I’ve made the Net of Justice bag with Balance and with two substitutes– one was Cascade Pima Tencel, and the other was Knit One Crochet Too Babyboo, a nylon/bamboo blend. I’m a big fan of substituting yarn in projects, and I always make two project samples so I can see and show how the project behaves with different yarns.

I think this project works best in something with cotton, or another strong plant fiber (linen would be excellent). The bag needs strength in it if you’re going to carry your grappling hook around in it. And cotton’s just a good all-purpose fiber for bags.

But the wool in Balance is what really helps this bag out. While the plant fibers have a lot of strength, they don’t have any “memory,” so the bag can stretch out, but not recover until it’s been washed and blocked again. The Balance-made bag stretches out, then stretches back because the wool gives it some “bounce.”

It also does something unusual with the mesh stitch pattern. If you’ve knit this bag and the mesh, you may have found yourself staring at the start of the round a few times and thinking “that looks weird.” It looks a little odd while you’re knitting it– the first stitch in the round can get a kind of “oversized” look to it. But it evens out by the time the bag is done. When knitting in Balance, the mesh stitch looks normal almost from the get-go. Again, the wool content gives enough bounce and fluff to pull in the stitch and even it out.

When talking with the folks at the Vermont Organic Fiber Company, they describe Balance as a yarn that behaves differently depending on your gauge. At a tight gauge– on size 5 and 6 needles (US), for example, it behaves like cotton, with the toughness and solidity of cotton. At a looser gauge– 8’s and 9’s– it behaves like wool, with a more airy feel, greater stretch, and more memory.

The Net of Justice is an openwork stitch on smaller needles, so it kind of combines the two “feels” into a tough, but stretchy bag.

I also like the fact that the Balance, despite its organic nature, is pretty soft. I don’t enjoy knitting with 100% cotton because my hands start to hurt after a while, but I definitely enjoyed knitting and crocheting with the Balance yarn, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this for something that goes against the skin, assuming the knitter was careful and pulled out any VM (vegetable matter) as they worked.

WWKIP IS TOMORROW!

Just a reminder, World Wide Knit in Public day is tomorrow! I’m in Redding, California, which has a curious lack of WWKIP events, so instead, I shall shoot a videoblog of my knitting during the day and post it in the public internet! Watch for it tomorrow on my personal site.

Shout Outs

Knitty reviewed Issue #2 for us– thanks a bunch!

A New Thread has a round up of some of the awesome stuff at Maker Faire (including Handknit Heroes!)

Listen up! I did an interview for the Knitmore Girls podcast, which should be going out in the next couple of weeks, I assume. It’s a great podcast run by two very talented and fun women.

And we’re mentioned in Prjona.net, but… I don’t know what it says! I can’t even identify the language! I’m going to guess…. Norwegian? Swedish? Help me out, folks.

Paper Kitty reports that her LYS A Likely Yarn is holding a Handknit Heroes Knit-Along!