Headbands and more...

At Gourmet Yarn Co. last Saturday a woman brought in a wonderful cottony knit headband that she had purchased. She was looking for a similar pattern to knit for her daughters. She barely had it out of her tote before ladies in the store were gathering to ooh and ahh. My knitterly mind was already picturing headbands in a multitude of colors, weights, and stitch patterns and I knew I would leave with a few new springish-looking skeins for inspiration.

Here’s what I brought home:

One skein of Blue Sky Alpaca’s squooshy soft and fluffy “Dyed Cotton” in a lovely sort of sky color. It’s 100% organically grown which makes me happy for the Blue Sky sheep (maybe that includes their famous Spud and Chloe!) as well as our environment.  I always feel good about buying green when I can.

Two skeins of “Weekend” by Berroco. I think this may be a new yarn for Berroco. It has a feel similar to Rowan’s Handknit Cotton but a little lighter weight. I picked the lovely lavender and green shades and headed for the register.

Now, I am kind of a yarn snob and don’t mind fessing up to it. I usually shy away from any yarn that has more than a smidge of a synthetic in it, if any at all. I understand the added strength and sproing (Linda at Gourmet Yarn introduced me to that word and I think I will use it often.  It's a great desriptive word for those yarns that give your project that extra, well -- " sproing.")  But that's about as far as I like to go with synthetics. Let it be from plant or fleece and hopefully without harsh chemical processing.  At the register the clerk asked “Isn’t this great yarn? And can you believe that it’s machine washable?” Looking at the tag I saw that the fiber content of “Weekend” is 75% acrylic and 25% Peruvian cotton.  So much for thinking I had the ability to discern a synthetic at an armslength. It was too late to make another choice.  I was already mentally creating some sort of French lavender field on a headband. 

Here’s what the “Weekend” skeins became:

I had some friends try them on after they were all finished and we agreed that they were a little too wide so I am currently re-knitting them.  Once again, the importance of swatching has hit home!  Why is it after all these years of knitting, ripiing out, and re-knitting that I do not think I need to swatch? It has been proved to me over and over again that it is a very wise thing to do.  Maybe this lesson will take!
I hope you like them.  The patterns will be at Gourmet Yarn Co. later this week and up on Ravelry and Etsy shortly thereafter.

Happy knitting, Josey.