Blogiversary Giveaway Week & Knit Picks Stroll Handpainted Review and Giveaway!

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Please help me wish a happy birthday to Creating a Family Home!  It was one year ago today that I started sharing my thoughts, crafts, recipes and knitting with like-minded mamas (and knitters).  It’s been fun and encouraging having you along for the ride, and I’m so excited to be close to my goal of reaching 200 followers by my first blogiversary.  I’m thrilled that you find what I have to say even remotely interesting.  And if you’re only here for the free knitting patterns and craft tutorials, that’s okay, too.  : )

To celebrate, I’m hosting a week’s worth of giveaways!  Today’s giveaway is sponsored by Knit Picks.  I’m reviewing and giving away a hank of Knit Picks Stroll Handpainted in one of my favorite fall-inspired colorways of all time, Playtime.  Isn’t it beautiful?  It knits up beautifully, too, as you’ll find out if you keep reading….

Review and Giveaway Knit Picks Stroll Handpainted, Colorway Playtime

I’m choosing to review Knit Picks Stroll Handpainted sock yarn in colorway Playtime because it’s what I used to make my latest free pattern, Nathan’s Raindrop Socks.  You can knit up a pair of toddler socks and still have enough yarn leftover for a pair of adult-sized socks!  I used it to knit up a pair of Drop Dead Easy Lace Socks from Knitting from the Toe Up.  Go check it out on Knit Picks’ site and read on to find out what I think of it.  Then, find out how to enter to win a hank of your own!

Clearly, I am quite taken by the colors in the Playtime coloryway—if you’ve been reading for a while, you know how inspired I am by nature!  This colorway has fall written all over it, but can still be worn any time of year without making you think about fall.  The colors shift from leaf red to pumpkin orange to light green, turquoisey blue, sandy brown and dusty pink.  The yarn was clearly painted by hand (as the name suggests) and didn’t pool or do anything funny in the how-it-knits-up department.

Knit Picks Stroll Handpainted is so incredibly soft that it’s hard to believe this stuff is meant for socks.  I love ‘em (socks, that is), but they’re meant to go on feet.  So the yarn should be hardwearing, and you might take that to mean scratchy or hard.  And clearly Stroll Handpainted is hardwearing, but this is the first time I’ve ever associated hardwearing with soft. 

I’ve knitted with other brands of sock yarn and they were nowhere near this soft in my hand or on my feet—and they didn’t wear nearly as well.  It didn’t take much time at all for one of those other brands to wear a hole in the toe, but my Knit Picks socks are going strong after many wearings and washings—and I wear them constantly.  (I even found a few chilly nights to wear them in the summertime!  There’s at least one good thing about having a husband who likes to keep it cold in the house in the summertime.) 

The socks are holding up great, and of course I appreciate being able to put them in the washing machine.  They are 75 percent superwash merino wool and 25 percent nylon for strength and durability (you’d never know the nylon is in there).  I wash them inside out on the gentle cycle (or the regular cycle when I forget!) and then hang them to dry—and they still look pretty darn good.  The yarn band says you can dry them on low, which I have done with success, too.

Please check out the yarn and colorway on Knit Picks’ site… and read on to find out how to enter to win a hank of your own!

How to Enter

I’m giving away one hank of Knit Picks Stroll Handpainted in colorway Playtime.  You have five chances to enter, the first one mandatory:

1. Mandatory: Follow Creating a Family Home via Google Friend Connect and leave a comment saying you follow.

For additional entries:

2. Like Creating a Family Home on Facebook and leave a comment saying you do.  (If you already like Creating a Family Home on Facebook, leave a comment saying so.)

         

3. Follow me on Twitter and leave a comment saying you do.  (Ditto.)

4. Post about this giveaway on Facebook or Twitter (or both) and leave one comment each.

That’s five possible entries per person!  Entries will stay open until 8 p.m. on Monday, October 10.  I’ll use a random number generator to select the lucky winner and will announce the winner the following day.  Please make sure I have a way of contacting you. 

Good luck, and thanks for following!

There's sitll one more giveaway tomorrow, so.... see you then!