Review & Giveaway: ModeKnit ModeWerk Flow Yarn

In the first of many reviews and giveaways made possible by my TNNA Marly Bird Designer Dinner swag bag, I'm pleased to share a review of a new-to-me yarn that I have been seeing around Ravelry and instagram: hand-dyed yarn from Annie Modesitt. It seems like the current trend for designers is to branch out into other related avenues such as stitch markers, project bags, and, of course....yarn!

ModeKnit Yarn is hand-dyed in Minnesota in shaded solids, variegated colorways, and the ever-popular gradients, which are new this season. They offer four different yarn blends and three different yarn weights (lace, fingering and worsted), and the color options are always changing (you can view more info about the yarn bases and colors here on the ModeKnit website).

I received two sample skeins of ModeWerk Flow (they use the word "Flow" to indicate gradient colorways in yarn, and I think they are available across several bases within the brand), which is a machine washable 100% merino yarn available in both fingering and worsted weights. Both of these sample skeins were fingering weight, and the 50g ball contains a generous 185 yards; full-sized fingering weight skeins of ModeWerk weight in at 100g and 386 yards. I decided to use one of them to knit a baby hat and give the other one away to a lucky blog reader - more on that in a sec!

The colorway I chose to knit with (shown below) is called Tequila Mockingbird, and it's a very pretty and vibrant gradient which reminds me a bit of sherbet ice cream. If you know me well, you know that pink is absolutely my least favorite color, but it was nice to step outside of my norm and knit with something that I wouldn't typically choose on my own.

I used one of the Heirloom Hats for Newborns patterns from Purl Soho, which are available for free here on their site, and my trusty Knitter's Pride Dreamz DPNs. I enjoyed working with this yarn - though the two plies are a little on the loose side, I didn't find the yarn to be splitty as I worked. It felt good in my hands and gave my stockinetee nice, crisp stitch defnitition. I think it would be awesome with cables and textured stitches.

Even prior to blocking, the stitches looked nice and even despite having been in a cake for at least a few weeks. Even though the label said machine wash/air dry, I still washed this hat by hand, as I tend to do with all of my projects knit with superwash yarns. There weren't any "surprises" after blocking (i.e. the hat didn't grow several sizes in the process), and the slight halo I detected as I laid it flat to dry quickly disappeared as the moisture left the hat.

Giveaway Time! 

Now for the fun part: one of my lucky readers gets to try this yarn out to see for themselves! I'm giving away this 50g sample ball of ModeWerk Flow in a red-to-pink gradient; there is enough yardage to complete a small project such as a baby hat, or you can use it for  sock yarn blanket squares, hexipuffs, or to weave zoom loom squares.

To be eligible, simply leave a comment on this blog post telling me which hand-dyed colorway is your favorite. Be sure to also mention your Ravelry ID or email address so that I can contact you if you win. If you would like a bonus entry, please like my Facebook Page or follow me on Instagram or Twitter, then leave another comment telling me you did so - just be sure to mention your Facebook or Instagram name so that I can verify everything (if you already follow me on these channels, just let me know in the comments for your bonus entry, too)!

I will randomly-select one lucky winner to be announced next Monday, June 22 here on this blog. Good luck!