Recently Stitchcraft Marketing contacted me to see if I would be interested in knitting something out of Zen Yarn Garden’s Gradient Sets. I spent a little while looking at the sets, deciding if I wanted a tonal set versus a more variegated set, and whether I wanted to do a trio or a quartet. I finally settled on a quartet in the Vocal colorways.
Even before the skeins arrived at my house I had selected the perfect pattern. In fact, I actually picked my color scheme based on what I wanted to knit. I chose to knit Aurorae by Helen Stewart. This pattern was part of last year’s Shawl Society collection and I decided the pinks, purples and blues of this particular gradient set would be perfect!
Even from the start, I was really pleased with this yarn. It is super soft and bouncy and draped beautifully for the shawl. I loved the way the set included a speckled yarn, a more variegated yarn and two solids. At first, when I received it, I wasn’t sure about the “gradient” nature of the kit, but as I worked my way through the shawl I decided that each color really did blend into the next and I was so pleased with how it turned out. Once blocked the yarn was so incredibly soft – I can’t wait to wrap myself up in this shawl this coming winter.
I did make a few modifications on the pattern (to adapt to 4 gradient colors rather than 6) and I used up about 640 yards of the set – almost all of the yardage on all the colors except the pink. All of these notes are on my project page.
Overall I would definitely purchase one of these gradient sets in the future. I’ll have to think about a tonal project next….
Even more exciting than my review, Zen Yarn Garden currently has a giveaway contest going and you could win your very own Vocal Gradient Quartet. You can read all the details and enter the giveaway here. The deadline is October 31, 2017 so don’t wait too long. Good luck!
A special thank you to Stitchcraft Marketing and the folks at Zen Yarn Garden who sent me the Vocal Gradient Quartet (retail: $52.80) for free. I received no other compensation for this review. All opinions and photos are my own.