Cascade Yarns Blog

Magnum is a fabulous yarn for instant gratification knitting.  It is a glorious 250 gram hank with 123 yards of Peruvian Highland Wool that knits up very quickly on larger needles (US 15 - 19).  Now it even comes in Hand Paints! I have been waiting (rather impatiently) for the Paints to come in so I could actually see them knit up - and I am not disappointed.  It probably helps that I love reds and burgundy and that was the colorway (Red Mix) I got to play with.  I've knit a hat and a scarf in Magnum but had yet to make a cowl and thought it would be a great way to show off the colors! This works up long enough so you could wear it 3 ways - like a long cowl, double around your neck, or down on your shoulders.  I also came up with some variations where you could do 2 smaller cowls out of 1 skein or a narrower but longer cowl.  This ends up a pproximately 40" circumference (about 1.75 sts = 1" in pattern) x 10" long Materials: 1 skei...

While at Stitches Midwest, I took one of their market sessions with Deanna Van Assche for bead knitting and that it was one of those techniques that looked much harder than it was.  So I bough some beads (she sells the kind that are pre-strung) with the intention of designing something using beads.  I really do like the pre-strung beads as you tie the string that the beads are on to the yarn and slide them over.  This way, I did not have to worry about chasing beads on airplanes.    Last December, I had written a scarf pattern for Kim in our office to make with Venezia Worsted and never got around to making myself.  It had a ruffle on each end and a simple lacy rib pattern for the body of the scarf.  I thought the beads would be beautiful at the end of the scarf and I absolutely love an excuse to play with Venezia Worsted . So I picked a lovely shade of purple that matched one of the colors of beads that I had purchased.  Then I...