The proof of the pudding
Remember Harry the Cape? My very first post here, I believe?
Well, I'm still wild about Harry; he gets worn all the time. He's not just useful over drapey things, but even if I'm wearing a jumper or knitted jacket underneath, he's wonderful on the scooter because he doesn't hamper my arms. There's just one little thing with him, and it's this. The other day was the second time I had to repair his collar.
This is where I am deeply grateful that I got myself well entrenched in the habit of sewing everything by hand, because I can tell you if I'd put Harry's collar on by machine, it would have come off altogether, and that would have been the dickens to put back. As it is, I've still had to make two quite major repairs. There is a surprising amount of stress on that seam, which you couldn't possibly guess from just looking at the pattern; so even a backstitched seam will pull apart quite a way once it breaks. And it's not even as if I overload the pockets; I keep my keys in there and usually nothing else. It is just the weight of the fabric.
So today seemed like a very good day to talk about how things stand up under everyday wear. Let's start with this satin here, which I've used to make a number of summer tops. It does seem to have a lot going for it; it's super cheap and comes in a range of lovely colours. But - and I am sad to have to say this, because I like Minerva despite the trouble I'm still having with their website - you are not getting a bargain here. Those summer tops were all showing serious signs of wear within mere weeks. Specifically, it snags. To be fair, I think this is unusual; normally if you buy a cheap fabric from Minerva, you are still getting reasonable quality. Even so, don't buy this particular satin! Next time I want a satin top I'm going to be springing for the duchess [sic] satin instead; it's four times the price, but I have been very reliably informed that it sews like a dream and it'll take anything you throw at it. Including, as it turns out, fabric markers. I know someone who made a Beetlejuice outfit out of this, and they don't sell it in stripes, so, nothing daunted, she bought an entire box of fabric markers and used the lot. The results were highly effective and survived some intensive partying without turning a hair, as it were.
Naturally, if we're going to talk about wearing qualities, I have to mention acrylic yarn. I suspect most people reading this are old enough to remember the bad old days when acrylic was what you knitted with if you absolutely couldn't afford anything else (and I couldn't). It used to be, to use a technical term, blooming 'orrible stuff. You'd pretty much only have to look at it and it'd pill. But these days we have this miracle yarn called "premium acrylic", and even most of the acrylic that isn't tagged as "premium" behaves a lot better than that yarn we all knew and hated back at the end of last century.
It's not all the same, though. There is acrylic and acrylic, even within the broad categories of "premium" and "not-premium"; and there is overlap. Paintbox DK is not classed as a premium acrylic, but nonetheless it does have very good wearing qualities for an acrylic; if you don't mind the fact that it's not especially soft, it's worth considering. (I do. I gave up on Paintbox a while ago for that reason. Even so, I can well understand someone liking it.) On the other hand, King Cole Glitz is classed as premium, and... well, I don't think it wears as well as the Paintbox. I used that to knit the red jacket, which gets a lot of wear, and it is rather showing it. It doesn't so much pill as wisp, and it has gone quite baggy at the cuffs. I could go on, but I'll just say the three best premium acrylic yarns I've found so far are Stylecraft Special DK (I used that, with an added metallic thread, to knit the green jacket, which is doing visibly better than the red one); Emu Classic DK; and one by Deramores that I think I can no longer get. (I believe Deramores have gone out of business, which is both sad and astonishing, because they did extremely good yarns.) The Women's Institute premium acrylic from Hobbycraft is beautifully soft and doesn't pill, but it is inclined to thin under heavy wear and eventually break. If you're thinking of using that (and I'd be the last to discourage you - it is a lovely yarn), reinforce your cuffs by knitting in a stronger thread with it at that point. They're usually the area that gets the most wear.
I shall get back to you later about the socks. Those yellow-mix ones I'm knitting at the moment, and all the other batches of sock yarn from Vegan Yarns, are 40% Tencel, 40% organic cotton, and 20% elastic (not that the yarn is, in fact, very elastic, although the website says it is; I suppose definitions do vary on that). And, as you'd expect of anything containing Tencel, this yarn is really not cheap. It'll cost you just shy of £20 to make quite a short pair of socks. However, I would expect it to wear well, so we'll see how it does (bearing in mind that my socks get a fairly easy life because I'm not physically able to walk very far). But then I discovered, to my amazement, that there exists an acrylic-based vegan sock yarn too, which is very much cheaper; King Cole Footsie, which is 93% acrylic and 7% PBT (I have no idea what that is, except that it's there to strengthen the acrylic). There's a plain version as well, which is called Simply Footsie. So I have bought some of the Footsie for comparison (it comes in some wonderful colours), and we'll see how that wears. Assuming I'm not called home before I've had a chance to get some solid wear out of both types of sock, I'll be posting again at some point about how the two yarns hold up.
What I probably need to do is knit a pair for Porthos. Athos is less mobile than I am (he's in an electric wheelchair pretty much all the time now); d'Artagnan is exceedingly energetic, and when he does walk he walks very fast - he can easily keep up with my scooter doing top speed - but mainly he gets about on his bike, which means not so much wear on his socks. But Porthos - all right, he drives a car when he possibly can, but he can't drive it everywhere and he is still an impressively big chap. His socks will be taking some hammer.
A fine plan. Now... who am I going to be able to get to draw round his foot?
