A tale of Superwash Yarns

Bet you're wondering what it's all about....well it's my recent knitting with 2 superwash yarns. One is so soft and oh so nice to knit up. The other, a good "workhorse" yarn, but not as much fun to knit with..

On with the story...I was reading on Shanti's blog about her Mom wanting to send hats to her crew for Christmas. Living on a Navy Destroyer can get pretty cold. She thought sending the crew warm hats to wear on their time off would be a great gift. The only requirement was 100% superwash wool. Color was our choice, I didn't want to get too wild, so yeah, I have to admit I did pick boring colors ;)

I wanted to help out, you know being a future Navy mom, I'm sorta partial to them :)

I found some burgundy Cascade 220 and decided to knit the Scrunchable Hat (btw, it matches the Scrunchable scarf, just an FYI ;)
(sorry the pictures aren't the best, was a late night)


Cascade 220, Burgundy color
US 5 & 7 circulars
The only mod was to knit about an inch of K1, P1 ribbing before I started the pattern. This type of ribbing doesn't scrunch in so the brim with the 1 x 1 ribbing should help hold it on. Gotta love an easy hat pattern with only knit's and a few purls :)

Well, just because it's not "soft" while you knit, doesn't mean once it's soaked and blocked/dried it won't be. Don't worry, before I sent it off, it got a nice bath and was very soft. I'm sure someone will be happy to have it. I have a vest amount worth's of 220 superwash and will use it...may not be overly happy when I knit it, but hey, at least I know a good soak it will be :)

Onward to the next superwash yarn. Ever heard of Malabrigo yarns?? Yeah..some of the softest yarns around. I love it better than Lamb's Pride yarns on the softness factor. Sigh..single ply yarns.

Did you know they now have a superwash merino yarn...yep it's just as soft as the single ply, but it's a plied yarn.

When I received it in the mail...um..I have to admit, I didn't want to knit the hat and mail it away....it's that soft.

Knitting it up was definately more pleasurable than the 220, in fact, I stopped knitting on that hat when this yarn arrived...shame on me huh ;)



Here's a close up of the folded brim.

This pattern has you twist the K stitches every other row. Pretty cool.

Only problem I found was when I would stop knitting it, sometimes it was hard to see what row I was on, meaning the twisted stitch knit row. Probably the dark yarn.

When this was done, still very soft and a teeny fuzz halo. Since I'm sure sailors have short hair, this should be a nice, soft alternative to the uniform hats they have to wear.

Simple Slouchy Hat by Cocoknits
Malabrigo Rios in Paris Night (this picture shows the color truer)
US 6 & 9 circulars

This pattern calls for a chunky weight yarn, but checking on Ravelry I found it knit with worsted weight so I followed their mods. I cast on 86 sts and knit for about 1.5" with the 5's, then switched to the 7's and knit for 10 inches total. Did a 3 needle bind off in rib, the first time doing this bind off in rib. Not too bad..um..til I found a dropped stitch. I fixed it and all turned out well. I like the stitch pattern, but not the shape of the crown, well for me. Since it's not mine, it's ok. :)


So there you have it, 2 sailor hats off to join over 250 other hats on their way to make a few sailors holiday cheer.

My yarn preference....well...both really. I do prefer the Malabrigo over the Cascade as I knit. After soaking, the Malabrigo is still a bit more softer than the Cascade, but not by much.

Off to finish yet another hat...for me, wait for the post on this one...geesh ;)