by Amy R Singer,
Keri Comeau, Petra Bockus
Photographs by Amy R Singer
The Purple Purl is home
to Knitty's Yarn Roundtable events --
a friendly place to sit and knit for an
evening [and they make a killer latte].
Not every knitter is lucky enough to have a
Local Yarn Store nearby. And of course, not every yarn shop can
carry every yarn.
The Knitty Yarn Roundtable
was created to give knitters more information
about yarn than just what's on the ball band.
Once a month, up to 30
knitters gather in Toronto [the hometown
of Knitty's editor] at The
Purple Purl to sample a variety
of yarns of every possible description --
from budget to super luxury.
The events are open to
anyone who can attend, and are advertised
on the Knitty
blog. [Want
to come? Visit the blog and sign up! If there
are no spaces left, subscribe to the RSS
feed and you'll find out when we announce
a new set of dates.]
Knitters bring their
own needles and yarn companies of every size
send in yarns they want our readers to try.
Five different yarns from five different
manufacturers are sampled at each event by
all knitters present who provide their opinions
on a standardized form. Yarn manufacturers
vary from Etsy-based hand dyers, large
companies and anything in between. As long
as the yarn is available to be ordered through
the internet, we want to test it!
Yarns that did not receive
good feedback will not be featured in Knitty,
in accordance with our review policy, so if you
see a yarn on these pages, it means the majority
of knitters liked it, found it interesting
or surprising!
Yarns are listed
below in alphabetical order by yarn name.
This issue's reviews include feedback collected
from five different Roundtable events.
Key:
1: dislike/disagree/bad
5: deep love/total agreement/great
Each yarn
is
rated on scale of 1-5 in a variety of categories.
Retail prices are in USD unless otherwise noted.
Editor's
note: All
swatches shown were knit by the same knitter
using what she felt
was the most appropriate
needle size for each yarn
