Oh, crocheting makes so portable little projects. I’ve almost forgot the delight of this craft. This particular project has zero creativity in it – I copied the idea and the yarn choice directly from
Windloop. But I absolutely love the idea and these particular shades of Kureyon, they actually don’t look good on the yarn ball (sweet pastels interrupted with some dirty gray and muted brick), but the self striping quality of Kureyon and this pattern are simply made to each other. The beauty of this garment reminds me the Rivendell set of Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Some more stuff from Japan… …this lovely olivey shade of Araucania Ranco looks pretty nice knitted up with this clever japanese lace rib pattern.

I’m having a new Twinkle fever cycle. Twinkle’s Town & Country Knits is published tomorrow, and I’ve pre-ordered it. And I have found three very promising candidates for subbing Twinkle Soft Chunky – a lovely yarn, but not available in Europe. The tried and tested one is Katia Nordic, a Spanish yarn, I’d be very happy to find some European on-line shops selling this. At least I can get it from Tallinn. And then there will be Garnstudio Polaris. I haven’t even seen this yet, but I know Eskimo very well and love it. So this should be good stuff. My latest discovery was Gedifra Highland Alpaca – and this yarn is available in Helsinki, at Fiina Neule and widely in Europe.

Highland Alpaca and Soft Chunky are almost identical weight: Soft Chunky 200g 83m, Highland Alpaca 100g 41m. And they look same – but Gedifra has additional luxury bonus factor from that generous alpaca content (50%)! I like Gedifra colourwork in general and fortunately this yarn, too, has many beautiful shades. I really like that subtle grayish tint of this ecru shade, I would describe this yarn “bone white”.

More yarn shopping from Fiina Neule, I happened to pick up these two amazingly soft balls of Zitron Nimbus organic wool – and could not leave them behind…

That blue Soft Chunky (shade Haze) seen on that comparison picture I ordered for Urchin Beret: the fastest knit on the earth. I casted on one evening, went to sleep and finished the beret in the morning while drinking my breakfast cup of coffee. Now I have some lelftover yarn to really compare to those subs…

Oops, sorry ’bout that picture, this time there were no good shoots…

This one I blame about my messed up schedule… …the pattern will be out soon. Can you guess what it is?