The Answer Lady innovative ideas for knitters at www.theanswerlady.com To contact the answer lady, use this new anti-spam e-mail address. Rewrite this address in the standard e-mail format with no spaces anywhere and the usual symbols for and and dot: kathryn d answerlady at hotmail dot com back to home page FUZZY LOGIC: THE ANSWER LADY REPORTS ON FURRY YARNS copyright 2004 Kathryn Doubrley "The Answer Lady" www.theanswerlady.com this is a copyrighted article but you may reproduce and share it as long as you leave the author info and website info attached. Machine knitters are fascinated by the suddenly available eyelash yarns that are available for hand knitters. We want to know: can we knit with them on our machines and if so how? This report is more of a "first word" than a "last word" on the subject. Experiences are bound to differ and as time goes on, we'll learn some new tricks but perhaps this will help you get started. I tested: Patons "Allure" (teal & brown in photo) and "Chacha" (green in photo), Bernat "Fur Out" (grey), Lion Brand "Fun Fur" (turquoise), and Bernat "Boa" (multicolor pink). I tried them on all gauges of machine. Bond knitters, consider yourselves "bulky" knitters and Passap knitters "standard". A scarf was made from one skein of each, 10 stitches wide and however long it would knit. On every machine, the maximum stitch size was used but needles spacings varied. Here are the results. BOA knitted well only on the 9mm and 8mm bulky, using every needle. The gauge was about the same on both but the hand was softer on the 9mm. The scarf came out 3.5" wide and 65" long. This yarn results in a more feathery than furry look, true to its name. ALLURE: knitted nicely on everything. The scarf came to 5" wide and 34" long using every other needle on the bulky, every 4th needdle on the mid-gauge and every 7th needle on the standard. The gauge is nearly identical on all machines, knitted in this way. I slightly preferred knitting it on the bulky but all did really well. This is one of the yarns I chose for my "Think Mink" capelet*. FUR OUT: knitted nicely on everything using the same needle spacing as Allure. Scarf came to 7.5" by 32". It looks the softest and fluffiest but actually is not as soft to the touch as Fun Fur and Allure. Knits great, though and is the other yarn recommended for "Think Mink"*. FUN FUR: knitted nicely on everything, using every needle on the bulky, EON on the mid-gauge and every 3rd N on the standard. The scarf came out 3"x46". CHACHA: oH BOY! I almost gave up on this one. It is by far the softest but has a terrible tendancy to snag on the gate pegs, wrap around the brushes and break. The only machine upon which it knitted really well is the plastic bed 8mm (HK100) using EON. I think the absence of gate pegs really helped, as well as the fact that the yarn tensioner places less stress on the yarn but still controls it at row ends. It will probably knit equally well on the LK150 using every 2nd or 3rd needle. 1 skein made a 4"x60" scarf.