Friday, September 14, 2007

Update: Yarn of the Month Clubs; Brush Strokes Stitch

Exhibit A: two nubby coffee cozies using sample skeins from two yarn-of-the-month clubs. The mossy green one on the left is made with 3 full samples I received from Sara Lucas' Yarn of the Month Club (for more info please see my Sept. 5 entry.) The other one is made with 3 full elann.com samples. The stitch pattern is a version of the "Granule Stitch" and the 2nd photo shows the inside.

I wanted to find out:
1) How far do these cute little samples get me, anyway? They are intended for knitted swatches. I purposely chose a crochet stitch pattern with a moderate amount of texture, which takes more yarn than Tunisian or some more basic stitches.

2) How does the yardage compare between Elann's and YOTM clubs? I chose samples with similar yarn weights and fiber content. As you can see, all samples seem to have the same yardage.

3) What can I make with these samples besides motifs for a future scrapghan, shapes for applique, or scrumbling? I discovered that while making the coffee cozies, I learned a lot about not just the yarns but also the stitch pattern as I worked it up in different kinds of yarns.

The biggest difference is that Elann's shipments of samples are color-coordinated so I didn't sift through my samples to find 3 to combine; whereas I went through all of my YOTM samples before I found 3 that I'd want to put together.

Regarding the Brush Strokes stitch pattern that I posted about on Sept. 9, here's a photo of the swatch turned into a notebook cover that I describe at the end. I get nervous adding a 4th photo to a blog entry (the Sept. 9th entry has 3); when I exceeded 3 photos in the past, Blogger got glitchy.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous5:35 AM

    Thanks Vashti! Very interesting.

    And I just loooove that you made coffee cozies. So exotic for a european like me ;).

    ReplyDelete
  2. These are adorable Vashti! I have finally caught up on your recent blog entries -- full of useful links and thought provoking comments, thank you! More coffee cozies please! Dora

    ReplyDelete

Each comment is like a pretty bead in a necklace. Please add one!