Plymouth Cairo De Luxe

Plymouth Yarns Cairo De Luxe
Weight: DK

100 yards (91 meters) / 50 grams (1.76 ounces)
Gauge: 22.0 = 4 inches
Needle size: US 6 / 4.0 mm
77% Cotton, 23% Viscose Rayon (plied cotton twisted with a rayon ply)

Came in a lot of colors besides black: white, beige, burgundy, red, purple, mint, blue...

Discontinued ~2001?

Odd stuff. I bought 20 skeins thinking I'd make a "deluxe" black cardigan from it. But knitting it I decided the texture wasn't very luxurious at all, my swatches all came out a bit rough and stiff. Even the lace swatch. However I will give it one more try.

Lion Brand Al-Pa-Ka

From the Lion Brand web site:
Our luxurious blend of 30% wool, 30% alpaca, and 40% acrylic is warm and hand washable. It wears well and looks great year after year. Whatever you create, Al•Pa•Ka makes it even more special.

4-ply worsted weight.1.75 oz./50g (107 yd./98m) balls.
30% wool, 30% alpaca, and 40% acrylic.
Gauge: Knit: 16 St sts + 23 rows = 4" (10 cm) on size 8 (5mm) needles.
Crochet: 13 sc + 16 rows = 4" (10 cm) on size I hook.
Made in Turkey.
Fabric Care Instructions: Hand wash in in cool or warm water; dry flat and not by machine. Do not bleach or iron.



Whew, that Lion link is looking a bit wonky, so I decided to just copy all the remaining info about this yarn. It's sort of sad that a nice chunky worsted alpaca blend was discontinued just as alpaca yarns became really hot and popular, but c'est la fibre. Gosh I hope the silly spelling didn't have anything to do with it...not with those cute cute alpacas also on the label!

I once was forced to knit a 100% alpaca sweater, in black, in sport weight, as a design sample. The memory of all...that...hot...warm...fuzzy...unyielding yarn has stayed with me. I also don't need anything that warm. But when I came across heavily discounted packages of Lion Brand AlPaKa at my fave local yarn sale about hm seven or eight years ago, I fell in love. It's soft, cuddly, just slightly fuzzy, with a slight sheen and nice strong ply.

I bought lots of Mink Brown and have been steadily working away at a gigantic cabled hoodie; this particular item will be blogged about if and when I finish it, because the triple-intersect cable design is extremely mind-boggling and is worth noting. It nearly reduced me to tears on the first row. My fear right now is that having put it aside for about 2 years, wanting lighter-weight projects, is that I'll be unable to remember the trick to it. Even in such dark fuzzy yarn, the cables are crisp and well worth the effort.

The package of 10 creamy white balls became the shawl excerpted below:

I love love love this shawl. It's warm and cuddly on chilly winter nights and mornings as I sit toiling away at my computer in my big-windowed living room. The leaf pattern came from a knitting stitch encyclopedia. EZ knitting on nice fat needles. Beautiful stitch definition.

The package of black yarn is nearly a jacket now, combined with Noro Silk Garden in mosaic panels, using a really striking pattern from Knitter's mag from way back then. I lucked out, having found the Noro yarn 1/2 price at a different Local Yarn Store; it seemed extremely logical to combine it with the luxurious alpaca blend that just happened to be the same gauge and lent the slightly scratchy Silk Garden yarn some softness and suppleness it lacks alone. Only five years later, that too is nearly done! Every summer I swear I'll finish it for the coming fall and winter...I'm hoping that Blog Karma will operate in my favor and force a satisfying conclusion.

Non-extinct yarn musings

Been knitting, of course, lots and lots of knitting, mostly baby stuff for my twin-laden friend. I have discovered I adore using sock yarn, but I am sooo not a sock knitter. Knitting socks is...well, at the end, I've got something to wear on my feet and frankly I'm really hard on my clothes and especially on socks, tending to shove them into boots and shoes with less delicacy than perhaps some people. My nice thick warm angora-wool blend socks from the Gap collect pills like mad. Lesser socks simply go holey. And as I really prefer very lightweight socks and stockings anyway -- the days New York goes utterly sub-arctic these days can be counted on the fingers and toes of one side -- and the socks are utterly hidden by my pants legs and shoes or boots, well what's the point in knitting them?? I know lots of people walk around their house in socking feet, but with cat fur and litter a constant threat I prefer slippers. So lovely handmade socks are not for me. Besides, I really hate knitting in the round at the diameter of a sock. The needles get in each others way. The yarn gets tangled. The circular needles method is too complicated for my poor aged brain. So no. It's cheaper and easier just to buy stuff!

Sudden flashes of absolute genius

I'm sure I'll later go looking and find this advice on a dozen other knit blogs and forums, but here goes. When knitting the two fronts of a cardigan at the same time -- because not doing that is just plain lame -- and knitting the button-band and buttonholes into the front edges, do yourself a huge favor and knit a "reminder" stitch into the band where the button will be attached.

This occurred to me the old-fashioned way, i.e., I made a mistake. I knitted a buttonhole on both bands of my current project, and didn't realize it until many rows later. I decided it wasn't worth doing a tedious undo-three-stitches-crochet-upwards-after fixing thing, since I would be able to just sew the button right over the hole -- BING! In the case of this project, a lacy scrap of stuff made slinky and exciting with Classic Elite Cotton BamBoo, the button band is 5-stitch wide garter and I am now using a single centered purl stitch on the same row as the buttonhole. I will do this for the rest of my knitting life. It is SO much easier than tying in a yarn marker.

(I think I recall reading someone's clever advice -- probably Elizabeth Zimmerman's -- that when knitting a baby sweater in advance of the happy event, you should knit buttonholes on both bands and then sew the buttons over the appropriate side once the gender is known. Frankly I've lost track of what's male/female sided any more. I have jeans that zip one way and shorts that zip another. I've never been too good with gender-assigned clothing convention, other than Real Men Don't Wear Lace.)

Classic Elite Sand

Classic Elite Sand

100% cotton

77 yards (70 meters) / 50 grams (1.76 ounces)
Gauge: 16.0 = 4 inches on needle size US 8 / 5.0 mm. 8 wpi
Discontinued in 2005.

I saw several patterns using Sand in Vogue Knitting in the late 90s/early 00s, and paid them little attention as they weren't quite my style. Then I bought a huge bagful of this yarn at half-price in assorted colors. I liked the rough terrycloth texture and the bright colors, and I vaguely remembered seeing those patterns. Finding those patterns again, I'm not much inspired by slightly tailored beach-wear. And I no longer find terrycloth so endearing.

The reason I bought um six different colors of it was at that time I was mildly obsessed with intarsia and color knitting, and thought this thick dense yarn would somehow lend itself to a colorful duster or kimono-like thing with tropical designs. That remains to be seen, as I've yet to knit a single stitch aside from a tiny swatch. But knit it I shall, even if it all ends up as summer clothes for my friends' kids.

Linette yarn by Spinnerin

From Sandylion2 on Ebay:

13 skeins and a partial skein of vintage Linette yarn by Spinnerin.
The ball band states that it is 76% virgin wool and 24% Irish linen.Each skein is 1 oz. and has approximately 100 yards.The color is #129 which is a pale baby blue with white twist and nubs in it. In some places the white sticks out a little. The gauge is 6 stitches= 1 inch on #6 needles. Does say "washable color, shrink resistant -anti stretch", so it might not felt very well.

The rest of the text on the ball band says "Guarantee: Spinnerin yarn guarantees perfect results if each color used is of one dye-lot number. Be certain to purchase sufficient yarn of one dye-lot to complete your work. Return this and all other bands on any complaint, otherwise no adjustment can be made. SPINNERIN YARN CO.INC. SOUTH HACKENSACK N.J. / very important: If necessary change the needle size to maintain the correct gauge" (good advice don't you think ???)

This yarn intrigues me. I had no idea linen/wool blends were a vintage item. I'm fond of linen blends myself, they're light to knit and easy to wash and can go either dressy or casual. The baby blue color on this batch says "60s - 70s" to me, but I'm just guessing. (Really reminds me of that pale blue eyeshadow I bought as a pre-teen...)

I'm still researching when Spinnerin folded, and what other yarns they offered. They had a lot of pattern books which have survived, some were printed in the 1980s.

Thank you Sandylion2, for your permission and enthusiasm!

Botany No-Dye-Lot Yarns 100% Virgin Wool

From Sandrajoi on eBay:

This listing is for 3 skeins of lovely lightweight 3-ply wool yarn from Botany. This is an estate sale find and I believe it to be quite old, though I'm not positive. This is labelled Aquatones "Botany" No-Dye-Lot Yarns. Each is further labelled as "Top-Dyed ~ French Combed ~ French Spun ~ 100% Virgin Wool."

Each skein is 2 ounces in weight, and is marked 'Color 82'. The color is a lovely green -- kind of a seafoam shade. A sales tag on each skein indicates they are from Fishers's; original retail price is 85 cents per skein. Lovely for knitting and crochet projects -- especially from some of the vintage pattern books available!

The label also says "Botany Worsted Yarns, Passaic NJ". The company was founded in 1889. I've found several vintage Botany wool ads for sale. By 1955 the company was having a tough time, apparently. I'm still tracking down the ultimate fate of the company. Their later pattern booklets were ganged with Fleisher's/Bear Brand/Bucilla.

"Botany" is also a textile term for Australian Merino wool, either specifically grown around Botany Bay (Sydney) or any fine wool. The term is still used in England, and Rowan had True 4-ply Botany wool.

By the way, if you have an insatiable thirst for knowledge of the history of wool, this ain't too bad a place to start.

Thank you, sandrajoi, for your permission and encouragement!