The privilege of being one of the first to try a yarn

One of the benefits of both working to promote knitting and crochet in the UK and being a tech editor and pattern writer is that I get to see and (at least) swatch a wide range of yarns.

And recently I was one of the first to work with a brand new yarn - in this case Debbie Bliss Rialto Luxury Sock. I was lucky enough to work as Debbie's pattern compiler on a collection of sock patterns for the this colourful new yarn.

Bobble Lace and First Time socks

This meant I had the privilege to see and work with the yarn before most people which was exciting but I also made working on the patterns very interesting.

Because we were creating the first patterns for this yarn, we didn't have any feedback from other knitters or any past experience about how it would behave as we added cables or lace - an interesting challenge as well as a responsibility. I have described the swatch for a pattern as the "tension square to rule them all because that sets the measurements for the pattern. In this case our first swatches, this really did hold true, so it was very important that the sample knitters were finding the same tension.

The other excitement was seeing the different colourways knit up as socks for the first time. This yarn range has lots of rich colour combinations with a tweedy effect which means that the colours change and blend in interesting ways. I suspect as a result that no two pairs of socks made in the yarn will be exactly the same. I'm looking forward to seeing people's finished projects.