Denise

Some of you may recognize this nifty tool. What's that Jen's knitting up that lovely O-Wool Classic with?

That's right! The Denise Interchangeable Needle Set. That's it poking out of my new Denise Organizer with two removable storage pockets and two pockets inside the front and back cover. It all fits inside!

Over the summer I had the pleasure of working with the folks at Denise on their new book that'll come out next year. They needed a men's sweater design for the book, and I happily complied! I have never had a more wonderful experience on a freelance job. Emily at Denise was a complete joy--upbeat and positive the entire time. Not only that, but they gave me a whole needle set so that I could use it to knit the sweater. (The book shows how to use the set and gives great tips with each project.) Once I worked with the set on this sweater, I found out that I needed a companion set. It has more cords and end buttons and extenders.

Emily sent me the set and the Organizer and some extra needle heads and in exchange I donated the price of a new set to the SD Ireland Cancer Research Fund, the Denise charity of choice. If you buy a pink set, a portion of the price goes to the fund.

Oh, the knitting gymnastics you can do with all these lovely bits! I heartily recommend buying this set. At first I thought I would be put off by the plastic needles. I usually work with wooden-tipped circulars or Addi Turbos. All of my dpn's are wooden, too. I'm even trying to slowly change out all my crochet hooks to wood. I was happily surprised by how much I liked these plastic needle heads. It's not a hard plastic, but a kind, soft material that plays well with yarn. The O-Wool certainly liked it, and it's the purest wool there is. Delightful, in fact.

Not satisfied with having such a cool knitting tool, the folks at Denise decided to go another step by adding crochet. This summer, Denise introduced the Interchangeable Crochet Hooks. Love it! What a great motivation to learn Tunisian crochet. I've been crocheting for about 40 years, so I think it's finally time. I've been experimenting with that this very morning, and next post, I'll show you how it came out.

Thank you Denise and thank you O-Wool for helping make my summer such a happy one!