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The BEST circulars
I have bought Addi circulars for 30 years or more, and they are the only circulars I have that have never-fail perfect, no-catch joins of needles with cables. I have switched to Rockets because they have needle tips that are more sharply pointed than are the original Addi tips.
8 found this review helpful
Not just for socks!
This colorway is for socks to go with a sweater that I knitted of Tosh Pashmina, but I have knitted sweaters with Tosh Sock Yarn in other colorways. They are delightfully soft with no hint of stiffness despite the yarn's tight twist, and they hold up well without the almost-instant pilling that is characteristic of so many merino yarns. Monochrome shadings are beautiful, and I seldom see any pooling. This yarn is great for socks, too, but I wouldn't use it for socks that get frequent wear unless I'm willing to add a strand of nylon yarn to heels and toes.
69 found this review helpful
Great all-purpose needles
I now consider these my favorite needles. Black ends feel warm against hands and stitches slide well whether yarn is slippery or grabby. Tips are neither too blunt nor too pointed for knitting any stitch patterns. Cable joins are smooth. I still like and use my large collection of Addi Turbos, but when I order new needles I order these.
20 found this review helpful
Exquisite yarn
I ordered Pashmina in Virgo, and I wound a cake and started knitting a swatch immediately after opening the package. After a soak in Eucalan suds, I dried the swatch flat without blocking. I was amazed to find that stitch and row counts were identical with those of the swatch right off the needles. The yarn is a very tightly twisted three-ply that is a delight to knit. There is no splitting, so I can knit without looking. Despite the yarn's tight twist, it produces the incredible softness and fluid drape for which Tosh is known. The swatch-in-the-bra passes the no-itch test with flying colors. The gradated monochrome produces a lovely result with excellent stitch definition. I am knitting a sweater in stockinet stitch with cables.
102 found this review helpful
Great fingering weight for shawls
I selected this yarn in Huron and Sage to knit the Downton Abbey KAL Mystery Shawl in January/February 2015. The yarn is soft and knits easily without splitting, and I found only one felted join in two 100 Gm. skeins of yarn. Because a shawl is not knit to fit a specific size, the fact that this is a superwash merino and thus can be expected to stretch when washed and blocked is not a deterrent for me. I liked the yarn and the shawl design so much from the start that I ordered two more skeins in colorways Christmas at Downton and Douglas Fir to knit another shawl. As always, the superb assistance by JBW customer service angels helped me with color decisions.
72 found this review helpful
Great yarn for one-skein projects, with caution
A few months ago, I ordered two of the limited edition Tosh DK Tea Cakes, in Red Velvet Rooibos and Chai Spice. The latter was a nice brown mix with plenty of value contrast. I was tempted to return the Red Velvet Rooibos mix because I didn't like the reds together and there was minimal value contrast. However, I could separate the tea cakes into four each of red-reds, pink-reds, and orange-reds, add a unifying neutral main color, and knit three hats. I finally settled on Black Tie Affair as an alternative, which turned out to be a mainly gray mix - much lighter than I expected but OK. I like all three of the resulting three hats. All of that said: I love this yarn. It is thicker than most DKs, more a light worsted that would be absolutely perfect for sweaters IF it weren't for the variability of dyeing. It is spun with a light twist so is subject to splitting, but I didn't find that to be a major problem. The major problem with this yarn, beyond its limited use for one-skein projects, is the fact that it is a superwash yarn. I cannot imagine paying its price to make an item that won't be hand-washed, but it is getting difficult to find merino yarn that has not been treated to make it machine washable. As we all know, or should know by now, the superwash treatment increases a tendency for the yarn to lose its elasticity. This occurs over time, so an accurate gauge is impossible to get without repeated manipulation/washing of a swatch. I have learned from experience that using needles two or three sizes smaller than directed for a garment size will produce a garment that is much too small and stiff before it is washed and blocked but will relax, soften, and grow to the size desired, but it's still a crap shoot that isn't a risk with wool that must be swatched for gauge and hand-washed. Despite the limitations and caution, I rated this yarn five stars because of its marvelous texture and depth of colors.
27 found this review helpful
Sport yarn? I don't think so.
If this were described as fingering weight yarn, I would rate it four stars. This is a soft-textured merino yarn, but I found that I needed to use a #3 needle to get an acceptable stockinette swatch, so I had to use a pattern that requires fingering weight yarn rather than the sport weight I wanted. The yarn is not evenly spun there are several thicker areas encountered frequently. Thus, this is not a yarn I can recommend. I am not onmyneedles, and I have not reviewed this yarn previously.
10 found this review helpful
What is happening at Koigu?
I ordered this yarn because I wanted to knit socks to match one of the colors I had used for a sweater knit of three different Koigu colors. I was aware that it would be a different dye lot than the one I had used for the sweater, but I expected a close-enough match. Wrong! The yarn I received is much lighter in color and has a great deal of white undyed wool in it. I kept it because I can use it for another project, and I found on ebay the same color number but different dye lot that is a close-enough match for the socks. Koigu buyers need to be prepared for unpleasant surprises. I have used Koigu KPPPM and KPM yarns for more than 10 years and have loved it, but I wonder if its popularity has resulted in compromises with quality of both base yarn and dyeing - but most notably with dyeing. Very sad. Base yarn is thinner than it was in the beginning, and a 50 gram hank tends to weigh 47 or 48 grams.
30 found this review helpful