the mean time, brainstorm some ideas for the STR - what should I do with it?!