I first came across sKNITches at The Loopy Ewe and immediately bought up four skeins of their self-striping Syncopation.

Then, a few months ago, a friend tipped me off that the sKNITches Cinema Club was open for subscriptions and I jumped.

September: I am the Arm

The Lowdown:

The Theme:

It’s a Cinema club, so each month’s yarn and goodies is based on a different film. Each month comes with a popcorn box (very cute touch), a little movie poster and a row of ‘admit one’ tokens.

September’s film was Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me, October was ET, November was Cast Away and December was Little Shop of Horrors.

The theme was really cohesive and you could tell that sKNITches worked really hard at making everything that was in the package was related to the theme and it really made the club a lot of fun.

The Yarns:

September contained a GORGEOUS colourway called ‘I am the Arm’, made up of a range of reds and black on a 70% superwash, 30% silk base. Just fantastic.

October was a self-striping colourway called ‘Phone Home’ made up of brown, pink, white and blue on a superwash merino base.

November’s base was 50% superwash merino, 50% tencel, in a great beachy colourway called ‘Wilson’ made up of browns, sand and blues.

December’s was a self-striping colourway called ‘Feed Me Seymour!’ on a superwash merino base.

November: Phone Home

The Goodies:

Four months meant four gorgeous skeins of yarn and associated booty. The first month contained a stitch marker and some popcorn shaped mini soaps. The second month contained a glow stick, reeces pieces, and a wee halloween candy bowl/container. The third month contained a set of seaside tea light candles. The fourth, my favourite month, contained a pair of walking, chattering teeth, a wee venus fly trap (no one tell Aussie Customs, though), a candy cane and a little flower stitch marker

The Price:

The club cost $165, plus an extra $7 for postage to Australia. It’s one of the more expensive clubs that I’m currently a member of, but I do think it was good value.

As I mentioned, you could tell that a lot of thought and effort went into the packages each month, plus they were posted with delivery confirmation.

Two of the four yarns were what I would consider premium yarns. Actually, the silk content of ‘I am the Arm’ bumps it up into the luxury yarn category for me. As someone who dyes self-striping yarns, I think that the superwash merino being self-stripers makes them premium yarns, too.

The extras were nice. I really love the popcorn boxes and they’re being recycled into our fathers’ Christmas hampers this year (along with movie tickets and treats) but the rest? I LOVED the final month but I wasn’t that keen on the candles and the rest of it was kind of disposable, to me, but they really came together into a fun package that has been the highlight of my mail box each month.

November: Wilson

The Conclusion:

For my money, the club was great value.

Any communication I had with sKNITches was prompt and polite and very professional. The range of yarns was a delight to experience, the colourways were appropriate to the films they were supposed to represent (although Pants thought the Wilson colourway should have been more… volleyball coloured - I’m glad it wasn’t!) and the extras were thoughtful and interesting.

The fact that one of the colourways was self-striping and it’s more or less the perfect club for the Spiraling crew.

When do signups for the next one open?

Five skeins out of five.

I just learned that I had won a prize in the Loopy Ewe DIC Baby KAL. Does that mean I can add ‘award winning knitter’ to my resume?

I’ve had a few skeins of Baby pass through the doors of the Spiraling workroom, two of Happy Forest and one of Blue Lagoon. The Happy Forest became an (award winning!) Woodland Shawl and a wee stocking and the Blue Lagoon is on it’s way to becoming a Red Emperor.

I wore the shawl to a family dinner in Glasgow and pants’ cousin (who we were staying with) raved over it. She loved the colours and the size (it blocked out to 6 x 2 feet) and showed me her favourite skirt that matched it, so I left it with her as a thanks when we left. She’s told us that she’s worn it to effusive complements since.

The Low Down:

The Swatch:

Using 2.5 mm / US 1.5 needles, I achieved a gauge of 9.5 stitches, 15 rows per inch.

The Knitting:

I’ll be honest, I HATED knitting with this yarn. It was like knitting twine and I kept pulling out weird fibrous bits that felt (and passed the burn test) like plastic. It was really just the great pattern (and, admittedly, the fabulous colours) that kept me knitting.

The First Wash:

The first wash turned this yarn into the miracle yarn. It bloomed beautifully, the yarn fluffed up and became soft, so soft. It blocked in an insane way, too, going from about 5 x 1.5 feet to over 6 x 2.

The Wearing:

The shawl has found a new home and I only managed to wear it a handful of times, without washing. I wore it on a long-haul flight (Singapore to London) and it kept me toasty warm, despite the laciness of the pattern.

The Price:

At $22.50 a skein, it’s not cheap, but it’s not prohibitive, either. Each skein is 4oz and 700 yards, which is enough for a decent shawl. For my woodland, I used about 1 1/3 skeins and it was enormous. When you consider that my beautiful, huge shawl that’s made someone so happy cost me around $30, you can’t really go wrong.

The Conclusion:

Even though it was a bit painful to knit with, the end result made it all worthwhile. So worthwhile, in fact, that I’ve just cast on another project in another colourway and I’m considering using my winnings (a voucher for The Loopy Ewe to buy more of the gorgeous green Happy Forest colourway to recreate my woodland shawl.

Four and a half skeins out of five.

I won this gorgeous yarn last year in a competition on MaiaSpins (the blog of one of the owners of Tactile Fibre Arts), and I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

At the time, I was a non-knitter with an aesthetic interest in sock knitting I was offered fingering or sport, took the thickest, easiest to knit option, and when she said that it would be naturally dyed, I expected blah, washed out colours that would end up in the back of a drawer somewhere, never to see the sight of knitting needles.

I realised my mistake when this gorgeous skein landed on my doorstep.

The Lowdown:

The Swatch:

Using 2.5mm / US 1.5, I achieved 7.5 stitches and 10 rows to the inch.

The Knitting:

Fantastic! Sport weight makes whipping up a pair of socks a comparitive breeze and watching the colours spiral around as I knit was more than enough to keep me interested. The yarn is soft and sproingy and a pleasure to knit.

The First Wash:

No real noticable change, I washed and ironed them before I gave them away.

The Wearing:

Still gorgeous, I gave these socks to my mother for Christmas last year and they’re still looking as new. The yarn is showing no signs of wear, the colour is as vibrant as the leftovers that have never been washed and they still fit like, well, a sock.

The Price:

This pair was the magic price of $0, but other sock yarns from the Tactile website are around the $30 mark. I have some of their gorgeous merino tencel (the superwash merino sport isn’t available on the website) and it’s beautiful. I recognise that $30 is a LOT of money to pay for a skein of yarn, but for beautiful yarn, naturally dyed in such gorgeous colours, it’s absolutely worth treating yourself. That said, I’m looking for the perfect pattern for this skein, probably not socks, so that I can get the best use out of it.

I wouldn’t buy enough of this yarn to make a sweater or skirt, but a single skein is an affordable indulgence and the Tactile crew are expert posters.

The Conclusion:

This yarn is a solid performer, a great base yarn combined with the good feeling of natural dyes, all enhanced by the superior dye job of the brand’s owners. I love it and would happily knit and wear their fibres more or less all of the time, if only it were in the budget.

Five skeins out of five.

As I tried to find yarn for the DIC Shrug for the Melbourne Cup KAL over on Over the Fence.

In the end, I settled on some Araucania Nature Wool instead, it’s devine.

We’ve returned from our epic overseas jaunt (and smaller road trip to buy quad bikes and hang out with some of our favourite Aussie fibrous friends and artisans) to a house full of boxes to unpack and find homes for, an unregistered motorbike, no internet and only a single pair of socks to show for all of those flights and knitting time.

Some good news, though, in our travels we managed to visit a few nice local yarn stores and buy some lovely bits of souvenir yarns, and we had record traffic here on the Spiraling Review, thanks to some lovely links.

The trip was fantastic, our cousin’s Scottish wedding was as outrageous as could be expected, Birthdays were celebrated, favourite bands were seen, knitted gifts were given and (hopefully) appreciated and, importantly, delicious knits were worn.

Exciting things are afoot here at Casa Spiraling, with a line up of reviews and patterns awaiting the publish button.

Thanks for visiting and for your comments and emails.

J&A Spiraling

A while back, we bought a cheap Ashford Traditional. We have a few wheels and it was never really intended for much spinning, but it was a good price, you know how it goes.

When we got her home, we realised that the Traddy just isn’t for us, not in a house full of beautiful artisan wheels, so we set about turning her into something we could use.

Let me just say straight off that Ashford Traditionals are built to last. We really had to put some muscle (and some heavy tools)  into pulling it apart.

Once we broke the back of the beast, we extended the wheel axle enough to pass the front leg, then constructed and added a simple skein winder, with dowels and holes set at different diameters.

Now, it’s very easy to treddle up a skein that’s super simple to measure, just count the revolutions and multiply by a metre.

When I knit socks toe up, I use a sewn bind off, but that’s a bit clunky for shawls and wraps, I never seem to be able to estimate how much yarn I will use and end up cutting it too short of too long.

My favourite bind off for larger items that need a stretchy, loose bind off is the Russian Bind Off, illustrated below.

It’s stretchy, loose, easy to remember and execute.

Highly recommended.

Five skeins out of five

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m a sucker for indie sock yarns, I CAN NOT GET ENOUGH of them. I actually have around two hundred pairs of socks in waiting (ie. skeins of sock yarn) sitting in my not-stash, being regularly fondled, but there’s definitely a place for the commercials.

I’m unashamed to admit that I have a whole 55l plastic crate dedicated to commercials, from our beloved Patonyle to Online Supersocke, Opal and plenty of Regia.

The Regia Color 4-Ply is a thin fingering, I got 17 wraps per inch, compared (again) with 16 for STR Lightweight and Shibui Knits Sock, 13 for STR Silkie.

The Low Down:

The Swatch:

Using 2.25mm / US size 1needles, I achieved 10 stitches and 13 rows to the inch.

The Knitting:

It’s not the softest to the hand, but it’s comfortable to knit with. Stitch definition is wonderful.

The First Wash:

Yarn didn’t obviously soften or change in any way. Stitch definition is still excellent.

The Wearing:

Absolutely no complaints, after several hand washings and wearing in shoes, there is no noticable wear.

The Price:

I can’t argue with the price. I have sock yarns that have cost me in excess of $30 for a pair’s worth but you can generally pick up Regia yarns for around the $10 a skein mark, cheaper if you catch them on sale.

The Conclusion:

This is a solid, no frills yarn. It may not have the prestige or flat-out yumminess of some other yarns out there, but it’s good value.

Highly recommended for patterns where too much exciting colour will obscure the lace or for gift socks where you’re not sure the recipient will hand-wash, great for use with a CSM.

Four skeins out of five.

STR Silkie, available from Blue Moon Fibre Arts, is a 3 ply, fingering weight yarn, with one of the threads made up of a blend of superwash merino and bombyx silk.

It’s not a huge amount of silk. Let’s be honest, at 19% it doesn’t have the same luxurious cachet as a high percentage silk yarn, but it’s surprisingly soft and delicious. The silk takes dye differently to the superwash only plies, it’s far less saturated, giving a nice heathered effect that I believe goes a long way towards counteracting the horrid pooling that STR is known for.

I purchased my skein in Jade, which has a few shades but is a more tonal colourway than most of the STR stable, which will also help with pooling. My pattern, Zara, made up of a broken rib, also helped to break up the colour runs.

I wear a size 7 shoe and like my socks with a short cuff and had 42g / 1.5oz left over from my pair, which is more than enough for a child’s pair. The yardage, at 329m / 360yd, is a little on the short side, but the yarn is thicker than most fingering yarns in my stash, I got 13 wpi for the silkie, making it closer to a sport weight, compared to 16 for the STR Lighweight and ShiBui Sock and 17 for Regia Color 4ply.

The Low Down:

The Swatch:

On 2.25mm, US size 1 needles, I got a comfortable 9 stitches and 13 rows to the inch.

The Knitting:

People have reported splitting issues and irritations with this yarn. I knit these magic loop on a single knit picks circular needle and I didn’t have any trouble at all, it was actually a pleasure to knit with, soft on the hands and easy on the needles.

The First Wash:

Upon washing (hand washed in cold water with a wool wash and dried flat out of the sun) the yarn immediately bloomed and took on a very slight halo. It doesn’t negate from the look of the socks at all.

The Wearing:

They’ve worn really well, with very little pilling, fading, shrinking or stretching.

Reports on Ravelry indicate that the fabric has a tendancy to shrink and full, but with gentle washing and, admittedly, gentle wearing, I haven’t had any problems in the weeks since they were completed.

The Price:

At $24 for a 100g / 3.5oz skein, it’s at the upper end of the mass-produced indie sock yarns (is that a juxtaposition or what?) and I probably wouldn’t have bought it if I hadn’t been involved in a group order over on the Aus Knitters group on Ravelry.

However, once I started knitting with it, and even more so once I saw and wore the finish product, I really think that this one is well and truely worth the money.

The Conclusion:

I pulled out a few other hand knit socks while I was researching this review, including the same pattern in a few yarns and it has just further convinced me that this yarn is worth spending my money on.

It’s soft, easy to knit, the colour is gorgeous and it’s a nice treat to knit something as commonplace as socks with a beautiful yarn that has a touch of silk in.

Four and a half skeins out of five.