Finally, something to post!

Finally! There is a cheap yarn that is environmentally friendly so that fellow poor graduate school students (like myself) will be able to knit while being environmentally conscious. Multi-tasking is fun. Caron has released a new line of Simply Soft Eco- where 20% of the yarn is made from 100% post-consumer plastic bottles. I discovered this gem of a yarn while on a road trip to a conference where the ride was enough to make me slightly insane. The result- going to a Wal-mart and discover that they have replaced all the Simply Soft with Simply Soft Eco. I immediately bought two skiens and thought up of a pattern while in the car. Since I had no pen and paper while I was doing this, the pattern is for a scarf and is pretty easy.

Looking around on the internet, there seems to be quite a few opinions about this change- particurally the part about Wal-Mart replacing all the Simply Soft with Simply Soft Eco. And about the random whitish flecks that appear in a select few of the darker shades. In my opinion, I think that this is an amazing yarn for the price (I paid $2.34 per skien) and after knitting a little bit with this, I think that the yarn is way better than the origional Simply Soft.

- barely unravels
- shows textures three times better than the origional Simply Soft
- it is a great way to be more enviromentally friendly
- still a great price
- the colors are amazing
- the "whitish flecks" that everyone is complaining about aren't that bad! It just looks like heathered yarn . . . and it is obvious which colors have it so if you don't like it you can easily avoid the apparently dreaded "whitish flecks"
- it doesn't get that fuzzy look that Simply Soft got while handling it
- the yarn isn't as slippery
- it is a *little* thicker
- stitch definition is great

And those are a few of the reasons that I am totally switching to this Eco yarn for projects that I would have typically used Simply Soft.

***stepping off the soap box***

Ok, so I am working on my striped scarf and this will be a free pattern once it is finished that I will post (in a PDF document) on this blog and on Ravelry (www.ravelry.com). I am excited about it and hope that others will feel the same. And just one last FYI, if the pattern is made from the same yarn that I am using- one plastic bottle will used. Neat huh?