Bramble Yarn

 I have a new favourite yarn and have got totally carried away with its possibilities.

King Cole Bramble DK is a variegated yarn with a long colour run - oh how I love a long colour run - and it comes in these ten lovely shades. From left to right on the top row there's Mixed Berries, Heather, Loganberry, Chestnut and Raspberry (aren't the names nice?) On the bottom row there's Earth, Blueberry, Goldenberry, Gorse and Haze. I had to  look up Goldenberry which is, apparently, a rather exotic looking fruit. 

Bramble is a 100% Acrylic yarn - a joy to those of us plagued by moths - and, with 290 m per 100g knits to a standard DK tension. I'm starting to sound like an advert, aren't I? The only faults that I could find with this yarn were the knots which appeared from time to time, sometimes breaking the colour run. 

It would be a good yarn for my Ten Stitch patterns and no, I'm not planning to design another one of those any time soon. So, do you want to see what I've been using my Bramble yarn for?

First of all, I'm crocheting a shawl, using Loganberry which is probably my favourite of the colours.

It's nearly big enough but I have plans to add a collar, buttons and possibly pompoms, all of which require thinking and decision making, things that are difficult for me now so I keep putting it off.

In the meantime, I've been playing with the possibilities of combining slip stitch and two shades of Bramble. 

First I made a couple of cowls using two similar shades so that the colours blended together. I've just published this pattern and you can download it from my Ravelry store Obviously, it's called Bramble Cowl.

This one uses Loganberry and Chestnut.

Then I decided to use contrasting shades - this time Raspberry and Earth - to make a scarf. I thought I would make it more interesting by working it diagonally which had the lucky effect of making the stitch pattern much simpler too. I rather like both sides of this pattern.

It's now much longer than in these pictures and, again, is waiting for me to work out how to finish it. I'm going to sew the ends together so that it can be looped round the neck; I just need to get round to doing it ... and taking the photos.

I've also been experimenting with using Bramble for weaving. The colours work out beautifully in these 6" pin loom squares.

This set of squares are all from a ball of Loganberry and I didn't plan them at all; they're just how they came from the ball. The next set are more subdued but equally pleasing I think. This time the shade is Goldenberry.

I'm using one of the newer shades of Stylecraft Special DK, A Hint of Silver to edge my squares which I'm finding sets off all the colours very well. I'm probably going to weave four more sets of squares from different shaders and then turn them into a blanket.

Yet more Loganberry, this time woven into tiny hexagons.

I'm using my little Penny Loom from Turtle Looms to weave these. As each hexagon is so small, they come out a solid colour so I'm sorting them into pile of six and then turning them into flowers. Maybe one day it'll be a doll sized Granmother's Flower Garden blanket. I don't know if I shall stick to the Loganberry or use other colours too. The joy of this sort of yarn is that all the shades go together well.

People often end this sort of post by saying that they were given the yarn to review etc etc ... well, I wasn't. I bought it myself and I love it!