New samples

The Elann mini-skeins for June showed up in Thursday's mail, so I sat right down and swatched up all but one of them.

The yarns (and you can see all the available colors here) are:

Filatura di Crosa Porto Cervo Spray, 100% cotton, recommended 5.0-5.5 mm/US 8-9 needles. This is a nice cotton yarn. Not too exciting to work with--knitting with 100% cotton always feels like knitting with kitchen string to me--but it's a nice yarn and easy to work with. A bit heavy for hot summer, I think, but fine for temps in the 80s. Not a great color range available, but I kind of like Water Lilies and Lilac Blossom. I did my swatch on 6s, as usual, and the fabric seems fine to me--in fact, I got exactly the stitch gauge suggested, 4 st to the inch (they measure over 4" but my swatch is only 10 stitches across plus the edges). I wouldn't call it a chunky weight! (and for what it's worth, the original picture is right-side up--I don't know why it decided to flip sideways when uploaded to the blog!)

Needful Yarns Filtes King Darling, 50% cotton 50% acrylic, recommended 4.0 mm/US 6 needles. This is another nice yarn--in fact, given that a 10-ball bag is under $20--about 1500m/1640 yards, enough for a shell or a t-shirt in some sizes--it's better than nice! I used 6s--for a change, the actual needle size recommended--and got roughly the correct gauge, which produced a lightweight fabric that would be comfortable to wear when the temps get into the 90s and so does the humidity. The sample is a rather dismal camouflage colorway, but there's a nice selection of summery colors, from energetic (Firefly) to soothing (Cornfield). (The same sideways weirdness happened when uploading this picture.)

Stacy Charles Collezione Muse, 65% viscose rayon 25% cotton 10% nylon, recommended 4.0mm/US 6 needles. I like the colors available in this yarn, and it knits up into a nice lightweight summery fabric in vivid summery colors, but it's scratchy! It's one of those bumpy little boucles, and I think it would drive me nuts to wear it. Unless it gets softer after being washed, which is possible--I don't wash these swatches after I knit them up. Note that the color reproductions on the Elann site are a bit washed out--I'm pretty sure my sample colorway is Honeysuckle, and the colors are much stronger and more vibrant than what either the print version or my monitor show me. This picture is fairly close.

Elann.com Limited Edition Mercurio, 70% linen 30% cotton, recommended 3.0-3.25mm/US 2-3 needles AND elann.com Limited Edition Linen Twist, 86% linen 14% cotton, recommended 2.5-3.0mm/US 1-2 needles. I lump these together because I only swatched the Mercurio. Why, you ask? Because I hated the yarns! I was terribly disappointed, because I love linen clothing and have been wanting to make a summer top with a linen/cotton blend yarn. But I had several problems with Mercurio. In the first place, it's made up of many tiny threads, none of which have gotten the message that they're to act as a single unit. As you can see at the top, the cast-on end isn't even pretending to be yarn; it's all dissolved into individual threads. You have to pay attention and use rounded tips with this yarn so you don't accidently pick up threads from neighboring stitches. In the 2nd place, it twisted and kinked something awful during the knitting-up process and I had to stop every few stitches and let it untwist. Third, both these linen yarns seem to be treated with something that makes them feel like dental floss, which I found very unpleasant to handle, and which resulted in a very stiff fabric even on US4 needles. I'm considering throwing this swatch into the next load of laundry I do to see if it becomes any friendlier after washing. Lastly, it's so crisp and sharp that any mistake you make or any unevenness in your work just pops out at you. At any rate, I was unhappy enough with the whole knitting experience with Mercurio that I just couldn't face wrestling around with Linen Twist, so it's still in its little skein.

That's it for this batch!

For my Sister!

I'm really behind in posting the swatches I've knit using the samples I receive every month from Elann, and my sister asked me to put them up, so here's for you, Dear Sister! Now, if I can just remember which is which...


I remember now why I haven't put these up before--they're terrible pictures that don't give you a sense of the yarn at all! and everything looks far too blue and washed out at the same time. My apologies.


I think I did all these swatches on either US 5s or US 6s, no matter what needle size was recommended--and you know what, it really didn't seem to make much difference! Maybe Elizabeth Zimmerman was right--your fingers know how the yarn should feel.

Well, for starters, I seem to have lost the flier that went with the May samples, so I can't give all the information. The note I have on this first picture says "Shire Silk," and it's a bumpy, textury, rustic yarn with a crisp crunchy feel. I imagine it would make a cool (as in air-conditioned) sleeveless top. Not my color, but I like the yarn.




This next one is marked "AV Nicole," and I'm pretty sure the AV stands for Adrienne Vittadini. It can be seen here It's another textury yarn, not as heavy as Shire Silk, with a little bit of a thick-and-thin to it (you can see the background through the swatch). I don't much care for the color, and I wouldn't want to wear it against my skin, but the sample jacket looks good at Elann.





This third one is AV Celia, and I love it. It's 100% silk ribbon with a high sheen that you absolutely can't see at all in this picture, luscious to knit up and I'm sure equally luscious to wear. My guess is that it would have fantastic drape.





This yarn is Needful Yarns Amazon, cotton and bamboo, very soft and smooth, almost slick, and cool to the touch, and sheer murder to work with! It's made up of dozens of little strings loosely spun, so it wants to come apart with every stitch, and heaven help you if you have to make a correction. I wouldn't want to try to do anything but the very simplest stitches with it--ribbing, garter, stocking stitch. Elann says it's aran weight, 18 st to 4 inches on US 8s; I knit this swatch using 5s, and don't find it to be too firm.

Ah, this is one of my favorites. It's Rowan Cashcotton 4-ply, a blend of cotton, angora, cashmere, and nylon. When I read about it I was dubious about the idea of adding angora and cashmere to cotton, but it makes a soft, soft yarn with the slightest bit of halo, and I suspect once you put on something made from it, you'd never want to take it off. It's sheer pleasure to knit with, too. One could spend many happy happy hours knitting with this yarn. Fingering weight (US 3).

This is the equally delicious big sister, Cashcotton DK (US 6). A bit sturdier--say the cardigan to the lacey 4-ply camisole.

This is 100% cotton, Gedifra Frisetto (worsted weight, US 7-8). Sort of ho-hum after the Cashcotton siblings, but nice enough, and a good color range. It doesn't strike me as a worsted weight; more of a sport or dk.

The poor color reproduction from my camera is particularly woeful here, as this is an interesting yarn. Needful Yarns Geranium, 50% linen, the rest acrylic and rayon. Elann gives it as "polar weight," US 10-1/2s. It's another of those bumpy, textury yarns and comes in some very nice color mixes. I'm pretty sure I didn't use 10-1/2s on this yarn, and as I look at the actual swatch, it looks like it knit up with all the thick bits on one side and all the thin bits on the other--like color pooling, only with yarn size. You can see it in the picture--thick on the left, thin on the right. How odd. It's another yarn with a bit of a sheen, and I think it might be just a touch itchy, but I can see it as a slightly oversized boatneck top, very simple, to play up the texture and colors.

This is Queensland Collection Hyacinth, and while it's not a thrilling yarn like Celia or the Cashcottons, it's a good yarn. It's cotton with just a touch of rayon, just a hint of texture, very soft, very well-behaved when knitting up. It's a dk weight, and I'd be happy to make a summer t-shirt from it. (It's a much darker blue in person.)

This is Queensland Collection Soft Wave, and it's very similar to its sister yarn, Hyacinth, with the same touch of texture, except that it's 100% cotton. Sport weight (US 6). It's a very self-possessed yarn, very nice to work with, and the actual color is much more plum and much less purple and I like it very much. I think it would make a great long, lean cardigan with patch pockets.

This is Filatura di Crosa Millefill Fine, 100% mercerized Egyptian cotton, dk weight. Lots of colors, very shiny, and undoubtedly good for lace and/or cables.

Finally, there's Elsebeth Lavold Cotton Patine--100% cotton, but incredibly soft, almost as soft as the Cashcottons, and eager to drape--a lovely, lovely yarn. DK weight, US 7s. It doesn't look like Elann has it any more, but it might be worth searching out.

So there you are. Again, I apologize for the very poor photographs. I'll try to do better next time.