baby it's cold outside

Yak in Brioche stitch. Yak and Merino actually that looks just like oatmeal and feels like I don't know what - something nice and soft. It grew a lot after I washed it. This is before:



And after:



Prime Rib Watchcap by Elizabeth Zimmermann from Knitting Without Tears
Karabella Superyak - 50% Yak, 50% Merino in Oatmeal (I mean color #10150)
1 skein plus a little bit
Size 8 Addi Turbos
Took a couple of days - I really can't remember when I started or finished it actually. Sometime this week (yeah, this was a pretty crazy week).

This is really great yarn. It's very soft and knits up quite nicely. The lady at the yarn store here in Tampa knows how much I love cashmere, so she suggested I use the Superyak for some hats I wanted to make for my dad and brother. It is soft like cashmere, but it feels a bit tougher, and it's not as fuzzy (even though that top picture looks pretty fuzzy). I also like it for the men's hats because it has a manly look to it, but it's soft as butter and not at all itchy. It is supposed to be bulky weight and the sleeve says to use size 10. 5 needles. Elizabeth Zimmerman says to get the bulkiest yarn and fattest needles you can find to make the prime rib watchcap, so I thought this would be good. With size 10.5 needles the stitches were super loose and it was quite horrible. I went down to size 8 and it worked out well. I think size 10.5 needles would work well for stockinette stitch, or for something drapy like a scarf, but not for a hat. I wouldn't mind a sweater jacket out of this stuff, but it would be expensive. I'll stick to the hats for now.

This hat was knit flat on 60 stitches, but besides that I followed the directions. The prime rib stitch (also called brioche) is a nice open rib, and is more fun to make than regular ribbing. I could have gotten away with using only one skein, but I didn't know that it would grow so much after washing. I know that's why you're supposed to wash your swatches, but I always just rip them out and use that yarn to start knitting.

This one is for my dad, and I have some black Superyak for my brother. I'm still looking for a pattern to use for his hat and my hat. I was thinking of Odessa for me, or a modified version of it somehow. I still have no good ideas for my brother, besides a plain old hat in the round. I have some time to figure it out.

One more thing about the yarn - it comes in these weird hanks that don't fit on the swift. I had to hold it on my arm while I wound it, and made a little bit of a mess with the second go. I don't really understand why they make it this way, but at least it's not lace weight!