Gift Idea: Soak Wash

This is not a sponsored post or anything I earn any money on, I just know that you might be looking for things to put on your wish list, or for things to gift to other knitters or crafters this holiday season, so I thought I would share some fun products that I use and love that you might love as well.

I am pretty much always cold, so I wear a lot of sweaters. Most of my sweaters are either handknit from wool or alpaca or purchased sweaters with wool or other fiber content that shouldn’t be machine washed.

So I have something on the drying rack pretty much all the time in the fall and winter, and what I wash all those sweaters (and any other handwash garment) with is Soak.

Soak started out as a laundry wash made specifically for knitters and crocheters, but has expanded to target all people with things to hand wash. (Check out their tips for washing knits.)

What I love about it is that you don’t have to rinse it, though I usually do a little bit. I know it comes in lots of great scents that actually smell good, but I use the scentless variety and let me tell you: it smells like nothing. Not like soap or vaguely floral or whatever regular wool wash smells like. Nothing. It’s fantastic.

It’s a little on the spendy side — I just paid $16 for a 12 ounce bottle, but even as much as I use it, it takes a long time to go through a bottle. And to me it is well worth it to have a product that is great, that really is unscented and doesn’t come with an ingredient list a mile long, doesn’t have artificial colors or other stuff you wouldn’t want on your skin.

Do you have a favorite wool wash or a favorite scent of Soak? I’d love to hear about it.

[Photo via Soak.]

Next Pattern:

Chicks don’t necessarily have anything to do with Easter, but they are a popular motif this time of year. I’ve shared some chick knitting patterns before, but it seems like time to share some more.

I love this little bitty fuzzy chick from Gray Bear Akswokrat on Etsy. It’s worked flat and the pattern includes photos to help with assembly.

This funny chick has a flower on its head, but you could use a different embellishment or just leave it off if you don’t like it. This pattern is from Midaami292, and it is also worked flat and uses four colors of yarn. The yarn used on the sample is DK weight and makes a chick that’s 26 cm, or a little more than 10 inches tall.

Fluff and Fuzz has another adorable chick pattern, this time adorned with a little hat and scarf, perfect for those places where it’s still chilly at Easter time. This one calls for DK weight yarn in four colors and uses straight knitting needles for working flat. The chick comes out to 20 cm tall including the hat (that’s about 7.8 inches).

Chicks make a great shape to cover a chocolate orange, and you can find three different chick chocolate orange covers in this pattern from Carol Connelly (available on Ravelry). You can knit up a chick that’s still hatching from the egg, a round one with feet and a fuzzy full bodied chick. They use DK weight yarn and are worked flat from the bottom up.

Frugal Knitting Haus has this adorable mama hen washcloth with scrubby chicks that you can buy on Ravelry or their website. It uses regular worsted weight kitchen cotton yarn for the hen and a scrubby yarn for the chicks.

Maybe my favorite of all, though, is Jan the little chick purse, a pattern on Ravelry from Cristina Tonarelli. It’s exactly what it sounds like: a little purse made with a coin purse clasp in the shape of a chick. It uses worsted weight yarn and the instructions are made for working in the round, but it includes instructions for working flat as well.

Check Out This Sweet Easter Chick Basket

Eggs, Cozies and Chicks to Knit for Easter

Fun Easter Knitting Patterns

Next Pattern:

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