Yarnbox

Back in May (I think) I saw that a friend had signed up for Yarnbox. It is a company that each month sends out a box of yarn and a pattern. Each month there is a different yarn featured. It is a great chance to try yarn that you normally wouldn't. I was excited to try it because I find that I fall into a yarn rut of buying the same brand over and over.

The first month we got two skeins of supermerino yarn from ArtYarns. My pictures are terrible and you can't really get the true color of these yarns. At first I made SMASH and PUNY by Rebekah Darylin. I really like this pattern and I love the edgings used in it. Seriously, I love the way the edges come out. Yeah, I know...I'm weird. Anyway, while I liked the pattern it was definitely not the pattern for the yarn. I ripped it out and decided to make something for Irene with the crazy colorful yarn. 

 





                                       

 I made the Diamond Rib Lace Bolero by Christy Hills for Irene. It used it all but a tiny bit of the yarn. It is also super cute and perfect for Irene.

 With the jade colored yarn I made the Crooked Paths hat by Melissa LeBarre. This is one of those patterns that knits well when you use multiple stitch markers. Thankfully, I have a fair number of stitch markers that the very kind Danielle sent me (and that I wrote about a couple of posts ago). I can happily say that I made no mistakes because of the stitch markers, so I did not have to rip back any of the hat. That makes me ridiculously happy. I do not like to have to rip back knitting.

 The ArtYarn was June's Yarnbox. For July we got 2000 yards of lace weight yarn from Unique Chic Studio. I got the colorway Fresh. I normally never knit with lace weight yarn. I do have a good reason for this! Lace projects have a lot of charts and yarn overs and is so easy to mess it up and lose your place. With three kids running around I have to set aside my knitting frequently. Sometimes it is hours before I get back to it. With lace projects I lose my place as well as stitches from the needle. Still, I was surprised to find that I had several projects saved in my favorites on Ravelry that used lace weight yarn, but were not lace projects. Confused yet?

Basically, I have a shawl pattern that uses lace weight yarn but has not lace work in it at all. It does have a crazy 'suicide' ruffle that requires picking up a million stitches in order to add a ruffle to the shawl. The pattern uses 1600 yards so it would use up a fair amount of my 2000 yards of yarn.

In August our Yarnbox was actually a bag since the yarn we got was so big. We got three skeins of wool yarn from Imperial Yarn. I got what they are calling the 'greys' box. I really like this yarn. It is a thick wool that is perfect for Michigan weather. I can imagine knitting up something that I can wrap around myself as the weather gets cooler. I have a couple of different patterns in mind, but I am still undecided. It helps that Yarnbox has a group on Ravelry so I can see what other people are making with their yarn.

Sadly, I've had to put my Yarnbox subscription on hold. School started today for the kids and (shockingly!) they needed shoes and school supplies and backpacks. Also, picture day is next week and school pictures are crazy expensive. I did, however, knit them vests with their first initial on them to wear for picture day. I will post pictures of that soon.

So, I love the Yarnbox experience. I love getting the new yarns and patterns. I am hoping that I will be able to get my Yarnbox account off hold in the new year! Totally worth it :-)