Thursday, May 6, 2010

Hello Kitty Shorties

I think these turned out really cute. The colors are beautiful, there's very little pooling, and the design was easy and very cute, if I do say so myself :). However, I have decided that although I see the merits of Cestari Superfine as a soaker yarn, I don't like knitting with it. It's very soft and squishy and thick, which makes for a very good soaker, but instead of being springy and slightly stretchy like most wool yarn, it's very stiff like cotton and very tiring to knit with. Plus, it has LOTS of little twigs and grass and (shudder) brown bits that could only be leftover bits of dingleberries! This is no reflection at all on the dyer, Lollytree Yarns, which are beautifully dyed, and I wouldn't have been able to finish this one without some extra help from the dyer (she sent me some white cestari superfine to make the Hello Kitty face) and I LOVE HER!, but I do not like this yarn. This is the second one I've made and I had my doubts with the first one, but it turned out so cute and I figured the twigs had to be an aberration. Why would people be so crazy about such a poor quality item? But it was not an aberration, and yeah... I would recommend something else. My new mission (or maybe just my continued mission) is to convert the world to alpaca. I love alpaca. Especially when it's blended with wool. Then it has the luxury of super soft, lustrous alpaca, and springy, stretchy, lovely wool. Maybe I can get the Lollytree Yarn girl to dye me some alpaca and convert her! Maybe that's what I'll have to do :).

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Ive been waiting for these to get done!! They turned out sooo cute!!

lollytreeyarn said...

LOL, this made me giggle. Yes cestari is very twiggy. When I wind it sometimes I am afraid I am going to get a splinter. I will have to try Alpaca. Right now I just picked up Mountain Meadow which everyone seems to really love. I love Bulky gaia, it is my favorite, so soft and thick.
I am not sure how much cestari I will use if I love the Mountain Meadow.

Marmalade Baby said...

I love the gaia too! It's so nice and soft! I understand the attraction to cestari, it doesn't pill easily but there are so many better options out there! Have you ever heard of Peace Fleece? That's a really nice one too. A little twiggy, but not like the cestari. It seems to have some of the non-pilling properties of cestari.