Yarn..... debbie bliss alternatives

[KSW]

I am just learning to knit and have some easy baby knit patterns from Debbie Bliss. She uses her own "dk cotton" and I want to find perhaps a cheaper alternative. Do I have to look for a certain thickness or certain weight or what its made from?

THANKS for your help

Kx

Have you got a good wool shop near you? The staff in ours are great at advising you.

If not, the thing to look for is obviously a similar type of wool, then look at the band round the ball - it will tell you what tension it knits to eg on 4mm needles you have x rows and x stitches to a certain size square - you then need to check that against the Debbie Bliss wool. The other thing to check is the length - again on the band - I hadn't know this till I went to the shop - I found a wool at the same tension and said that I wanted so many 50g balls, and the lady pointed out that the wool was heavier, it had the length of the ball of wool on the side, so I needed one more to get the same total length!

That sounds confusing but hope it makes some sense to you!

I would also say "you should always knit a tension square" to check that your wool knits to the same tension but I've never been bothered - it takes me sooo long to knit something I haven't got time to be knitting extra bits...

I Googled "substituting yarn" and found this site - might help:

www.theinsideloop.com/Issue1/Articles/yarnsubstitution.html

KSW, are you on Ravelry? I find it really useful to see what yarns other people have made the same pattern in. You can run a search on the pattern you're embarking on to see the finished articles of all the people who have made that project, and see what yarns people have used to make it. If you haven't joined, you really should.

If you aren't a member, I can look for you - if you tell me the name of the pattern and the book it's from (if it's from a book) I can tell you what substitute yarns hundreds (if not thousands) of other knitters have used.

By the way, I haven't used the specified yarn for a pattern since my first project.

Thank you guys for all your help, I am on the case with ravelry and the wool shop near me....
Much appreciated
Kx