The Epic tale of Elijah the Elephant

Well I started off with some free Rowan Denim Yarn
- my Rowan International free gift (I didn't really fancy the free bag pattern).


This yarn shrinks and the colour bleeds when you wash it, so I decided to pre-shrink it before knitting with it.

So I used my niddy noddy to wind the balls into skeins tied each several times and put a three into a pillowcase sealed that and washed them at 40degrees on a normal wash. I thought I had been pretty careful, but I got a bit of a shock when my yarn went from this:

to this:

But in fact it wasn't as bad as it looked - the skeins were all still intact and could have been wound from a swift with some care. However I do not have a swift, so I then had to wind each ball by hand with the skein around my knees.

The blue bits on the floor are 'fluff' that has come off the yarn - it went EVERYWHERE. I had to hoover about 10 times to get rid of it.

I ended up with some hand wound balls:

Which I then wound into centre pull cakes on my ball winder:

THEN I started knitting! I loved this pattern and will probably knit it again - but not in a denim/cotton yarn. The tight gauge to stop the stuffing falling out / small needles / fiddly picking up stitches absolutely killed my fingers - I think it looks great knitted up though.


I am very pleased with him, my fingers have just about recovered and I think he looks pretty happy too!