Semi-Solid Review & Free Pattern

Did you get your Knitter's Review newsletter this week? Clara Parkes reviews semi-solid yarns and even provides a fabulous free pattern for semi-solids! In her words:

Colorful hand-dyed yarns are fabulous to look at on the skein, but sometimes they can be a little tricky to knit. The more striking the color combinations, the more they tend to obscure any stitch patterning you wanted to use. Lace, ribbing, openwork, it all gets hidden behind the swirling flashes of color.

Oh yes, just what I was thinking too but of course Clara puts it in much better words than I do...LOL Make sure to check out the free pattern though - it's a fabulous one for showing off semi-solid colourways and the yarn I've found will also give that fabulous resulting knit the articles speaks of with it's twist and nylon content - a combo of strength and beauty - can't beat that!

Is September here yet? I can't wait to get started...LOL

September's Yarn Sample

Oh so yummy and I've chosen it already! It's a brand new yarn base for me and it's a fabulous fingering weight 3-ply 80% superwash merino with 20% nylon. It dyes up beautifully, has a fabulous twist and should have a nice hand to it too! A lot of intricate sock patterns call for fingering weight so I thought this perfect to start us off for semi-solids...

I include a wee sample of it which I dyed in complimentary colours and just in case you were wondering, NO, that's not the colours you'll be getting...LOL!

Have a nice weekend everyone!

Green?

As we add on more members (welcome!) the poll is down to one colour - GREEN! LOL I'm quite sure that everyone wasn't expecting a variation of green for 3 months so I think I'll close the poll and go with my original idea of a hybrid colour. It's quite clear that black/brown/yellow/orange are just not preferred so I won't be touching these colours or any variations of them as I hadn't really planned on them anyway.

I really appreciate everyone's feedback and I hope I can come up with something pleasing for everyone - stay tuned!

Let's Talk About Colours

Now that people have started voting on the colours poll and there's 3 colours that currently aren't on the "chopping block", it got me to thinking...maybe the poll is a little too simplified.

For instance, when you say you don't like red - what does that mean? There are a lot of variations in red and to conclude that it's all ranges of the red family is a little too simplified for me to do - am I to assume you hate brick red and fire engine red the same? Some of the colours are "no-brainers" like black and brown - not too many variations in those two colours but for the other colours like yellow, orange, red, pink, burgundy - is it all ranges of these colours that people don't like? If we end up with 3 colours by the deadline that'll make it simple for me but I just wanted some feedback on your choices...can you elaborate for me in the comments?

To be honest, I was surprised to see some of the colours chosen - like red or burgundy or even pink - I thought those colours were well-liked...but maybe it's just certain versions of these colours you don't like.

Would love to hear from you!

Colours Poll

Please vote in the following poll to let me know what colours you absolutely don't want to see - if a colour is not listed, please choose "Other". If you are fine with all colours, please just leave a comment saying you are fine with any colour. I am hoping by gaging some feedback it will help us to avoid the biggest drawback of being in a sock club - receiving yarn you'd never use and absolutely don't like. This will help me to avoid those colours that people really don't want.

UPDATE 8/17/07: poll closed since we're down to only one colour already!

Welcome New Members!

So pleased you are here! I am excited to be creating semi-solids for everyone! To give you a bit of background as to how the idea came to life - I had a contest on my regular blog and the winner chose a semi-solid colour which got me to thinking that it'd be fun to have a club to offer these types of yarns. Solids are great but the wee variation in colour of semi-solids just makes that little bit of difference that can make a pattern sing. I hope you'll join in and have some fun and first thing I'll be asking everyone is what colours they absolutely hate so I don't end up sending out colours that nobody wants.

Again, welcome and thanks for joining - you can find a club button in the sidebar to save and upload to your blogs!

3-Month Memberships

Are now available through Etsy and through ZenYarnGarden.com. Hope you'll join us - I'm looking forward to creating semi-solid colourways for everyone!

Welcome!

We are about to launch our new sock yarn club offering semi-solid colourways for those wonderfully intricate sock patterns that beg for a colourway that's not too busy and has just enough colour variation to work harmoniously with the pattern stitches to make them pop!
More details will be available at ZenYarnGarden.com - stay tuned!