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.]

Not too long ago I did a test knit for another designer that was for a cabled cardigan. It’s really cozy and nice but it just about broke me in a ton of different ways. I couldn’t get gauge, which I suppose is my own problem, but mainly I was somehow both bored and forced to pay attention at the same time.

Because it used the same cable all over, I always had to know what row I was on, but nine out of ten of those rows, nothing in particular was going on. So I couldn’t stop paying attention, but what I needed to attend to was boring.

It may have ruined me for knitting cabled sweaters, but maybe I just need something that’s more engaging. Like this Modern Aran Cardigan pattern from Lion Brand Yarn.

This is a reworking of an old pattern from their archives, and you can tell that form the classic look of the cables and the oversized feel (nothing cropped about this one!). It has allover cables, but like a classic Aran sweater it’s not the same cable, so you’ll have to pay attention to what row you’re on and what cable turns happen for which cables on that row.

Because of this, it’s considered an intermediate knitting pattern, but if you’re comfortable working from multiple charts at once it shouldn’t be a problem for you. There are three different charts and seven different cable moves.

Also because the pattern is so big and boxy there are only two sizes available, with a finished chest measurement of either 49 or 63 inches (that’s 124.5 or 160 cm). It’s up to you to decide how much ease you would like and whether that will work for your body.

The pattern uses worsted weight yarn (and calls for another classic, Lion Brand Fisherman’s Wool). It calls for six buttons and includes pockets to make it extra cozy.

This one looks like a great winter project to make and to wear if you’re up for a bit of a challenge. You can grab the free pattern or buy a kit with the yarn needed direct from Lion Brand Yarn.

[Photo: Lion Brand Yarn]

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