Big Knitting with Caron Cakes

Recently Caron Cakes have been in the feed in crochet and knitting groups. I will admit, I fell for the bright colors and bought a couple cakes to play with. Don't be fooled, this isn't a small cake of yarn. This is 200 grams of yarn. Enough to make something. That didn't stop me from grabbing two of them to experiment with.

I cast on for a shawl using a size 9 needle and got stitching. It knits up quickly and the resulting fabric was soft and squishy. The band calls for a size 8 but I like the looser fabric created with a slightly larger needle, particularly when working a shawl. EDIT: I did not use a pattern for this shawl experiment. I worked with shawl techniques I've used in constructing other shawls and did not follow a pattern.

I knit outside.

I knit inside.

The resulting wing is a very big shawl. The shape is slightly unexpected, but still fun.

Joy did a review of the yarn from the perspective of a crocheter. She followed with another video when she started her knitted scarf.

Good things: 200 grams of self-striping yarn in a cake, inexpensive at $7.99/cake

Bad things: 80/20-acrylic/wool, labeled as hand-wash, more difficult to block than wool, color is often muddy (there was more red on my yellow than I would have liked)

The bottom line: I generally do not use acrylic and I will likely not buy more of this yarn. If you are on a tight budget and want an easy-to-use, self-striping yarn it might be perfect for you. I like to be able to aggressively block my work and acrylic doesn't like to be blocked much at all.

Have you tried this yarn? Did you like it? I'd love to hear your thoughts.