Desert Island Yarn*

It's always good to lead with a picture - it peaks the interest, right? Here are some of my top candidates for Desert Island Yarn:

The Animal:

Clockwise, starting at top left: Heather green Classic Elite Inca Alpaca, Electric blue K1C2 Douceur et Soie, Lavendar Jaeger Extrafine Merino DK, Fuchsia Rowan Kidsilk Haze, Raspberry Jaeger Extrafine Merino DK, and Tangerine Anny Blatt Fine Kid.

The Vegetable (and One Stray Variegated Merino):

Clockwise, starting at top left: Chartruese Tahki Cotton Classic, Olive and Navy Variegated Artyarns Supermerino, China Blue Tahki Cotton Classic, White Rowan All Season's Cotton, and Variegated Blue and ChartrueseTahki Tweedy Cotton Classic.

Here's how you play the Desert Island Yarn Game:

First, you must create categories from the yarn you currently have in your stash (or, if you have some restraint, would like to have - ha!) and that you would be likely to have with you if you were stranded on a Desert Island. Your categories may vary from mine. For instance, I'm not a big novelty yarn girl, so I have one big category that I label "Novelty". You may need to subdivide into "Eyelash" and "Fun Fur". (If so, I hope we end up on different islands. No offense. I'd just rather be stranded with a wool girl.) Here are my categories:

Alpaca
Cashmere blends
Merino
Rare blends (camel, quiviut, etc.)
Wool
Mohair blends
Cotton
Tencel blends
Linen
Silk blends
Novelty
Variegateds

My categories are predominantly by fiber, but yours may be organized in another way. I can imagine categories like sock yarn, lace weight, or felting yarn, for instance. Personally, if I could only have one weight of yarn on my island, it would likely be a DK or a worsted. Given a little more flexibility, I would add in sport weight or fingering for interest.

Once you've gotten the categories in place, choose the ones you feel you cannot go without. This should be a small number. Mine is six. Aim for five, but if you really have to, you can have seven categories. If you go up to eight you have to be honest with yourself. You're really not ready for Desert Island living, are you? Check yourself into a spa and knit with whatever you want for a week or so to get it out of your system and then try again.

Remember to take some thought. These may or may not be your favorite categories, but they are the ones you would really need to do a full array of seasonal knitting. (Or maybe not - maybe your Desert Island is in the tundra - it can happen - DC seems to have broken off from the Mid-Atlantic and floated substantially northward.) Categories may be yarn-driven as well. If you have a single yarn in a category that you can't live without, it may push the category to Desert Island status. Choose wisely.

My final, adjusted categories are:

Alpaca (favorite)
Merino (next favorite)
Cotton-worsted (Yarn-driven and also practical)
Cotton-sport (Yarn-driven)
Mohair blends (Mostly for the effect)
Merino Variegated (Yarn-driven)

Now, within each category, you must choose no more than five different yarns that you feel are your absolute favorites to work with - either for the great feeling you get from the process or from the effects they produce. Mine before further subdivision were:

Alpaca - Classic Elite Inca Alpaca, Cascade Lana D'Oro, and Blue Sky Alpaca's 100% Alpaca

Merino - Jaeger Extrafine Merino DK, Artyarns Supermerino (hence the subcategory), KPPPM

Cotton - Rowan ASC, Tahki Cotton Classic and Tweedy Cotton Classic (another subcategory), Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece, Rowan Cotton Glace.

Mohair - K1C2 Doucuer et Soie, Rowan Kidsilk Haze, Anny Blatt Fine Kid, GGH Kid Soft

Finally, you must choose only one yarn in each category that you would have to have on your Desert Island. This is tough, and you may have to subdivide categories to do it. Just remember - aim for five, no more than seven. (If you can get by on four, I'll be really impressed.)

My final choices are:

Classic Elite Inca Alpaca (Alpaca) - I love the beautiful heathered colors and soft feel of this yarn. It's timeless. I knit with it ten years ago and I return to it still.

Jaeger Extrafine Merino DK (Merino) - Surprisingly, I have been to only one yarn shop that carries this yarn (Skein in Pasadena). It gets overlooked because it's a basic, and generally shop owners choose a basic from another line - Karabella Aurora 8 or something Cashmerino by Debbie Bliss (not really a substitute in my humble opinion) in most cases - I'm here to tell you for a 100% merino this stuff cannot be beat for feel and beauty. I'll order EFMDK rather than get a quick fix from somewhere else. It's definitely my standard for merino.

Rowan All Season's Cotton (Cotton - Worsted) - It took me a long time to realize that this was a Desert Island Yarn, becasue in many ways it's a plain jane, but as I've been working on Asana (which is turning out beautifully) I've recognized that ASC's amazing qualities cannot be overlooked any longer. It has gorgeous stitch definition without highlighting flaws (a rare combo), and it feels like butta' next to your skin. Although the colors tend to be a bit muted, there's a good range. It's machine washable as well, and you know how I feel about that.

Tahki Cotton Classic (Cotton - Sport) - This is just a great yarn. It has an amazing range of uses - knit it tight and you can create sculptural pieces with a lot of structural integrity, knit it at a normal guage and achieve a lovely draping fabric. It's excellently priced as well, at $4-$5 a skein. Cotton Fleece is extremely similar (and has great yardage at 215 yards/skein), but with a huge selection of rich colors (I believe it's around 140 - more if you count the Tweedy Cotton Classic) Tahki gains the edge.

K1C2's Douceur et Soie (Mohair blend) - Despite the fact that I look like an ass every time I try to pronounce it, I love this yarn. Right up front I will tell you that the only difference betwee DES and Rowan's Kidsilk Haze is color palette and the loose fluffy way that K1C2 winds their mohair. The fiber content and guage of these two yarns is otherwise exactly the same. Still, DES wins for color. It could be unseated by a recent acquisition pictured above - the Anny Blatt Fine Kid - which is a mohair/wool combo rather than mohair/silk, but despite the obvious draw of that gorgeous tangerine color I can't quite see DES getting beat out. It's hard to top the sheen of the silk. This mohair blend gives you a wonderful mix of warnth, shine and airy femininity that you just can't find elsewhere.

Artyarns Supermerino (Variegated Merino) - This is a new yarn on my list, as the Chevron Scarf was the first thing I made with it. It's such a lovely merino that I just can't resist it. And for a variagated yarn (not a big category for me) it's impressive. No pooling, puddling, flashing, zipping - whatever - that you usually get out of those deceptively pretty yarns. Once again, folks, machine washable. Oooh. Aaah.

Your turn! (If you play on your own site rather than in the comments, please post a link for me. I'd love to know what the favorite sock yarns, lace weights, etc. are out there.)

* I try to be conservative with this term in the "Impressions" section of my pattern notes, however, I do use it to describe the top yarn from a category that I may or may not have on my Desert Island. Berroco Suede, for instance, is a really close Desert Island call. It's so good that I might be tempted to take a "Novelty" to my own personal DI.

Posted by Julia at January 30, 2005 07:30 AM
In main | ruminations on knitting/yarn

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