Lizzardie Knits

Getting back on track....

I've been a bit negligent lately (just the past couple of weeks, I guess). There are two reasons for this: a ton of work (which means less knitting, blogging and photo time) and Ravelry - my invite came last Friday. So I've been busy putting my stash and my projects in there - and I'm still nowhere near done! The stash is going to take F.O.R.E.V.E.R. - and I'm sort of afraid of what I'm going to find going through all of my yarn. So that will probably slowly evolve. I'm not going to forget my blog, of course, but Ravelry is fun for cataloging things and getting inspiration. So, if you're on there, look me up under Lizzardie. :-)

Ravelry also gave me the final push on upgrading to a Flickr Pro account - I did that this morning, and I'll have some organizing to there, too. The organizing really never ends it seems (let's not talk about the organizing I conveniently ignore in my apartment)!

My absence has led to a slew of FOs, though (okay, maybe not a slew, but there will be several that I'll be posting about this week and next). And I've been chugging along on the Mystery Stole - I finished Clue #4 yesterday, so I'll try and snap a picture sometime this week.

And here's the first FO: Dublin Bay socks for my friend Corinne.



Pattern: Mossy Cottage Knits
Yarn: Yarn Pirate Merino Sock, Primrose, 1 skein
Needles: US 1.5 (US 0 for the cuffs)
Project Timeline: 5/29/07 - 6/16/07

While Corinne's birthday was in early July, I didn't have a chance to give these to her until last Friday, hence the late posting on them.

Initially, I wasn't overly impressed with the Yarn Pirate yarn (which everyone raves about). It has four distinct color repeats (and this seems pretty typical of her colorways) and it took me a bit of time to find a pattern that showed off the yarn but didn't blur the pattern, AND didn't bore me to tears like plain stockinette would have. The Dublin Bay pattern wound up being perfect (and fit in with a nice flower theme), particularly because the socks wound up striping so nicely.

The yarn was pretty stringy to work with. It has nice stitch definition and a good amount of twist, but I wouldn't consider it all that soft to work with, even though it's merino. It softened up considerably after a bath, though, and I really love the nice, cohesive fabric it made once it was washed.



The biggest problem I had, though, was that the yarn bled an INSANE amount in the wash. I use SOAK with warm water, and the color of the water in the first wash was very dark. And there was still bleeding in the second and the third AND THE FOURTH washes, as well. Finally, after a fifth full sink of water, the water ran clear. But the color had faded considerably from its original intensity:



I emailed both Georgia of Yarn Pirate and Sheri at The Loopy Ewe where I purchased the yarn. I didn't want to sound like I was complaining, but I did want to let them know, because this really shouldn't happen (at least, that's my understanding). They both sent very lovely responses back, and it's nice to know that they care. Since the socks were definitely still in good enough shape to gift (and Corinne seemed to like them), I'm satisfied overall. I just hope it doesn't happen again - I have several more skeins of Yarn Pirate in my stash (with some that I bought this weekend on the way)!

posted by Lizzardie @ 2:59:00 PM