Knit a textured cowl with only 1 skein of Big Time yarn

When I knit with yarn that is dyed with long color repeats, I really try to find ways to "drag" the color up across rows, or at least across stitches -- I like the way it adds to the blending of the colors. After lots of swatching, this time I came up with this pretty cowl.

I used several different methods to create lifted-stitch textures in this swatch.

This swatch is full of errors. I was trying different stitches, and it made for some interesting shifts in total stitch counts, irregular lines, and twists in stitches -- basically, a hot mess -- certainly nothing I could use as a finished item.

One thing that you don't get to see as a blog reader is the time and the processing it takes to write a blog post. The swatching took place two weeks ago. On the weekend, I wrote the pattern for the cowl and started knitting it -- in 90 degree heat. Once the knitting has finished, the posts go through editing, then on to production to be posted for your reading pleasure.

Tonight is knit-night and this cowl is the project I'm taking. I hope to have enough done to give you an idea of what it looks like. To you, the picture you'll see at the end of this post is only a few seconds away, but I'm trying to find a cool spot to knit like the wind so that I have something to show you.

Closeup of swatch with lifted stitches

A close-up of the color transitions in Classic Shades Big Time yarn. You can really see the marled look mentioned in yesterday's post

To knit this cowl, you'll need one skein of Classic Shades Big Time in the Stravinsky colorway.

I'm using size 12mm needles. I happen to have a circular one, so I'm knitting this in the round, but the instructions are for knitting on straight needles (you could use size 8mm, size 10mm, size 12mm, or size 15mm as gauge isn't important) in case you can't find a circular one.

Cast on 72 stitches (or any multiple of three that gives you the circumference you'd like for the cowl).

TIP:  Measure off two or three arm lengths of yarn and tie a loose knot. Work a row to determine how much yarn you need for a row, and reserve double that for your cast off.

Abbreviations

k = knit; p = purl; sl = slip; ssk = slip each of next 2 sts knit-wise, return both to LH needle, knit together through back loops; st = stitch; LH = left hand; RH = right hand; tbl = through back loop; lifted increase: insert RH needle under first leg of st below next st on LH needle and lift loop onto LH needle, knit this loop; [ ] repeat between as instructed.

 

Row 1: K2, [pass 2nd st on LH needle over first st on LH needle, K1, K1 tbl, K1] across, K1.

Row 2: P1, [sl 1, p2] across, sl 1 p1.

Row 3: K1, [ssk, work 1 lifted increase, k1] across.

Row 4: [Sl 1, p2] across.

Row 5: K1 [pass 2nd st over first st on LH needle, K1, K1 tbl, K1] across.

Row 6: P3 [sl 1, p2] across.

Row 7: K2 [ssk, work 1 lifted increase, k1] across, k1.

Row 8: P2, [sl 1, p2] across, p1.

Repeat rows 1 to 8 for pattern until yarn almost runs out ending with a RS row, leaving enough to cast off and to sew ends together. Cast off purlwise.

 

 

Knit Night was a success! Here's the cowl all done with one skein.

Knit fast and easy projects with Classic Shades Big Time

Continuing our "work" with the Classic Shades yarn family, today we play with Classic Shades Big Time, a bulky yarn that's perfect for knitting fast and easy projects.

Skein of Classic Shades Big Time in the Campfire colorway

Classic Shades Big Time is a fabulously soft chunky or bulky yarn that really lends itself to making quick, affordable gifts. Although it's not machine washable, most projects that I would make with this wouldn't need frequent washing, so the cold hand-washing and laying out to dry would not be a chore.

There are 17 colors in this heavy weight yarn from the Classic Shades family and many of them are unique to this chunky put-up. What I really like is that a few of them, like Storm Clouds and Reef, pictured below, have low contrast color pairings which make them almost look kettle dyed instead of space-dyed.

Four of the 17 possible colorways in Classic Shades Big Time

The recommended needle sizes to knit Classic Shades Big Time are big, too, starting at size 11 (8mm) and going all the way up to size 50 (25mm), or even your arms. I tried swatching with size 15 (10mm) needles and 15 stitches and got the fabric in the photo below. The 15 stitches and the colorway I used (Stravinsky), made color bands that were quite wide.

On a narrow swatch the color bands of Stravinsky are quite wide

If you're intrigued by the stitch pattern I'm using in this swatch, swing by tomorrow: I'll be using this stitch pattern in the instructions to knit a cowl with just two skeins of Classic Shades Big Time yarn.

I love how this yarn looks both knit up and in the skein. I did make a mistake, however, when I threw away the ball band in my haste to swatch with it and to start a project...which leads me to another comment about this yarn.

The manufacturers put up the yarn in loosely wounds skeins. This is important so that the yarn feels soft and lofty to the touch when we're browsing with our fingers in the yarn or craft store, but it does mean that the rings of yarn come off the skein quite easily once you start knitting with it.

To counter this, I wound it up a little more firmly (not too tight though, because I don't want to lose the springiness of the yarn). Then I use these cool little yarn labels by Unique. They're flexible plastic and you can write on them with pencil or erasable marker and stick them into your hand-wrapped ball.

My unruly skein of yarn

My unruly skein, now tamed and labelled.

In addition to the cowl we'll make tomorrow, there are many other quick and easy patterns to knit with Classic Shades Big Time. The Universal Yarn website, has 4 great patterns. The Skyscraper Shawl uses 2 skeins and wears like a classy capelet. The Cog Shawlette has an interesting assembly and also uses 2 skeins. They picture the shawlette in several different colorways on the website.

4 free patterns in Classic Shades Big Time

The "A Little to the Left" Slouch hat only uses one skein. And the Wrapped Candies scarf uses one skein as well.

Another way this yarn would be a cinch to knit up fast and easy is to finger knit it or to arm knit it. My friend Mary Beth has written books about these techniques and has some videos that cover a lot of different stitches for arm-knitting and several suggestions for finger-knitting.

I hope this post has given you some ideas for fast and easy knit projects with this beautiful, colorful, bulky yarn. Tomorrow, I'll share my cowl pattern with you.

What can you knit with long-repeat multicolored yarn?

So many different multicolored yarns are available in shops and from online stores these days. There are speckled, dip-dyed, kettle dyed, and gradient, marled, variegated, ombre, and long-repeat. Each one of these has different characteristics but all look good, especially in the skein. Knit up though, some of these yarns disappoint certain knitters.

This week, I got to try Classic Shades worsted weight yarn by Universal Yarns. I really enjoyed working with these long repeat yarns and they didn’t disappoint.

Skein of Classic Shades worsted weight yarn in the Fern colorway

This single-ply yarn comes in 29 colorways. Some are "safe" and "standard", some are wildly surprising, but all are beautiful. When I look closely at the different colorways, I notice four different tendencies in the way the colors transition to each other.

4 different swatches of Classic Shades yarn showing different patterns in the way the repeats are spaced

Some of the colorways have long repeats that only cover a few rows of knitting. If you have a lot of stitches over the width of the knit piece, the stripes become narrower. They appear to be fairly random, or at least it takes longer to cycle through the color pattern repeat. In addition, each color is quite pure. There's no tweedy or marled look to the knitting and the transitions from one color to another are very quick. Campfire, in the above photo, is an example of this.

A second tendency is to vary the lengths of each color in the colorway. These swatches show a few narrow stripes and then longer swaths of other colors. In the wider stripes, some of the stitches near the beginning of a transition are slightly tweedy or marled. Cool Blazes is an example.

Fern, the third example, shows a dye pattern with fewer colors and more marled stitches (marling is where you see a strong contrast between the two transitioning colors in the way they twist together).

Neon Lime Surprise is an example of the fourth tendency I noticed, where dark colors are grouped apart from bright colors, which creates a strong varied look in the overall finished fabric.

Campfire was my sample yarn. I started a small swatch of about 25 stitches. I knew that my stripes would be quite wide, but I wanted to see how the transitions would look over just a few stitches. I really like how the colors shifted very gradually from one to another. Some of this is due to the way the unspun fibers are blended and spun to create the slight marled effect that occurs in some short sections of the yarn. The bright blip of red a few rows below that garter stitch ridge is an example of a marled stitch.

Close up of Classic Shades in the Campfire colorway

The next thing I did was unravel the skein and look for the pattern repeat. Even after unravelling more than half the skein, I couldn’t find the true repeat in the color cycle, which to me was great, as a project knit out of Classic Shades would have the randomness I like to see in long color repeats.

My next experiment was to start a two-color pattern using a stranded knitting (or Fair Isle) technique where each color is drawn from a different starting point in the series of long color repeats. This is the result:

Closeup of stranded colorwork swatch worked from different points in the colorway - one light and one dark

I think that lots of experimentation and swatching will be necessary to ensure that I never have both yarns be the same color at the same time. It got pretty close to that when you look at the swatch below. To avoid this in the future, I will take apart 2 different skeins until I find the same starting point in the long color repeats series and then move to the next color on one of the yarns and then start the stranded knitting pattern. That way, I'd avoid running the risk of the same colors being together on a Fair Isle pattern. Of course, I could always break the yarn and wind off a section of yarn to get to the next high-contrast area.

Close up of zigzag pattern where colors are too similar.

Universal Yarns provides some free and some for-sale patterns that show other ways to use long-repeat yarns successfully. One pattern uses entrelac technique. It’s amazing that this cowl is made from the same skein of yarn. I love the gradual color transitions from diamond to diamond. The wrap shows the effect over a greater number of diamonds.

Free entrelac cowl pattern using Classic Shades yarn

The Mojave River blanket pattern uses two different colorways, blending them to maintain a constant contrast between the two yarns, yet still leave an infinitesimal series of contrasts over the shifting color repeats.

Picture of Mojave River blanket using two different colorways of Classic Shades

I have just a couple skeins of Campfire, so I’m not sure what I’m going to make yet. But I’m sure I’ll think of something. Tomorrow we'll look at another yarn in the Classic Shades family of yarns.

Knitting a top-down children's cardigan

This week I'm working with the Classic Shades family of yarns from Universal Yarns. Yesterday we looked at the details and qualities of Classic Shades Metallic. Today, I’ll share with you the top-down children’s cardigan I knit with it.

Close-up of skein of Universal Shades Metallic in the umbrella colorway

I used the Umbrella colorway, which features blues and greens from the aquamarine family, a little pink, and a little lavender. The metallic strand has a pink tinge to it.

Top-down baby cardigan with edgings and closed button bands

There are lots of patterns for top-down raglan sweaters available for worsted weight yarn, and a lot of cute ones for kids, but when I saw this yarn, I did what I typically do when inspired by a yarn…I thought of what I’d like to knit and the person I’d like to have wear it. In this case, it’s a cute little friend of ours, the daughter of a family with whom my wife, sons and I have become good friends. The dad often razzes me about being a knitter, so I thought it would be fun to knit something for his daughter as a come-back.

1 year-old wearing a top-down hand-knit cardigan in Classic Shades Metallic

A testimony to how soft this yarn is, this little girl did not want to take this off, even when she left the comfortable air-conditioned space we were in when she tried it on. She was sweating and hot just before bed, but wouldn't take it off. No itch-factor in this awesome Classic Shades Metallic.

As a designer, I rarely think of using someone else’s pattern, but I will when I just don’t have time to do the math. For this project, however, I just made things up as I knit. I’d like to share with you my steps, so you can knit your own top-down cardigan for a baby or toddler. Adult sweaters pose a few unique challenges, so we won’t go there… at least not this time.

I began with the measurement chart developed by the Craft Yarn Council of America (CYCA), my knitting gauge and the chosen chest size. Because I want the cardigan to fit over other clothing, I added 1" to 2" [2.5 to 5cm] to the chest measurement so the garment has some ease. For these wee, sweet sweaters, I don’t fuss too much over the width of the button bands -- I usually just add ¾" [2cm] bands (or thereabouts) afterwards. I base the button bands the width of the buttons plus a little more.

 

Excerpt of the baby and toddler's measurement chart from the Craft Yarn Council

In this case, I want to knit a top-down cardigan for an 18-month old, so I use a chest size of 21" [(53cm] -- 19" from the chart plus 2" ease. If my gauge is 19 stitches over 4" [10cm], I'll need approximately 100 stitches. (19 divided by 4" = 4.75 sts per inch. 4.75 times 21" = 99.75 sts around the chest)

Children have large heads in proportion to their chests, so a decent neck opening is warranted. Elizabeth Zimmermann advocated having 40 percent of the body stitches at the neck, but I want to make sure there are no battles with edgings and buttons at that point, so, I make a fairly decent neck opening for my cast on. To calculate my cast-on for a toddler's sweater, I use 45% of the body stitches. So, in my example, 100 sts x 45% =  45 sts. To keep the math easy, I round this up to the nearest multiple of 6…48 sts. It’s all a bit rough, as you can see, but it hasn’t really failed me yet.

So I'll cast on 48 sts. Then, I need to figure out how many stitches I'll need for the back, the two fronts, and the sleeves. I divide my cast-on of 48 by 6 (result 8) and put two parts for the back, one part for each sleeve, and two parts for the fronts. In my example, this gives me 8 stitches for each front, 8 stitches for each sleeve, and 16 stitches for the back. I place stitch markers to divide these sections and I’m ready to go.

First, I’ll do about 4 to 6 rows of some sort of edging stitch. In this case I worked k2, p2 across the wrong side rows and knit straight across on the right side rows.

Close-up of neckline and waistband edging featuring k2 p2 one row and garter stitch on the next row for 4 or 6 rows

Then it’s time to start increase rows. I work an increase row of 8 stitches every second row, placing the additional stitches one before and one after each stitch marker. I work this increase row typically for about a total of 8 rows, alternating 4 increase rows with 4 plain rows. Then I change my increase rows as follows: I work a sleeve increase row where I only increase on the sleeve side of the markers (4 stitches increased); then a plain row; then an increase row with 8 increases (one on each side of every marker), and then a plain row. I repeat this until the section for the back is 4 or 6 stitches less than half of my intended body stitches. In my example, half of the back would be 50 sts, so I would keep the raglan increases going until I had 44 or 46 stitches between the stitch markers dividing off the back of the sweater.

Now, I divide the yoke for the sleeves and body by placing the sleeve stitches on stitch holders (I usually scrap yarn) and placing the stitches for the back and both fronts on one needle. When I work the first row, between the back and each front I cast on the extra 4 or 5 stitches under the arm -- whatever I need to get the body to 100 sts. From there, I work the body as one piece to the desired length and then add an edging to match the neck.

Finally I work each sleeve. For kids, I like a ¾-length sleeve. I pick up 3 or 4 stitches from the ones I cast on earlier for the underarm of the body, then knit the sleeve stitches. I join them and work in the round, doing a decrease round of 2 sts under the arm every 4 or 5 rounds...until it looks right.

If you're nervous about knitting this blindly (without a pattern), there are several lovely top-down raglan cardigans for children on Ravelry. Here are two that I found.

Top-down raglan for child.

Easy top-down toddler cardigan with raglan sleeves

And here's a pattern for a top-down raglan sleeve tunic.

Top-down hand-knit raglan tunic with polo collar neckline.

I think that either of these designs would look really cute knit up with Classic Shades Metallic, but I encourage you to design one of your own from my instructions. Please send me a comment about your adventures.

Knitting with Classic Shades Metallic

While many of us have had a hot dry summer and cotton knits or socks and washcloths have been all that we can muster the energy to knit, fall is close and the holidays (the gift-giving kind) are, too. This is the season that knitters start thinking about knitting with wool and thicker yarns again. This week I’m introducing you to Universal Yarns' Classic Shades family of yarns, and for a couple of days we’ll look at Classic Shades Metallic.

A skein of Classic Shades Metallic yarn in the Tahitian colorway

Classic Shades Metallic is a cozy, self-striping yarn that features long color repeats and a slight twinkle of metallic thread. It's a single-ply yarn with about 3 twists per inch, making it sturdy without feeling heavy or dense. It's so sturdy that Universal Yarns has created a free pattern for a backpack.

This backpack is knit out of Classic Shades Metallic in the Urbana colorway. The gold accent is Universal's Deluxe Worsted Superwash

Classic Shades Metallic comes in 8 colorways (scroll down). Each one has 4 dominant colors and in-between shades form as the dye makes gradients from one color to the other. Another effect they’ve added to the yarn beyond the gradual transition from one color to another is that in some places the colors are marled together. Spinners create a marled look by spinning strands of light and dark colors together. When knit, marled yarn has a tweed-like appearance. Here are 4 of the colors.

4 of the 8 colorways available in Classic Shades Metallic, Urbana and Festival (top), Delighted and Zenith (bottom)

Six of the Classic Shades Metallic colors have a pink to fuchsia colored thread of glitter that's less than 1mm wide. One color, Urbana, has a blue tinted glitter, and Zenith’s sparkly strand looks like titanium to me… its darker-than-silver glint is also part of its colorway. The thinness of the glitter strand makes it a very subtle addition to the yarn, and it’s perfect for those who aren’t into the bling-bling, but would like to spice up their knits a bit.

The fiber content of Classic Shades Metallic is 69% acrylic and 29% wool -- the glitter makes up the last 2%. The manufacturer doesn't say what kind of wool it is specifically, but as you’ll see in tomorrow's post, the model who wears the item I knit with this yarn wouldn’t tolerate an itch factor, and she wore it in summer temperatures without complaint. This says to me that the wool is from sheep that yield an extremely soft fleece.

Close up of the Umbrella colorway showing the glitter and halo.

While the acrylic content of the yarn is substantial, you still need to wash by hand in cold water. But, the acrylic fiber does add strength and memory to the yarn. The acrylic fibers are longer than the wool ones, so they hold the yarn together, while the wool ones create a very slight soft halo -- yarn blooms while you knit with it.

When I swatched with Classic Shades Metallic, I tried different needles: an aluminum pair with dull points; a lacquered wood pair with medium sharp points; and a nickel plated pair with sharp tips. I found that the twist, while tighter than some single-ply yarn I’ve worked with before, wasn’t tight enough to handle a super-sharp needle. The yarn split only occasionally on me while I was swatching, but I found that it caught on my left needle when I was switching between knit and purl stitches.

The dull aluminum needles were great for dealing with that issue -- I had no splitting at all. But, my aluminum needles are more than 20 years old, and the coating is wearing off. Because I didn’t want my yarn to turn gray, I used my wooden needles. The slipperiness was perfect and I really didn’t have to deal with splitting the ply too much…maybe 3 times in the whole project, and nothing that caused a grievous error. If you're new to knitting, I would suggest using dull plastic or aluminum needles with Classic Shades Metallic until you get used to how it behaves for you.

In tomorrow's post, we'll look at the project I knit with Classic Shades Metallic.

What knitting projects are ideal for Unforgettable Waves yarn

When I received Red Heart's Unforgettable Waves in the mail, I immediately looked up pattern support for it. I wanted to make the Multi-Wear cowl, but it takes four balls of yarn. I absolutely loved this cowl and think it is a really excellent use of this yarn, so I made a matching hat using a the Twilight Knitted Hat pattern I wrote up on October 15, 2015.

The Multi-Wear Cowl! I love this pattern!

While the cowl takes four balls of yarn, the hat is only one, two if you want to make it really slouchy. The hat is also a great way to test out the yarn, I remember the first time I ever saw thick and thin yarn, I was really not sure how it would turn out or if I would like it. The yarn I saw back then was also presented differently so it looked messy. Unforgettable Waves is in a ball and looks all neat and tidy. I don't think I would have been as put off my thick and thin yarn had I seen this one first. Start with one or two balls to make a hat, but keep in mind a matching cowl would look really good, and plan your yarn purchase with that in mind. If worst comes to worst, you can make a few hats to add your finished "gift stash" (I explained gift stashing in my February 17, 2016 blog post).

You can really see the 'waves' in Unforgettable Waves in the texture of this hat.

Knitting with Unforgettable Waves was just like any other thick and thin yarn: my brain had a little freak out anytime it came to thin places. I obviously got used to that, or else this would have been a very stressful knit. The change is actually very gradual so you don't notice it as much as you would think. It's not like you're working with super thick yarn then all of the sudden you have tiny cobweb yarn. This yarn is actually more consistent than other thick and thin yarns I've worked with because the gradual changes happen evenly the whole way through. If you've ever tried spinning you'll know how difficult this is to get consistently even changes in the thickness of the yarn. I would unintentionally make thick and thin yarn that was quite uneven.

You can really see the thick and thin of the yarn when it's in the ball like this.

I think because of the texture and the color patterning, I would not use Unforgettable Waves to do a super complex stitch pattern. There's already enough going on with the yarn that you can get away with a very simple pattern. I imagine a knit poncho because I tried to make one in seed stitch when I first started knitting and it did not go well. I wished I could have made it in plain garter stitch, but that wasn't a look I was going for. I can't help but think Unforgettable Waves yarn would be perfect for that pattern.

Voila! The Twilight Knitted Hat becomes the Unforgettable Wave hat!

Unforgettable Waves worked up perfectly to my Twilight Knitted Hat pattern.

Good luck with all your summer knitting and I hope you give Unforgettable Waves a try. It's really interesting and the perfect starting place if you're interested in art yarns. Before trying out something really difficult to knit with, I recommend that you let the color and texture of this yarn take you on a ride.

The thick and thin of knitting with Unforgettable Waves yarn

The other yarn we're talking about this week is Red Heart’sUnforgettable Waves from their Boutique line. This is a thick and thin yarn with a lot of texture. Even when I was unpacking this yarn one of the first things I noticed was the halo surrounding it.

Unforgettable Waves in the Spices colorway

Unforgettable Waves is thick and thin, and also lightly spun. This means that the yarn is a bit fluffier, where it's thicker, anyway. It also gives it the look of a very smooth lopi yarn. The natural variation in the thickness of the yarn creates a lot of texture and interest in your stitches. The halo I mentioned earlier is the "fuzz" that surrounds the yarn itself. It creates a really nice soft effect which will make your individual stitches look more subtle. The focus is on the overall garment rather than the stitches themselves, which makes this yarn more forgiving if you have trouble with tension.

The fun and funky Parade colorway joins a ball of the Spices colorway. You can see the thick-and-thin nature of the yarn.

The different grist (thickness) of the yarn will change your tension to begin with, but the softness of the yarn will minimize any differences in gauge. If you're having issues with your gauge and looking for a yarn that will be a little more forgiving this is the yarn for you. I would not suggest practicing your gauge with a yarn like this yarn. If you want to practice your knitting gauge I would go for something with a little more spring in it, like Red Heart's With Love yarn. If you're crazy about art yarns and only want to knit with thick and thin yarn then you'll have a ball! I, personally, find it a little disconcerting to knit with thick and thin because all of the sudden your yarn goes really thin and my brain goes “OMG WHERE DID THE YARN GO…. Oh wait… it’s still there. We’re fine people. Keep it moving.”

So much texture but they look so neat at the same time!

Unforgettable Waves yarn is 100% acrylic which leads me into my favorite part again… machine washable and dryable! Yaaaay! I cannot stress how much I dislike hand washing things… "machine wash and dry" are music to my ears. The label does say to wash and dry on the gentle cycle, which I can completely understand since it's not spun all that tightly. I can tell you as well, normally wool blooms a bit when you block something like this. I'm curious to see what will happen with this yarn since it's an acrylic. I think it will probably stay the same since acrylic is totally different to wool.

Knitting Hotness Top with the cool Creme de la Creme yarn

From the second I saw the Hotness Top I thought it would be an excellent top to summer-ify with Red Heart's Creme de la Creme cotton yarn. This top would be a perfect knitted to the pattern or as a bathing suit cover up, if you elongated the torso and used a very large needles.

The yarn for the Hotness Top has been discontinued, but Creme de la Creme will save the day!

The Hotness Top is knit in pieces from the bottom up. If you're a little wary about knitting in pieces, do not be! It's a lovely opportunity to gain knowledge and skills. Practicing skills you don't get to use that often will keep them sharp as well. I use mattress stitch seams -- something I only utilize when I'm putting a garment together which has been made in separate pieces. I know when you read the instructions it might look quite complex, but if you're looking at the knitting while reading the instructions, it'll all make sense.

Seaming up the sides with my trusty mattress stitch. A photo from the wrong side so you can see the waist shaping.

I have learned, garments that include seams tend to sit more securely and wear a lot better. All the weight of the garment sits on the seams in the shoulders and the side seams are what keep the garment in shape if you get it wet. This is really important for when you're working with cotton yarns. The cotton fabric is going to absorb water for sure, and seams will prevent it from sagging. Just remember that there are benefits to a more complex assembly and there are always trade-offs for the greater good.

The hem of the Hotness Top in Brite Green

Another beneficial thing about making this top in Creme de la Creme, is the color selection. The website has about 6 pages of colors you can use. If you're trying to put an outfit together with a hard-to-match color, I'm sure there will be something that works in Creme de la Creme yarn.

The direct translation of crème de la crème is "the cream of the cream", which means the best of the best; a saying coined in 1805. Cream was incredibly rich and without the awesome power of refrigeration it was preserved in wells and cold cellars. The cream always rises to the top of the milk, and is considered better than the milk, so the "cream of the cream" is the best cream you can get!

I have a personal aversion to things with sleeves, so I left them off my sample sized version of the Hotness Top. Feel free to make alterations to your own! Just to note the yoke stitching will look a lot more detailed in a life-sized version.

Do yourself a favor this summer and make this pretty classic top in Creme de la Creme cotton yarn. You'll be able to stay cool and look even cooler; smiling like butter would not melt in your mouth.

4 reasons why knitting dishcoths is so practical

There are a myriad of things you can make with cotton yarn, but one of the most common things to make with it are washcloths. I mentioned briefly yesterday that I always suggest Red Heart’s Creme de la Creme to my knitting students for making dishcloths. It comes in a lot of colors so everyone's bound to fall immediately in love with at least one.

Scrub scrub scrub, dishcloths in a tub!

My personal favorite about knitting cotton dishcloths is, of course, machine washable and dry-able. You could have dishcloths for any number of things in your house and just throw them in the wash. I did mention briefly in my articles about Scrubby yarn, that I color code my dishcloths so that I’m not using the same cloth for washing your face that you once used for cleaning the tub.

I always use blue for kitchen dishes use!

If you’re looking at starting a new project and want to try out the stitch pattern before-hand Creme de la Creme makes a great testing place. Even though it probably isn’t the same yarn, you're still able to get a feel of the pattern itself while knitting it. When I'm picking out a project with a stitch pattern, I generally attempt to find the ones that are easy for both my mind and my hands to remember. If I don’t have the "mental bandwidth" to go through a really complicated pattern, I choose something I can just sit and knit while watching TV. This way of testing let's you try out your stitch pattern and end up with an interesting little dishcloth.

My attempt at making up a stitch pattern. It looks interesting, even though I'm sure someone else has already imagined it. Stitch pattern books for the win!

Dishcloths are a great small gift so they're something I always keep in my gift stash (see my blog post from February 17, 2016). I stash a small collection of gifts already knitted and on-hand in case of an emergency gift-giving situation. When your friend, colleague, family member makes plans and you just remembered that it was their birthday and you didn’t manage to get a small gift, a card, or anything, just pop a couple of these into a bag with a nice hand written note. Make it even more special by adding a bottle of soap in a small basket or add a soap dish. Then these little but highly effective gifts are ready to go at a moment’s notice.

Daisy dishcloth in the lovely Wood Violet color again

Last but not least, handmade dishcloths are a great eco-friendly alternative to sponges or disposable cloths. With Red Heart's Creme de la Creme yarn, we can knit them up and use them again and again until they disintegrate, and, given the strength of cotton, that could be quite some time. 

The creme de la knitting creme cotton yarn

This week we’ve got two beautiful yarns from Red Heart; the one I'm going to go over today is called Creme de la Creme. This is a worsted weight cotton that comes in so many colors it will give you some serious indecision. This is a yarn that I get from Red Heart, personally, all the time. I also always suggest this yarn to beginners to start with since you can knit a stockinette dishcloth from it and you get something functional as well as fun.

Creme de la Creme in color Brite Green

As I mentioned, there are tons and TONS of colors for this yarn. I feel 100% safe in saying that there's truly a color for everyone. That is part of the reason why I always suggest Creme de la Creme yarn to people who come to me to learn how to knit. With all those colors to choose from, they can pick one that resonates with them and knit away. They could even pick out two or three skeins in case they want to mix and watch or they get bored easily.

Colors Wood Violet (background) and French Country Ombre (closeup)

Creme de la Creme is 100% combed cotton so it's soft, but there's also not very much stretch at all. If you’ve ever knit with cotton before you'll know what I mean, some knitters find that knitting with cotton is hard on the hands. If this happens to you, listen to what your hands are telling you. If they’re done knitting, then so are you. Don’t try to marathon through and cause yourself pain in the future.

Creme de la Creme on the needles! That green is such a FABULOUS color!

Creme de la Creme is a worsted weight which is smack dab in the middle of the whole bigger or smaller yarn spectrum. It’s big enough that beginners aren’t scared of it, yet small enough seasoned knitters won’t mind using it for their projects as well. Since cotton is a light fiber it's great for use in any number of summer accessories, which is the season we're neck-deep in. If you’re not tempted by the lighter, airy fiber, then you should be tempted by the durability. Creme de la Creme starts out soft, and only gets softer as you wash it. Machine washable and dry-able means you can do that as often as you like. Repeated washing isn’t going to felt your stitches either. Cotton shows excellent stitch definition and doesn’t pill much over time.

These cloths are freshly knit, but it will look like this for a while! No more pills!

No matter what you’re making, it's bound to be long-lasting and durable. These are two of the many reasons why most dishcloths are made from cotton, but I'll go much deeper into that tomorrow. Stay tuned to find out more about dishcloths and several tips on how and why to knit them.