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Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Pattern and Yarn Review


These past couple of week I’ve been working on the Red Heart Pattern So Cozy Warmer, by designer Cathy Payson. The pattern is labeled skill level “easy” which is perfect for me since I still consider myself a beginner knitter. It is also worked in the round making it my first knitting project to be worked in the round. If you can knit, purl and work in the round, you won’t have any trouble with this fun pattern. The colorway I am using is called Wizard. It is mostly dark green with hints of blues, reds and browns. The colors are all very complimentary.
The pattern calls for size 8 circular needles. I needed to use a size 9 circulars to get close to the gauge of 14 stitches = 4 inches. I know, I know, we hate to check “gauge”, but do it anyway you won’t be sorry.

This pattern can be downloaded from the Red Heart Website, but I found my copy at the local Michael’s Craft Store as a free tear sheet. On the bottom of the tear sheet it says this project should take about 7 hours to complete. Ha!! So far I have about twice that amount of time invested and I’m about half way done.
This is a picture of my work in progress. When I have the wrap finished, I'll see if I can get my very pretty niece Amanda to model it for me so I can show you the finished product.


work in progress





THE YARN: I love the new Boutique line of Red Heart yarns. The yarn I’m using in this project is Boutique Magical. It is  93% Acrylic, 6% Wool, and 1% Metallic Polyester. As you knit or crochet with this yarn, it will self-stripe, and is quite soft to the touch when worked into fabric and very light weight.

The yarn is advertised as four yarns in one; that description is apt. As you work with the yarn you will experience metallic thread, which turns into  a bouclĂ© type of yarn, which then gives way to multicolored fuzzy yarn, and then to a smooth yarn.  It certainly is not boring. If you don’t like knots in your yarn, you may not like this yarn as each yarn transition is knotted together.


Each skein has a generous 190 yards, which should be sufficient to make a nice scarf if you would like to experiment with just one skein before launching into a larger garment using this yarn.

I hope you enjoy Red Heart’s Boutique Magical yarn.