I found out about Knitcrate when I was at my brother’s birthday lunch. His friend, Ben, is into crafty stuff like quilting and knitting, so he mentioned it when mum told him I did crochet. Knitcrate sends subscribers a package of yarn every month (or every 2 months, depending on the subscription), and things like starter kits which come with a pattern and the needles needed. Because I would be doing crochet rather than knitting I went for the 10 mini skeins every month, rather than one of the kits. I got my first one not too long ago, so I wanted to talk about it!
It came in a pretty red padded envelope, all the way from America! It came with 10 mini skeins of sock yarn, hand dyed in some pretty colours. It’s from Drew Emborsky’s Gemstone range, which is 90% merino and 10% nylon, and it so ridiculously soft – I couldn’t stop touching them during the day. I don’t have the Diamond, Amethyst or Onyx colourways, but the other ten were the in the pack sent to me, and there is a good mix of colours. Pearl and Opal are a bit boring because they have much more subtle variations in the colours than the others (I can’t even really see the variation in Pearl, it just looks cream to me) but they will probably be a good way to break up the other brighter colours.
I’m planning on using this pattern to make a blanket, but seeing the pattern is written using thicker yarn it means, the hexagons I make will be smaller and I’ll need more of them. Sigh. It will be a good way to use the yarn I get from the different Knitcrates I get each month , though. Plus it looks pretty, and I haven’t done anything with a lot of grey in it like this, so it will be a nice change from ripples and granny stripes! Now I have the challenge of finding the right grey at my local yarn store; I went last week but didn’t have the mini skeins with me to compare the different greys. There were some that I liked but they were bulkier than I wanted, which made it even more frustrating. I guess I’ll have to try again after work on Thursday and ask the person working there for some help.