Mail Call

Here's what came in the mail today



The hank on the left is 250 yds of cashmere from ColourMartUK, in a weight I would class as falling between sport and DK. This isn't a lot of yardage, but I'm hoping to squeak out a neckwarmer for Mr. S. I confess to mixed feelings about using cashmere after reading Kmkat's post on Dec. 18. But wool and alpaca cause the poor guy to break out in furious itching. He can't even wear wool blends, not even Merino. And, have I mentioned?, its cold here in the winter. So I'm compromising.

All the rest in the photo is the set of yarn samples I requested at the same time, and I am blown away by the fact that they are actually long enough to knit swatches! I don't know how long the hank at the lower right is, but it weighs .9 oz. There would probably be enough in the little laceweight samples at the top of the page to make a small bookmark each, although I'm not likely to spend time making floppy bookmarks.

These all come with the spinning oil still in them, as the supplier is careful to note, but the hand is not unpleasant to me. With the lace and cobweb weights I could see having the oil as being an advantage while working, because it might give alittle more weight and "heft" to the yarn.

The supplier also states that the yarns bloom noticeably after washing (though I expect not the 100% silk laceweight), and I assume the generous samples are meant to encourage potential buyers to swatch and wash. At any rate, I'm thrilled to have samples long enough to test run, instead of just little snips to show the color.

**************

In other news, I have started in on the slip stitch tutorial. I decided to give it it's very own blog, just to keep the postings together and so I can fake the dates to make it run in order from top to bottom. I'll be adding a link in the sidebar on this page, but in the meantime the first, extremely basic lesson is here.