Bamboo Bloom yarn makes knit cowl unique to you

First, I've got to say that I love how these photos turned out. I finally managed to catch the sheen of the bamboo rayon in Bamboo Bloom yarn. It doesn't hurt that the texture of this yarn really shows as well.

Today, I'll explain how I make a very randomly textured fabric by using a bit of number fun...NO MATH really...well, I lie, 1 addition equation, but then it's just patterning after that.

Bamboo Bloom Cowl

Top view of cowl with textured knit and purl stitches

My Centennial Cowl

I call this a centennial cowl because it's based on my birth year, 1967, Canada's centennial year. The fun part of this cowl pattern is that it's based on a pattern sequence determined by the birth year of the knitter or the recipient of the cowl.

My birthday is August 10, 1967. For this pattern, I need to use all the numbers of my birth date: 08-10-1967. If you have zeroes in your date, you'll need to ignore them, as did I, so my new number sequence is:  8-1-1-9-6-7. This number sequence is used for two types of pattern and stitch repeats.

To knit this cowl out of Bamboo Bloom thick-n-thin yarn, simply cast on about 100 stitches on size 6mm or 6.5mm needles. You can cast on more or fewer stitches, but you just want to make sure that the number of stitches you cast on IS NOT a multiple of the sum of your birth date numbers.

For example: 8+1+1+9+6+7 = 32, so I would NOT want to cast on 96 or 128 sts, because those two numbers are multiples of 32. With 100 sts, I'm guaranteed that my stitch pattern will be fairly random every round.

So back to your pattern. Cast on your desired number of stitches and join in the round, making sure you don't have a twist in your cast-on stitches.

The first way that the number sequence applies to your knitting is on the rounds I knit for the cowl. In my case, I would knit 8 rounds where the first stitch of the stitch sequence is always a knit, then 1 round, where the first stitch of the sequence is a purl, then 1 row as a knit, then 9 rows as a purl, then 6 rows as a knit and 7 rows as a purl.

The second way that the number sequence applies to the pattern is the combination of knit and purl stitches. In my cowl my first row was: *k8, p1, k1, p9, k6, p7; rep from * around. Because I don't have a multiple of 32, when I get to the end of the round, I'll be somewhere in the middle of the sequence. That's fine, I don't interrupt the sequence, I simply mark the join with a stitch marker and finish the sequence till I've done the p7.

Then I begin the sequence again with k8 p1, etc. I do this for a total of 8 times. Then the next time I start a sequence past the beginning of round stitch marker, I begin the sequence with purl: *p8, k1, p1, k9, p6, k7; rep from * around. But I do this just once, because according to my row sequence, I now need to work another row that begins with a knit stitch. And so on.

This semi-random sequence of numbers eventually creates an evenly distributed series of ridges and valleys in garter, stockinette, and reverse stockinette stitches.

Close-up of random stitches in cowl

I'm not into numerology or anything like that, but I do think it's a fun way to personalize a knitted gift for a friend, just by knitting a little meaningful code that represents them right into the fabric. Bamboo Bloom is a great yarn for this type of project as it's not scratchy, but it's warm enough for those in between seasons.

One hank makes a cowl that's between 23½ʺ to 27½ʺ [60 to 70cm] around and 4½ʺ to 6" [12 to 15cm] wide, so two hanks would make a nice substantial cowl or an infinity scarf.

Bamboo Bloom yarn

How to avoid pooling in knit fabric

Avoiding pooling textures with thick and thin yarn

In this swatch I've knit up, you can see that there are no instances of row upon row of the thicker tufts stacking on top of each other directly or slightly an angle, which would cause a bias in the fabric. Instead, it's a fairly even distribution of thick rows and thin. There are 2 strategies I used to achieve this.

First, whenever a thicker segment of yarn worked its way up into my feeding hand (it's my right because I'm a thrower, aka English style knitter), I changed my stitching. I worked: [K1, sl 1 purlwise with yarn in back] across the next few stitches until I was back to knitting with the thin yarn. Then on the return row, I knit across and only purled the stitches I had slipped on the previous row.

The second strategy was to use garter stitch throughout, except for when I worked the slipped stitches I just explained.

Slipped stitches with thick yarn in back of work.

Reverse side of slipped stitches.

As you can see in these 2 photos, the slipped stitches interrupt the puffy bits on the one side of the fabric and enhance the bumps on the opposite side. You have to be flexible and work these slipped stitches only when necessary and perhaps on either side of the fabric, making a truly reversible fabric.

Rough edges with thick and thin yarn

Not everyone will be enamored with the edges that can result from knitting with thick and thin yarn, because, short of cutting the yarn, there's really no way to avoid the placement of the puffs at the edges. There is a quick fix for this though, which doesn't completely do away with the bumps, but does train them and calm them down.

Crocheted edge

To lessen the uneven edges of knitting with thick and thin, you can simply use a crochet hook that matches the weight of the thinner sections of the yarn and using a long segment of the thin segment, crochet a simple single-crochet stitch edge, like that pictured above.

Tomorrow, in the final post about knitting with Bamboo Bloom yarn, we'll look at a cowl pattern that will be completely unique, and a simple way to create a fun, textured accessory.

3 reasons to use larger needles with thick and thin yarn

Thick-n-thin Bamboo Bloom yarn

As we saw in the last post, knitting thick and thin yarn with smaller needles has certain advantages, and also results in a certain look in the knit fabric. On the other hand, knitting thick and thin yarn with larger needles will yield different results.

The first advantage to knitting with larger needles is actually a matter of practicality. When knitting on finer needle sizes and encountering a thick, puffy section of yarn, you'll immediately find it's a bit of a struggle to draw the yarn through the stitches on the needle. It's easy to split the puffs and to lose the smaller stitches. So by knitting with bigger needles, you'll have larger loops on the needles of the finer segments of the yarn as well, which will allow easy passage of the puffy parts.

Right side stockinette on size 6.5mm needles

A second advantage to knitting thick and thin yarn with larger needles is the strain on your hands. Fighting with the thicker yarn and tight loops on fine needles would be fine for a quick small project, but it would get tiresome quickly if the project was extensive.

Purl side stockinette on size 6.5mm needles

A third advantage of using larger needles is that the fabric has a lot of drape and movement and delightful texture that really pops out. I love the bamboo rayon in Bamboo Bloom because of its sheen and its hand when knit. I really like the wool tufts in Bamboo Bloom because of the lofty airiness it adds to the fabric.

However, just as multicolored or variegated yarns do, thick-n-thin yarns can "pool". Pooling means that there's a concentration of the thick segments all in one area of the finished fabric. In the swatch above, it was just happenstance that all these tufts were stacked above each other. To solve this, I would knit on more or fewer stitches if possible. If not, I would use two different hanks of yarn and alter every 2nd row so that the pooling would be broken up.

In tomorrow's post, we'll look at another way to break up pooling when knitting with thick and thin yarns.

Exploring gauge with thick and thin yarn

Basically you can knit with thick and thin yarn at any gauge, but you'll need to experiment a little to see how the yarn behaves for you on different needle sizes and on the tension you usually apply to yarn. Each knitter's feeding tension (how much yarn is fed to the needle and the strain being put on the yarn by the knitter's hands) is unique, so even though a yarn label recommends a certain needle size to achieve a specific gauge, it doesn't always work out.

Thick and thin yarn

Bamboo Bloom has a recommended needle size of US9 [5.5mm] and states that 15 sts and 22 rows per 4" [10cm] will be achieved. A US9 [5.5mm] needle size is what is usually given for a chunky yarn, but what is interesting to me is that the thinnest sections of Bamboo Bloom are more like DK weight and the thickest parts are like extra-chunky. Universal Yarns must have come up with an average gauge based on what most of the accompanying patterns look like.

So, it would be good for us knitters to take several needle sizes and swatch to see which size works best with the yarn, or the way I prefer to think of it, which effect is created by the different needle sizes and which effect is the one I want. Let's look at a comparison of some swatches.

Bamboo Bloom in stockinette stitch on US7 [4.5mm] needles

In the above swatch, I knit across 30 stitches with size US7 [4.5mm] needles. On the knit side of this stockinette stitch swatch you can see how the puffy segments of yarn fill up the space they have and really compete with neighboring stitches beside them, and a little with those they're worked into. The right leg of each stitch is slightly receding to the back of the fabric. The push and Save...pull play of these stitches also creates a waviness in the fabric that is interesting. This swatch has little drape and is quite stiff, so it wouldn't work for a loose-fitting garment needing a lot of softness and movement. But I really liked how it looked on the purl side.

Purl side of Bamboo Bloom in stockinette stitch on US7 [4.5mm] needles

I was REALLY excited by how the purl side of this swatch looked, however. The ridges of puffy stitches were really evenly distributed across and up and down this 30-stitch swatch. I really liked the valleys and ridges that were formed. As a design element, I would probably use this yarn at this gauge in a sweater that was worked side to side so that the ridges would be vertical and slimming.

The reflection of the 'shininess' of the bamboo sections really create an interesting play on movement with the sheen coming from valleys as well as the crests of the ridges. A quick one-skein project would be side to side wrist warmers, fingerless mitts, or boot cuffs.

In the next post, we'll look at this yarn knit on larger needles.

KNITmuch Giveaway 041: Bamboo Bloom Knit Kit

Enter now for your chance to win this new giveaway!

This week's prize: 2 skeins of Bamboo Bloom, a set of 5.5mm single point needles and a bottle of Soak laundry care!

Universal Yarns Bamboo Bloom is a fun thick and thin yarn with great colors to choose from.  A loosely spun burst of wool is blended with bamboo's beautiful sheen for a fascinating texture. Elegance made easy! Made in Turkey.

Team this great yarn up with Soak – a modern laundry care. It’s perfect for washing your laciest lingerie, softest sweaters, swimwear, workout wear, quilts and all the delicates you care about most. It's the perfect laundry product for all your knit projects.

Congratulations to Melissa E, winner of last week's KNITmuch Giveaway 040: Welcoming Home Baby, Knitting Patterns for Newborns by Tricia Drake (ISBN: 978-1-4162-0627-9).

KNITmuch Giveaway 041: 2 skeins of Bamboo Bloom, a set of 5.5mm single point needles and a bottle of Soak laundry care!

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The thick and thin of Bamboo Bloom yarn

A perfect yarn for the in-between seasons of spring and fall, Bamboo Bloom is a lovely textured fiber that lends itself to garments and accessories that have a shabby-chic look. I'd like to introduce you to this thick and thin yarn and highlight its inner beauty and qualities.

Bamboo Bloom thick and thin yarn

Bamboo Bloom is a thick and thin yarn developed by Universal Yarns and produced in Turkey. Each hank contains approximately 154yds [140m] and 100g of yarn.

The fiber content includes 48% rayon made from bamboo strands, 44% wool and 8% acrylic. Rayon from Bamboo is a very slippery fiber with long slippery individual strands, so acrylic that has a bit of tooth (or grip) to it and comes in shorter strands is blended together with it to act as a bit of a binder to keep the yarn from untwisting. Both bamboo and wool are light weight fibers, and for a yarn that's labelled bulky (or chunky), it's not heavy or bulky in feel at all.

Bamboo Bloom comes in 12 solid colors and 22 multi-colored hand-paints. Items knit from this thick and thin yarn will be on trend in two ways. You can knit at a chunky tension or gauge to get that big and bold look, or you can use smaller needles and achieve a closer knit fabric that still has a lot of drape and movement for that shabby-chic 'drapey' feel.

Thick and thin strands of Bamboo Bloom

These are strands of the Bamboo Bloom thick and thin yarn in Rice color. The yarn is spun before it is dyed. When it's immersed in the dye bath, the different types of fibers take the color in at different amounts of intensity. You can see that there is a champagne pink hue to some of the yarn and much fainter version of champagne in other sections.

The thin sections of the yarn feature the bamboo fiber mostly. It's a one-ply yarn, so all the fibers are combed to be parallel and then spun tightly. There's no binder thread spun around the single ply to hold things together. The way Bamboo Bloom is spun requires no extra support. It can stand on its own.

The puffy sections of the yarn feature wool mostly. The wool sections have slightly less twist to them, but they are sturdy enough that it's not that easy to pull or tear the yarn at the thick sections. The wool is very soft and fine and after rubbing it against my neck or inner elbow, I would give it an itch factor of 0 to 0.5 on a scale of 0 to 10 where 10 is so scratchy that I'd have to wear 2 layers of clothing under it to be comfortable. So that's soft.

Close-up of thick-n-thin Bamboo Bloom yarn

In this close-up of Bamboo Bloom, you can see how the bamboo rayon strands gradually give way to the puffy wool fibers. To me it looks like a tree branch that's keeping a tight grip on some Spanish moss. You can also see the color differences clearly between the wool, which has taken in more of the dye, and the bamboo, with just a slight blush.

Tomorrow we'll look at how this thick and thin yarn knits up at different gauges or tension.

Bamboo Bloom yarn

Knit a hat to match Baby Lace Cardigan

Happy Friday! Red Heart’s Baby Lace Cardigan knit in Soft Baby Steps is too adorable to pass by. This little cardigan has a small lace panel in the front on either side of the button band. That, paired with the soft shine of this yarn, gives it a tiny bit of elegance not often seen in baby knits.

Red Heart's Baby Lace Cardigan

Since the Soft Baby Steps yarn is silky and shiny I think of it as more of a summery yarn. Don’t get me wrong, it’s warm, that's the beauty of synthetic fibers, but I love it paired with a lace panel. The little bit of lace isn’t enough to make the sweater too breezy, but the perfect thing to throw on over-top of some leggings and an undershirt, even onesie pajamas when people are headed over.

I thought the only thing this cute little outfit is missing is a matching hat, so a wrote up a version incorporating the seed stitching and lace panel. Here's how to knit it up.

Red Heart's Soft Baby Steps yarn in the color Elephant

materials
1 ball of Red Heart’s Soft Baby Steps in color Elephant
US 7 [4.5mm] 16” circulars
US 7 [4.5mm] double pointed needles
1 tapestry needle

How the top of your hat will look when you're done!

CO 59 stitches, join into round, place marker and knit in seed stitch for 6 rows.

Next follow the arrowhead lace pattern from the sweater pattern. There's no chart available in the pattern it self so I created the one below. The chart is a visual to supplement the pattern, so make sure you're looking at the pattern while following this chart.

Baby Lace Cardigan knitting chart for pattern.

After that, knit until the hat reaches 3" in length and begin the decreases. Decrease in the following pattern.

Row 1: *K6, K2tog* Repeat until marker.
Row 2: K all.
Row 3: *K5, K2tog* Repeat until marker.
Row 4: K all.
Row 5: *K4, K2tog* Repeat until marker.
Row 6: K all.
Row 7: *K3, K2tog* Repeat until marker
Row 8: K all
Row 9: *K2, K2tog* Repeat until marker.
Row 10: K all.
Row 11: *K1, K2tog* Repeat until marker.
Row 12: K all.
Row 13: K2tog the whole row.
Row 14: Cut your yarn leaving a 12" tail, slide the tapestry needle on and slip all stitches from your needles onto your tapestry needle and pull tight. Weave in ends and block lightly.

The lace edging around the ribbing of the hat almost looks like a crown for your prince or princess...

This little hat and sweater would make a lovely gift for any little person’s wardrobe and, with the washing machine friendliness of Soft Baby Steps, any mother’s laundry basket. There's an excellent palette of colors from this yarn for you to choose from so it can be made in any color. No matter how complex the wardrobe, you'll be able to find a color to accent it.

Details on knitting a toddler blanket

One of my favorite things about knitting is pairing colors together, so the Toddler Blanket in two colors of Red Heart’s Comfort Sport immediately caught my eye. The photo on the website is done in two different tones of blue, but I'm all over this thinking in complementary and contrasting colors.

Red Heart's Toddler Blanket Pattern

This blanket appeals to me on so many levels. Whenever I see a baby blanket knit up in a single color it looks very bland to me. Even if there's a bit of a stitch pattern, it seems plain. My mind works in colors and the less color there is to play around with, the more complicated the stitch pattern has to be.

I find color work very therapeutic; it's something of a mantra to me, and for some unknown reason, I can’t fall into the same head-space when working on stitch patterns. I love color in this blanket because you could do two colors or three, four, five, you could switch out colors as you go and do a rainbow. Yes, the pattern only calls for two, but it's incredibly easy to adjust your plan and simply start swapping colors in and out as you please. You could knit this blanket a thousand times and make it look completely different each time.

The Toddler Blanket swatch made from Lilac and Turquoise

At first glance I thought it was a slip stitch color-work pattern, but this blanket actually mimics crochet. The small dots are made from working two rows in the same color. One row is a purl row and the other is essentially a yo, k3, pass the first knit stitch over.

When I was reading the instructions I was a little bit confused. I thought it was almost a bind off, but then I realized, that's where the shapes are made. In the photo they look like circles, but that shape is obviously perfected through blocking.

This is Soft Baby Steps yarn, but wouldn't a blanket in these colors be amazing? It screams "cute rubber duckie" at me.

Aside from getting the stitch pattern right the only thing slightly different about this blanket is the fact that it has a crochet edge.

If crochet really isn’t a skill you possess it's easy enough to pick up stitches along the edges, you could do a simple rib stitch or a seed stitch. Don’t pick up the whole way around, but pick up one edge, knit your chosen stitch, bind off, pick up stitches along the opposite edge and do the same. Then you can choose whichever side of the last two and pick up stitches along the blanket and the other two edges you previously knit.

Light Pink and Denim would be cute together as well. It makes me think 'cowgirl'.

I really can’t say enough about Red Heart’s Toddler Blanket pattern; it’s definitely going to be my new go-to for baby blankets. Easy enough to knit, but has a lot of interest generated through the perfect balance of colors and interesting stitch pattern. It’s also got nice clean lines, which really appeals to my sense of aesthetics.

3 reasons to knit with baby yarn

I know this is baby week and all the posts are supposed to be about babies. If you’re anything like me, and don’t have children or currently know people with small children, then you don’t really understand why everyone is all about knitting baby things. There are several good reasons you should knit baby garments, even if you have no babies to give them to! 

Just because this is classified as baby yarn, doesn't mean that it can't become something soft and luxurious for mom too!

Reason 1

I strongly encourage skill development. Becoming a better knitter is all about finding and practicing those skills you're afraid to try and most of the time you're able to tackle that really intense project.

A baby-sized sweater is much less intimidating when knitting a sweater for the first time, as it has all the challenges as the adult sweaters, just on a smaller scale. If you’re thinking about trying your first sweater, then just knit up a baby one with any leftover yarn from another project. Let’s be honest, we all buy more yarn than we're going to use, usually by one or two balls. That's all it takes to make an infant sweater!

If you're the kind of person who buys the exact amount of yarn they need per project, Red Heart’s Comfort Sport is an excellent all-purpose yarn that can be shaped into just about any project; socks, hats, afghans, leg warmers, etc. I'm a huge fan of wantonly throwing myself into a project, but I know that's not everyone’s cup of tea. If you’re a little more cautious, check out the children’s sizes.

Once you've mastered baby sweaters, Comfort Sport and Soft Baby Steps can be ideal for making a lightweight cardi in an array of pastel colors for the spring and summer seasons for girls and women.

Keep filling your knitting tool box and practice all sorts of techniques on these projects!

Reason 2

My next point goes hand in hand with the above mentioned tip. Even if you don’t know anyone with small children or have any upcoming baby showers, you will at some point. I like to keep a small stash of completed projects, for those situations when you don’t have time or inclination to make something for a shower that suddenly came up. I would advise you switch between masculine, feminine and gender neutral colors just to keep your stash balanced, you wouldn’t want to have 10 pink blankets and go to a shower where the theme is blue.

Red Heart’s Soft Baby Steps has a color called Binky Print with pink, blue, green, yellow and white. I think you would be fairly safe knitting with this variegated yarn. It's pictured at the top of the page paired with Baby Yellow and Baby Green. Pictured below with Baby Blue.

The Binky Print itself with a whole array of colors!

Stashing gifts is a great planning tool in general. I know once I have a deadline to knit something, all motivation goes out the window. I end up waiting until the event is uncomfortably close and blocking garments the night before. It’s also perfect for garments other than baby items. If there's a scarf or shawl pattern you want to try, but you’re not sure if you would ever wear it, you can give it a try then throw it into the gift stash. When you suddenly need a gift because you forgot someone’s birthday, anniversary, event in general… it’s perfect. This has saved my bacon more than once and if I'm a day late, it’s a hand made gift that could have taken an extra day to finish off.

You never know when you're going to need a yarn like this in several colors. Feeding the stash regularly has its benefits.

Reason 3

A very important reason for knitting baby garments is that they make great donations for maternity wards in hospitals. If you’re in a position where you don’t think there will be any little people coming into your life or you don’t want small garments hanging around your house for months or years, there are many places to donate these items.

Preemie hats in particular are always in demand because humans in general lose a lot of heat through the top of their heads and babies that small don’t have the heat to lose in the first place. If you’re looking to donate, any of the three yarns we are featuring this week are perfect for this type of project.

Red Heart Soft Baby Steps is silky soft and comes in a wide range of colors so you could knit a different color every day. Cutie Pie is velvety soft, which is a unique texture for yarn and feels so warmly fluffy. Comfort Sport has obviously got budgeting on your side; one preemie hat takes 20-35 yards of yarn so you could make at least 32 from one ball. Considering that one ball costs about $10, that is a small price to pay for helping out 32 preemies. Even if you don’t have a whole ball left, 20-35 yards isn't a large amount and you could have that much left over from one of your current projects. If you’re knitting a baby blanket for a friend, use the leftovers to donate a preemie hat, or booties. Be sure to check the charitable organization’s webpage, they usually have donation guidelines for you to follow. If you're unsure, there's no shame in calling to ask!

I have always loved these colors together! Soft Baby Steps in Lavender and Baby Green

Hopefully these 3 reasons convince you that you can engage in knitting for babies regardless if you currently do have children in your life or not. Knit for the babies you don’t know, the ones that don’t exist yet or just for your own personal development. Stay tuned tomorrow for more knitting fun.

5 attributes of Red Heart's Baby Yarns

The three yarns I'm reviewing this week are all ideal for baby projects, but set side by side they're very different. I’ve managed to list five different attributes: texture, weight, fiber composition, color choices and ideal projects.

Stacking up 3 Red Heart yarns for comparisons.

Texture

In terms of texture, these three baby yarns could not be more different. Soft Baby Steps is very silky soft, but Cutie Pie holds it’s own with a velvety soft texture. Comfort Sport, is soft, but not really in the same league as the other two. Comfort Sport is an excellent all-purpose yarn, it’s amazing for your baby knits because it's soft enough for a baby’s skin, but you’re not afraid to use it for other things like afghans and perhaps something for yourself. This yarn is really easy to knit with. It slides well on any kind of needle, so no matter the needle materials you’re using it's sure to work up well.

Soft Baby Steps, as I said, is incredibly silky soft. This is perfect for anything right next to baby’s skin. If you're using any kind of needle material that is rougher, the soft fibers may catch along the shaft of the needle. I would highly suggest a metal or acrylic needle; anything synthetic and machine honed to a flawless surface.

Cutie Pie, has a very unique texture. It feels velvety and soft in a way that I’ve never felt in a yarn. I would also suggest a synthetic needle material when using Cutie Pie, although the fibers wouldn't catch on the shaft of the needle, I don’t think it would slide as well. When you first start knitting with this yarn it takes a couple minutes to get used to the 'feel' of it. The fleeciness of this yarn makes the stitches want to snug up close to their 'neighbors'. This isn't ideal for ripping things out, but excellent for closing holes and creating warm baby knits.

A color-work snowflake demonstrating the lack of gaps between stitches.

Weight

Comfort Sport’s weight is right in the name of the yarn; sport weight. For those who haven’t heard a lot about sport weight yarn, it's heavier than fingering weight and lighter than a DK or worsted weight. It's an excellent medium for those transitioning from heavier yarns into lighter weight yarns. The needle size recommended for this yarn is 4mm or a US 7. I like this needle size for this yarn. As a loose knitter, I generally go down one or two needle sizes to get gauge, but this needle size was perfect.

Soft Baby Steps is the heaviest of the three yarns; it's a medium weight yarn. The recommended needle size for this yarn is 5mm or a US 8. When I was knitting my swatch with this size needle, the swatch was a little bit airy. I had to go down a needle size in order to get a really good fabric I liked. As I said before though, my gauge is a little bit loose, I usually have to go down the needle size.

Cutie Pie yarn is the lightest weight, although the chenille feel makes it seem thicker. Many knitters are scared of knitting with lightweight yarn because they think the projects will take them forever. This yarn is a great place to start, it will feel like a thicker yarn but you're actually knitting with lightweight yarn. The recommended needle size for this yarn is 3.75mm or a US 5. Again, this is an excellent suggestion, when I started knitting with the recommended needle size my gauge was perfect. The fabric was not too open nor able to stand up on its own.

Soft Baby Steps in color Elephant ready to be knit up!

Fiber Composition

All three yarns are made from synthetic fibers. Comfort Sport and Soft Baby Steps are made from acrylic, while Cutie Pie is made from polyester. In this respect, these yarns are very similar.

The synthetic fiber makes it washer and dryer friendly, while not giving up a lovely texture.

Washing instructions are perfectly clear.

Color Choices

Cutie pie has a basic selection of solid colors. Since it's such a different texture from your regular yarns, I don’t know how well variegated colors would show up. The texture of the yarn would make any color changes more fluid and not as distinct. The selection of solid colors includes very saturated and beautiful tones of the base colors; pinks, blues, purple, green, etc.

Soft Baby Steps come in a wide and varied selection of colors. There are solid colors in baby tones, bright saturated colors and variegated to match the solids. On the Red Heart website, there are a whopping three pages of colors.

While I think the true value of Comfort Sport is its versatility, it also comes in a fair variety of colors. No variegated colors, but several tones of one color. For example, there are five different shades of blue.

These are only three, but there is a whole gradient to work with.

Ideal projects

Comfort Sport is one of my favorite kinds of yarn, it’s the kind of yarn you can knit anything with. If you end up buying this huge ball to make one baby sweater you're going to have a lot left over. There are thousands of projects out there looking for yardage just like this; drink cozies, shawls, pet beds! If you can dream it, you can knit it with this yarn.

I would use Soft Baby Steps to knit sweaters, booties, scratch mittens for those cute little leggings with the monster face on the bum. Regardless of what you choose to make, it will be baby’s favorite. While Cutie Pie is a lightweight yarn, I love this yarn for blankets and snuggle sacks. Just touching this yarn brings images of plush, luxurious, warm blankets to mind. It's light enough that you could also use it for garments worn close to the skin, like Soft Baby Steps, or choose to knit warm sweaters and over garments.

Cutie Pie ready to become a baby bootie. Click through for the article.

Between Comfort Sport, Soft Baby Steps and Cutie Pie all of your baby knitting needs will be covered! Summer is the most popular time of year for babies to be born, I’m telling you this now so you can get a jump start on it. With all the beautiful colors, gender neutral included, baby season won’t be so stressful! Join me tomorrow for more knitting fun.

KNITmuch Giveaway 040: Welcoming Home Baby

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Welcoming Home Baby, Knitting Patterns for Newborns by Tricia Drake
Publisher: Sellers Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-4162-0627-9

 

This is a collection of 20 creative patterns designed to celebrate the arrival of a newborn. Fun and quick to knit, this collection will appeal to any knitter regardless of skill level. Many are fast enough to fly off your needles during nap time, and most offer a variety of sizes so you can keep your baby toasty till toddlerhood. Whether you are making these projects for your own baby, your grandchild, or as a special gift, these knits will welcome a little one in handcrafted style and are sure to be treasured for years to come.

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3 yarns perfect for baby

Welcome to baby week here on KNITmuch, as I go over 3 yarns perfect for baby: Red Heart’s Soft Baby Steps, Comfort Sport and we'll revisit Cutie Pie yarn. Here's a general overview of these three yarns, I’ll link back to the Cutie Pie articles since we have already talked about it.

All baby yarns in lovely pastel colors!

My first impression of Red Heart’s Soft Baby Steps yarn, was “omgsoftsoftsoftysoftsoft” because it was just that soft. It’s like a fluffy silky cloud spun into a tangible fiber. I was duly impressed when I looked at the fiber content and realized it was 100% acrylic as well. This saves all the trouble of giving washing instructions and worrying about a baby gift being thrown into the washing machine when it needs to be hand washed.

Colors Baby Blue, Baby Yellow, Baby Green and Binky Print

The yarn itself has a very faint halo around it that makes it look soft, but not enough to decrease any stitch definition. Soft Baby Steps yarn is also slightly shiny, not in a sparkly kind of way, but the way silk yarn has a little bit of a shine to it when you’re looking at it from an angle.

It’s also a worsted weight (Medium 4) so it works up quickly on a 5mm or US 8 needle. Worsted is one of my favorite weights of yarn because you can knit things up relatively quickly and the stitches are small enough that you can still add stitch detail that would be impossible on thicker yarns.

Doing a baby sweater in bulky yarn would knit up very fast, but you would be hard pressed to do things like cables, or honeycomb stitches; the material would be very thick.

Comfort Sport in Denim, Light Blue and Turquoise

The second yarn that is perfect for baby projects is Red Heart’s Comfort Sport. My first reaction was “holy moly that's a big ball.” Out of all the yarns I'm reviewing here, this is the biggest ball of the trio.

Most balls of yarn are 100g to 150g; depending on the weight of the yarn the actual yardage changes. Sometimes sock yarn is sold in 50g balls so you get one sock per ball. Taking that as an average, you'll empathize with me when I say Comfort Sport comes in a 350g ball, in a sport weight that comes out to 1144yds or 1050m. You can make a 20" x 30" baby blanket with just one ball.

With this yarn it would not be hard to come up with one-ball projects; they would be more properly labeled 5-project-balls.

This yarn is also 100% acrylic and machine washable so there are no worries about lengthy washing instructions scaring off a giftee from using a hand knit gift. The sport weight is a light (3) yarn so it would lend itself very well to detailed work. The yarn itself doesn't have a lot of texture, the twist in the yarn isn't highly visible.

Cutie Pie Yarn in color Tulip

Since I already talked about Cutie Pie, I'm just going to link to the quick overview I did here.

That's the general overview for our 3 yarns perfect for baby from Red Heart, Soft Baby Steps, Comfort Sport and Cutie Pie. Watch this space tomorrow for a comparison between the three with ideal project suggestions and more knitting fun.