Letters
New in the MDK Shop: Colorful, Cottony Goodness
Dear Ann,
I love having a yarn shop! One of the most fun things to do is to get a major crush on a yarn, have a blast knitting it up into something wonderful, and then get to share it with other knitters.
This particular edition of Bridget Jones’s Yarn Diary dates back to last November, when I needed a portable knitting project for an intergenerational gals weekend with Aunt Kathy and our two daughter ladies. Having just discovered there is a cotton version of one of our favorite color-changing yarns, Zauberballs, my travel knitting was a simple log cabin baby blanket mixing Zauberball Cotton with some long-discontinued ecru cotton denim from my stash. I had just learned of a new baby in my circle, and I was knitting on that thing with the fierce dedication that is specific to baby blankets for babies that are already here, and waiting on their blanket.
All the colors in this blanket came from a single shade of Zauberball Cotton, Spring Greens.
The Zauberball Cotton was a revelation. It’s so soft, and the colors are delightfully sophisticated. It just cries out to be made into log cabin blankets, cloths, or cushions. So of course I asked, pretty please can we carry it in the MDK Shop?
And it has arrived!
We have two cotton yarns from Schoppel.
First up: Zauberball Cotton.
This is the snazziest stuff. It’s a cotton yarn that entertains you as you knit, with slow, soft shifts of colors that wash into and out of each other.
Here’s our palette:
Variety Show.
Spring Greens. Can you see the yellow in there? Sometimes a color doesn’t show up until you get further into the ball.
Planetary.
Roman Red.
Favorite Jeans. It changes colors, from blue to blue to that other blue.
But wait, there’s more!
When knitting a blanket—or a dishcloth, or anything really—in a multi-color yarn, it’s nice to have coordinating solids or semi-solids to throw into the mix of the project. This is an instinctive thing for quilters and log cabin blanket-knitters, I think. We want color—absolutely—but we also want the eye to have places to rest. So I was thrilled to learn that Schoppel’s Cotton Ball yarn is a perfect companion for Zauberball Cotton, in watercolor semi-solids that coordinate beautifully with the vibrant Zauber mixes.
Here’s our Cotton Ball palette.
Peachy.
Sand Castle.
Sprig.
Washed Blue.
Deep Blue. (A bit darker than Washed Blue.)
Bordeaux.
Basalt.
Both Zauberball Cotton and Cotton Ball are light and lovely, 100 percent organic cotton, with terrific yardage: 459 yards (420 meters) per 100g ball.
Let’s go Zauber!
Love,
Kay
Cool!! Is this sport weight?
This yarn (both types) is classed as fingering weight. While it’s possible that I knit my baby blanket in the DK version, I can’t check it because the blanket and the leftover yarn are both gone to good homes. I think, based on my recollection of the seemingly endless yardage of those balls, that it was the fingering weight.
Kay, I love this baby blanket so I followed the link back to your original post so I could save it. FWIW, there you say that the Zauber Cotton is DK weight. This is the project that will probably get me to try logcabinning (look, I just created a new verb!)
Guess I could go look on the product page in the Shop;)
I just finished a Fussy Cuts Blanket and had so much fun watching it come to life. I think a cotton version in these yarns would look terrific.
the product pages for both say fingering, but following the link to Kay’s blanket she says she made that out of the DK weight. I wonder if both weights will be available from MDK eventually?
I wondered about that too. What I did find, after an internet search, is reference to Schoppel Wolle Zauberball Crazy Cotton, which is listed as DK, 230 yards for the same 100g weight. On that website, it says the fingering is from Germany, and the DK from Greece. MDK’s site, as far as I can tell, does not currently have the DK.
Oh good grief, there goes my “I’ve gotten enough yarn this month” resolution!
Right?!
It will be August soon, a whole new month for needing yarn!
Oh thanks! Now I don’t feel so guilty that I ordered a great whack of the stuff!
Oh, that blanket is so delightful! I love this new yarn and am thinking of a simple shawl…
Would be nice to see some examples knitted up.
Thank you.
So far all we’ve got is the baby blanket!
Would it work for a Shakerag top?
Ooohhhh, wouldn’t that be fun?
I want it to work for a Shakerag Top but can’t say for sure. You definitely would have to swatch because of the double-stranded stripes. A yarn has to be in the sweet spot of (1) not totally transparent when knit to gauge in a single strand and (2) thin enough to double-strand and get gauge.
I would not recommend the multi-color version on its own for the Shakerag top, but if you used it as one strand for the marled stripes it would be amazing, I think. I really hope someone tries this!
Oohh!!! I’m excited!!!!
Do I see this as the pop in a Picket Fence??
This is just what I was thinking.
Baby sweater!!!
Oh my goodness: what beautiful colors!! Makes me want to knit a baby blanket, but there are no upcoming babies in my circle. I may have to knit myself a log cabin afghan instead!
OH Be STILL MY HEART!!!! nI adore these deeply and sultry color saturated yarns…. Wish there were washing instructions included in the information section on your yarns…. Whiles its usually a given wool needs hand washing unless its SW – but cotton yarns can be tricky.. I’d really love to know about the use of a washer and dryer on this one before buying!!! Thanx for these gorgeous fibers!!!
As a veteran of many cotton projects, including one using this yarn, my personal washing instructions are twofold.
1: IF YOU DON’T WANT IT TO SHRINK: Handwash in tepid water, air dry.
2. IF YOU DON’T CARE IF IT SHRINKS: Wash and dry by machine, using warm settings.
For baby things knit in cotton, I always anticipate that the item will be machine washed and dried, so before gifting it, I do it myself. I did that with my baby blanket and it shrunk a bit and the gauge firmed up beautifully. I was able to tell the recipients to wash it and dry it by machine as needed and to return it to me if it needs repair.
For garments that I knit for myself in cotton, I generally handwash and air dry because they look nicer and last longer.
These are so lovely — wondering if they will appear in the dk weight …..
One word…well, two: Dangling Conversation.
Wondering if there is yardage requirements for different sized blankets? Even if very rough estimates…I’d love this for a summer project
It depends on the weight of the yarn, etc., but a benchmark for a DK weight baby blanket is 800-1000 yards.
Since I knit mine in strips, log cabin style, I don’t figure out yardage in advance. I start with a few skeins in colors I like, start knitting, and see how it goes. In log cabin or other patchwork styles, dye lots don’t matter, so it’s easy to start small and add yardage if needed.
I know this is very casual but this is how I do baby blankets. Hashtag #realtalk.
Can you give more details on your version of the blanket? Did you just put random stripes in wherever, or is it every 6th stripe?
Hi there Shrubear,
I used the instructions for the classic log cabin cloth in MDK Field Guide No. 4: Log Cabin, and just kept adding strips until it got blanket sized. Since I wanted the color strips to be random, I used a dice app on my phone after every color strip and it gave me a number between 1 and 6. If the number was 1, the next strip was also a color strip. If the number was 2, the next strip was the ecru (solid) and the second strip was a color strip.
It was fun to do it that way and also fun to notice that I was disappointed if the number was higher than 3! I guess I didn’t want to knit too many plain strips between color strips, but I think the randomization made the blanket look restful, which is what I wanted.
I need these yarns.
Ohhh. Basalt and deep blue? Or basalt and jeans?
Jeans gets my vote.
These yarns are unique together. How about old school, Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Surprise jacket for a baby!!!
Your blanket is lovely, Kay. I can almost feel the softness
So happy to read this article. I, for one, always knit in cotton in the summer. Maybe more knitters will join the club lol.
I want to be a Zauberball when I grow up.