During the June holidays, Aina cleaned up her wardrobe and took out all the clothes that doesn’t fit her anymore. She’s been on a growth spurt lately, so she grew out of most of her clothes… including the Flower Cardigan I made her a few years ago. So, it’s time to knit her a new cardigan.
After browsing Ravelry, Aina chose the Hylan Sweater from The Velvet Acorn. So far, it doesn’t look intimidating. Although I have to watch out and not get lazy and try to work faster. The Flower Cardigan took 7 months for me to complete!
So, I bought a similar looking yarn, called Malabrigo Arroyo from Wish I Were Stitching. I think this yarn is actually not chunky enough for the pattern, but Singapore doesn’t have that much yarn choice, so I gave it a go.
The yarn came in hanks… This was the first time I bought yarn in a hank, so it was also the first time I tried to wind a yarn into a ball. Aina ended up getting addicted to winding a ball of yarn. After winding one of the Malabrigos, she started to look into my stash, looking for yarns to wind…
For this project, I finally caved in and bought my dream needle set: the Clover Takumi Combo Set. I didn’t buy it from Wish I Were Stitching, but I can’t recommend the store where I bought it, because the service was pretty bad.
Anyway, the set came with:
- 12 needles: US size 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10.5, 11, 13 and 15,
- 5 cords: 41cm, 61cm, 74cm, 90cm, and 120cm.
And they are all interchangeable.
I prefer knitting with bamboo needles, and I don’t really like metal needles (too slippery for me). And I have always liked the Takumi line from Clover… The tip is smooth so it’s easy to slip the stitch, but not too slippery. The joins are very smooth… I think even smoother than their fixed needles!
I’m soooo happy with the purchase. It’s a bit pricey, but now that I have it, I think it’s totally worth it. Oh, if you want to read a more thorough review, the Sweater Freak wrote a very good one here!
