Tuesday, 19 January 2010

NZ Yarn Sampler

Look what was waiting for me when we got back from the beach today:


The long awaited New Zealand Yarn Sampler Box from Blendy. I felt like a kid in a candy store. All these gorgeous, colourful goodies!


I was really happy to see some gorgeous yarns in there. The one I was especially happy about was the Southern Alpacas yarn sample.


I've never knitted with Alpaca before even though you see these animals all over New Zealand now. The yarn is very soft and beautiful, a bit similar to a soft merino wool. I love the bright sunny colours!

Another sample I was very happy to see in the box was a Bamboo Merino Sock blend from Grrrl Shaped Yarns.


This beautiful sea-blue colourway is called Marina and is exclusive for this Sampler Box.

Something I've never seen before is this yarn sample from Yarn Traders:


It's recycled sari silk made in India. The vibrant colours are gorgeous, but I'm not sure what you can knit from it. It seems a bit stiff and unflexible to knit. Maybe an ornament or something?

And then I got this wool sample from Touch Yarns, a blend of kid mohair and merino. Very soft and very loopy!


What I really like about this sampler box is that it's full of beautiful goodies from New Zealand businesses. Most of my hand dyed yarns I get from the States or the UK. Which seems paradox really, knowing that New Zealand is THE land of sheep and wool. But it's not that easy finding our own kiwi dyers. And that's why I really love this sampler box. Now I've got new places to check out and yarns to try out. And I also have samples I never had before, like the Alpaca or the Sari Silk. And then there are a range of other cool goodies that I haven't even mentioned yet.

From Marshmallow Magic Designs I received a pattern and leather soles for baby booties. And two very handy crochet stitch markers (I really needed those!). Talking about stitch markers, did you notice you can never have enough of them? I've just casted on a new shawl which has used up all of my stitch markers. I had to go looking in all my stash for some lost stitch markers so that I had enough for my shawl. So I'm really happy to see two stitch markers in the sampler box from Deena Kirk. And the nice thing about these ones is that they're big enough to use on large needles too. Thank you, Deena!!!

And last but definitely not least, one I really want to mention and show is a tussah silk fibre sample from Tracy White. I love these bright, vibrant colours. And tussah silk has this beautiful sheen to it. Unfortunately I don't spin, but my mum does, so she's going to have to do this one for me.


There are lots more nice goodies and samples in the box. There are so many, I can't describe them all. And they're all gorgeous! Thanks Blendy for organising this sample box!

1 comment:

  1. Awesome review, thanks so much! I'm really glad you like the box so much :)

    ReplyDelete