Cotton Yarn Overview

Knitwits Yarns knitwitspenzance.co.uk

Well - somewhat unbelievably - here I am and here is our new cotton yarn (to be followed by a brief overview of all cotton yarns here at Knit Wits so you can prepare yourselves for summer which, surely, must be on its way?).

Our new pure cotton yarn is from King Cole and is called Cottonsoft and is - as the name suggests - really amazingly soft.  It also comes in a soft colour palette:

and comes with 12 accompanying patterns (6 pattern sheets - King Cole, very generously, always give you 2 patterns per sheet).  Furthermore, 2 of these pattern are CROCHETED - for all of you who are struggling to find crochet patterns.  Here is a selection:

 

So - for those of you looking for cotton yarns for your summer knits, here is a brief overview of cotton at Knit Wits.  As well as King Cole's Cottonsoft in pure cotton we have Adriafil's Memphis, pure Egyptian cotton - this is slightly mercerised and comes in a wide range of bright colours:

and we have Katia's Degrade and Degrade Sun, whose colours fade up and down:

Next we have the continuously, amazingly popular Bamboo Cotton from King Cole which is (as the name suggests) a 50/50 blend of Cotton and Bamboo (yes, really, bamboo as in the plant).  This yarn combination gives a really lovely soft drape to any garment and is popular for babies, children and adults.  It comes in plain colours:

and Prints:

Next we have Rico's Cotton Soft which is a blend of 50% cotton and 50% acrylic and, again, it comes in plain colours:

and prints:

and - finally we have Adriafil's Duo Plus, which is a cotton/wool blend (which you might think is a slightly odd combination but, in fact, it gives a lovely warm feel and drape) and it comes in lovely mixed colours:

So - there you have it - cotton at Knit Wits - don't say I don't spoil you!

New Patterns from King Cole!

Knitwits Yarns knitwitspenzance.co.uk

At long last I hear you cry - not entirely sure where last week went but I discovered, to my shame, that it was exactly one week ago that I made the suggestion that the new patterns to go with the new wools might be online by the very next day.  That was 6 days ago.  Sorry.  Life seems to be hurtling by and I don't seem to be able to stop it.

Finally, though, I give you new King Cole patterns.  {For those of you unfamiliar with the site, the links click through to our yarn pages and the patterns are found down the left hand side of the relevant yarn page - scroll down to find them all}  There are 4 to go with Riot DK - here are 2:

and

Two in Riot Chunky - here is one:

Two for children in Bamboo Cotton Prints.  Here they are:

and

and five in Galaxy (perfect for little summer bridesmaids!):

Check out the site for the rest!

Tomorrow - if the Gods of time are kind - a whole new cotton yarn (and patterns!).

New Stuff!

Knitwits Yarns knitwitspenzance.co.uk

Just before I disappeared off to bonnie Scotland last week we had some new colours of various yarns arrive and FB had time to photograph them whilst I was away.  They're a fairly random collection but, anyway, here they are:

Firstly, 2 new colours in Debbie Bliss's Baby Cashmerino.  Despite Baby Cash (as we always refer to it) being its own weight and neither a 4ply or DK it is, consistently, Debbie's best selling yarn.  If you haven't tried it yet - you need to!  2 new colours (shades 33 and 54):

Secondly, 2 new colours in King Cole's Galaxy.  This - I have been told - was King Cole's best selling yarn last year and, frankly, I'm not surprised - who can resist some sequins in their knitting?  2 new colours (lilac and pink):

Thirdly, 3 new colours in King Cole's sock yarn Zig Zag.  Finally we have plain black (for all those boring men out there who won't wear colours [oh, yes - they do exist!]) plus 2 new multis - Jubilee and Surprise.  From left to right: Jubilee (red, white and blue), black and Surprise:
















Fourthly, no less than 4 new colours in King Cole's Riot Chunky, from left to right Cool, Potash, Lava and Wicked

And - finally - Fifthly, 2 new colours in Riot DK, from left to right, Crush and Fab.

There are some patterns to follow but - as ever, all the DK's are standard, as is the 4ply and Chunky.  Patterns may be here tomorrow - I'll see how I go!

I'm Back!

Knitwits Yarns knitwitspenzance.co.uk

I actually haven't been away for the past 2 weeks (just the past 4 days) but Easter passed in a haze of visitors (always very welcome but also exhausting) and then FB's birthday (which was supposed to be "quiet" but ended up with a barbecue for 30 - HOW does that happen?) and the next day a quick trip to Bristol for our first 21st birthday party for many a year: you know how it goes - series of weddings (some preceded by engagement parties), then the christenings, possibly a couple of divorces and then, before you know it, the 21st birthday parties of children whose christenings you only celebrated last week.

I need a scientist to explain how the children have lived for 21 years but the adults have only lived for the blink of an eye - for the second time of asking, how does that happen?  This particular 21 year old looked like a model (seriously) and we were honoured to be some of the adults who were allowed to be invited (always a tricky one with "the young").  We were very good and didn't dance - mainly because we'd quite like to be invited to her brother's 21st in a couple of years and, let's face it, your parents' friends' dancing is never cool.

Less than 48 hours after that T and I were heading to bonnie Scotland for a visit to St Andrew's University.  We had a good time and T has fallen in love with both St Andrew's and the University which is good as it gives him a very good incentive to work very hard over the next 12 months!  Rather pathetically we took no photos as we were so concentrated on our mission and I was disheartened to see no wool shop in St Andrew's.  I find this slightly bizarre as you'd have thought there'd be plenty of scope for students' knitting groups and, beyond the student life, there must be plenty of golf widows.  I also managed a pathetically small amount of knitting.  I'd debated knitting on the plane but thought that was just too cruel - travelling with your Mother is bad enough for a 17 year old, travelling with a mother reading a book is just about acceptable (so long as she never speaks), travelling with a knitting mother would be excruciating and - whilst I wholeheartedly prescribe to the "the only point of having children is to embarrass them as much as your parents embarrassed you" theory of teenage rearing - even I let him off the knitting mother scenario.

Tomorrow I have a cardigan to finish in the peace and quiet of my own home, whilst trying to spot my friend Caroline running the London Marathon in aid of the Royal British Legion.  Go Caroline!

A Very Good Good Friday

Knitwits Yarns knitwitspenzance.co.uk

I need a certain amount of routine in my life in order to get everything done and Friday is paperwork day. Last Friday I broke all of my rules as the weather was gorgeous and, more importantly, the forecast for Bank Holiday Monday was atrocious so Monday could easily morph into paperwork day.

FB and I did the only decent thing, which was to go for a lovely, long walk. There was a bit of a breeze but the sun was out and spring was definitely in the air. We walked straight from our front door (one of the reasons we live where we do) and crossed Madron Carn:


















before several miles of lane walking where we only saw one car all day but lots and lots of lovely spring flowers:




























































































































The aim was to do a big circle and end up back at the mineshaft you can see on the top of the very far hill, which is just about a mile above our house:


















All was going swimmingly until FB made a drastic and, dare I say it, rudimentary schoolboy navigational error (he had the map out by 90 degrees). Instead of trundling along a lovely footpath (albeit not well signed) we ended up in this:


















and it went on for really quite a long way:














See the farm in the middle distance here (in the middle of green fields)? Well - we started from there and got to where the picture was taken in a straight line.














Interspersed with elephant grass was gorse and FB was wearing shorts!:


















Fortunately, every cloud has a silver lining and we ended up at West Lanyon Quoit, which we'd never seen before:














It's quite big:














and is, obviously, very, very old indeed!

En route home we passed the better known Lanyon Quoit:














and then the always fantastic view over the bay as we dropped down to our house for a welcome hot bath (a good aid to thorn removal from legs) and a well-earned G&T.:














We chose our day well as T deteriorated over the weekend with post-French tonsillitis and it duly poured with rain and hail all day yesterday.

It was a very good Good Friday (even if I am still picking thorns out of my legs!).

This Weather Might Be My Fault

Knitwits Yarns knitwitspenzance.co.uk

I feel I need to apologise for the weather we're currently having .... you see, when the weather was hot and sunny and gorgeous I had some nice, slightly sunny Debbie Bliss garments in the window - specifically this:



















and this:



















so last week when I did the window I - optimistically - put this:



















in the window and now it's started to snow (FB has just rung to say it's even sleeting at our house).

So - I apologise - I am now going to change the window again and I'm going to put this:



















and this:



















and this:



















on display, in the hope that they will force the sun out. And - oh yes - I'm currently wearing this:



















and after work I'm going home to knit pure wool!