“When I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.” Thank you, Barney Stinson.
I got a surprise today in the mail. It was a fabulous, wonderful, stupendous surprise, in the form of a skein of yarn! It came from Genevieve of Turtlepurl Yarns, who I know from Ravelry. She’s a sweet woman, and said she sent me the yarn “just ’cause you’re so awesome.” As Barney Stinson might say, “Sa-weet.”
Turtlepurl Yarns Big Turtle Toes in Harvest Moon
I am, in truthfulness, a little flabbergasted and feeling very much blessed by this out-of-the-blue gift. So much so that I decided to do my first ever yarn review! It has occurred to me recently that while the infamous Knitter’s Review website is a great resource, it’s only useful for large company yarns. What about those smaller, indie brands that want a chance to shine? I play with a lot of yarn, so why not review it while I play? onward.
Turtlepurl’s Big Turtle Toes is called so because it comes in an extra-large skein, weighing in at a massive 115 grams (that’s slightly over 4 oz., for those doing the math). It has great yardage – at 425 yards I could practically knit myself knee socks, and it’s also very strong, with 25% nylon blended with the 75% superwash merino. As someone who lives in fear of holes in her handknit socks, nylon is the magic word for me. The base is a 3-ply fingering weight with what I’d call a “normal” twist – not overly tight nor loose. It’s soft with some bounce and strength – you can feel just enough nylon in the yarn to give you the confidence to run over carpet with a pair of socks knit from this.
Turtlepurl Yarns Big Turtle Toes in Harvest Moon - Closeup
The hand-dyed colors are where it’s at for Turtlepurl’s yarn. This colorway, aptly named Harvest Moon, is just lovely. With it’s lush colors of salmon, burgundy, eggplant, apricot, gold and chocolate running through the skein, it makes me salivate for some warm apple cider and dream of jumping in the largest pile of browning, brightly-colored fall leaves ever.
I decided to knit up a sample of this lovely yarn – I have, after all, enough yarn for knee socks so stealing a wee bit from the skein isn’t too much of a hardship. This swatch is stockinette with a nice border of seed stitch (just because I love seed stitch), knit on size 1.5 US needles. Why 1.5? Well, because I might just be knitting a pair of socks with that needle size and this yarn. No promises, though. I still haven’t finished my first pair of socks! I just absolutely love the color changes in this swatch. This is my favorite hand-dyed combination – semi-solid with just enough of an extra kick of color to make the colorway shine.
Exchanging Fire 