Drooling Over KnitPicks Yarn

Oh the colors! Better than advertised! Brighter than in my photo!

Last weekend I ordered some sample quantities of yarn from Knitpicks, figuring I'd play around with the different possibilities before selecting a yarn to knit the Hanover Jacket from Jean Frost Jackets.

The plan is to have some fun knitting these into scarves, maybe even have another scarf contest.

As previously blogged, I am not going to cast on any of this luscious stuff until the sleeves are done on the Lavold sweater. Sigh. That isn't going to be an easy resolution to keep. The sleeves are at the endless, boring stage and I'm drooling over this yarn and some scarf patterns I've collected.

So I'm not allowed to knit my new skeins, but I am allowed to blog about them. Get ready. I'm going to sound like an ad.

In the bottom right is Elegance, a DK weight 70% baby alpaca, 30% silk blend in Barn Red. It's soft, it's beautiful, and it really is barn red - a deep rich red exactly the color of fresh barn paint. If I had to guess which yarn I'm going to select for the jacket, it would be this yarn in this color.

Up at the top of the picture is Merino Style, a DK weight 100% Merino Wool in Maple Leaf. I live where the red maples turn this color red in the fall. Knitpicks has pegged the color right on.

Merino Style is a little stiffer than Elegance. For that reason it may turn out to be the better choice for the jacket. It's also almost half the price of Elegance, but both yarns are so reasonable I'm not going to let that be a selection concern.

On the left is Andean Treasure, a sport weight 100% heathered baby alpaca. The color is Lagoon. My skeins are a little lighter in color than the picture in the Knitpicks catalog and a little darker than my photo looks on my monitor. Lagoon is a cool green with obvious heathery flakes of turquoise and yellow. I'm a sucker for rich, heathery yarns and this stuff is beautiful.

Knitpicks lists the Andean Treasure gauge at 6 stitches per inch and lists the Hanover Jacket as one of the recommended projects for this yarn. As lovely as this yarn is, I doubt it's suitable for a jacket intended to be knit with DK weight. Maybe I'll change my mind after knitting a swatch, but I don't think so.

On the right is one skein of Shine, a sport weight 60% pima cotton, 40% modal in Blush. Once again, the color is outstanding. It's a pastel salmon pink with a yellow base and very little blue tones.

I have no idea (yet) what I'm going to do with the Shine other than try knitting with it and see if it hurts my hands like other cotton yarns I've tried. It feels soft, so I'm hoping for a good cotton knitting experience.

If any of my readers have experience knitting with these yarns, I'd love to hear your advice in the comments.