Day One: A Tale of Two Yarns

My favourite yarn at the moment is Caron Simply Soft and I am loving it!!! I was given 2 skeins of it when a friend emigrated so am knitting it up into this Oblique cardigan for myself, although I am waiting on a couple more skeins from the US to finish it off.... I cannot say just how much I love it. It is sooooo soft and unlike any Acrylic yarn I have knit with before, it feels so much more expensive than it is, and best of all it can be thrown in the washing machine, woo hoo!!!

 (this is an awful representation of the colour, it is actually Light Country BLue)
A very close runner up for favourite is this.....

It is a Love Yarn Alpaca/Merino/Nylon blend sock yarn from my LYS http://www.loveyarn.com/ and I used it to make a friend some fingerless gloves for her bithday. I loved it so much that I just had to make the stole for myself from this pattern in an amazing Japanese Crochet book..... swoon...

At the other extreme my most despised yarn is Paton's Smoothie. I have knit simple garter stitch scarves for friends children in this and it was fine until I tried something more intricate. Alf wanted a blanket so I started this Hemlock Ring Blanket for him in the Smoothie because it is really lovely and soft.... big mistake. It splits. A lot. And it makes my hands hurt. So this sits at the bottom of my knitting bag for when I need a change from what I am working on but I am really not enjoying it at all. I won't give in though..... mainly because I won't want to knit it into anything else an am quite far along this now!!