FO!

I finished up one of my June Project Spectrum projects:

Project Name: Ruffles Scarf
Designer: Amanda Blair Brown
Pattern Source: Scarf Style
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Pure Silk
Yarn Source: Borealis Yarns
Date Started: 6/10/06
Date Completed: 7/18/06

Comments: I bought this yarn on sale at Borealis after admiring it for a few months. I absolutely love silk and this is a very luxurious yarn. It's similar to Fiesta La Luz. The colors are gorgeous and it's very soft. Like all silk, it does have a tendency to get fuzzy and look "worn" almost immediately. I've come to terms with that tendency and just accept it as the properties of this yarn, but it can really bug some people. It feels really amazing against your bare neck, though.

This scarf is shaped by continuous short rows. Because silk has no memory, the short rows did stretch out the stitches, so I think it would look more even in plain stockinette stitch. Two skeins was plenty to knit a nice and long scarf.

I like how it turned out and consider it a very versatile knit. You can wear it just hanging around the neck and looking pretty:



or you can wrap it up:



or be saucy and throw one end over your shoulder:



I received my set of the Knitpicks Interchangeable Needles a couple of ago. I would concur with pretty much every review I've seen, they're fantastic. It's a very, very good price. You get a really nice binder to put everything in:



The binder is large enough that you could easily fit other needles or supplies in there. I'm thinking I may pick up some smaller needles (this set only starts at size 4) and add them to the binder so I can just grab it and have one of every size in there. As I said, the set starts with size 4 and goes to size 11 - I rarely knit anything on a needle larger than 11, so that part is fine with me. You get some plastic sleeves for the binder to store your needles in:



The sleeves come in three parts like those shown, two parts and one part. I like the three parts for the needles - they fit nicely and you can fit the whole set in just a few sleeves. I used the one part sleeves to store the cables:



You get two cables to make 24" needles and 32" needles (4 cables altogether). Those little round things are end caps so that you can take the needles off the cables but leave your knitting on the cable and just cap it off so the knitting doesn't fall off. Pretty nice if you work on a lot of different things at once and need to use the same size needles for different projects. It also makes a very nice stitch holder for a large piece. The last thing you get is a little key to tighten the needles.

You get two pouches of each size, but I wanted those three part pouches for all the needles, so I bought an extra set of pouches of each type. I also bought cables to make 40", 47" and 60" needles. The needles themselves are very similar to Addi Turbo needles. They are nickle-plated hollow brass like Turbos.

I have been extremely satisfied with the performance of these needles. They are very smooth and quick to knit with, like Turbos. The tips are sharper than Turbos, so they are really good for a yarn that splits, like the Cotton Twist did. They feel just a tiny bit heavier than Turbos to me, which I like. The cables are more flexible than the Turbo cables and I haven't had to fight with them at all. The join is as smooth as the Turbo join. There is a very long screw join between the needle and the cable. If the needle starts to come loose, you can feel that the join isn't smooth long before the needle would come out, so you don't have to worry about losing stitches. I was having trouble with the needle coming loose, but once I started really tightening it with the key, I haven't had any problems.

Overall, I'd say if you're an Addi Turbo fan, you'll love these needles. They are a fraction of the cost of the Turbos and actually perform better. I have a ton of needles in every size already and ebony needles are probably still my favorites, but if I were a newer knitter, this set and a few of the smaller needles would set me up for life.