Alternating Skeins When Knitting with Hand-Dyed Yarn

Working with hand-dyed yarn is a lot of fun, and it’s great for us to support independent yarn dyers when we can. But it can sometimes be tricky to use over the course of a full garment because of little differences in how the color appears from skein to skein. Sometimes when you change to working with a new skein of yarn it will be really obvious because the color is just slightly different, or if you’re working with a very colorful yarn sometimes you’ll get color pooling, where one color seems to always land in the same place in your knit fabric.

The best way to deal with these issues before they happen is to knit from two different skeins throughout, also known as alternating skeins. This breaks up the color from one row or round to the next, preventing pooling.

If you’re working with more of a solid or semi-solid color, you can choose to alternate skeins throughout, or just switch colors every round (every other row if you’re working flat) for maybe an inch (2.5 cm) or so when you’re about to run out of yarn so that the colors mix together visually and you don’t get that abrupt stripe.

Alternating skeins isn’t hard, but it can sound tricky if you’ve never tried it before. Elizabeth Smith Knits has a couple of good videos along with some tips on different methods for carrying the yarn up as you go, which I think generally is the part that confuses people, especially newer knitters (no, you do not have to cut the yarn after every row as you alternate skeins).

This is one of those things that sounds like such a little thing but it makes a big difference. If you’ve ever knit a project and had the colors pool in a weird way or gotten that line where you switched colors, you know it’s worth the little extra bit of time it takes to do this. And if you’ve never done that, starting out with this technique when you start working with hand-dyed yarn on larger projects will make your results a lot better without a lot of extra work.

Have you used alternating skeins in a project before? Or failed to and wished you had? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo: Elizabeth Smith Knits]

Getting ready for back to school makes me think about pencil crafts, so let’s take a look at some pencil themed knitting patterns!

I recently made a pencil on a circular knitting machine, and it was a fun, quick, easy project that uses little bits of leftover yarn (and if you don’t have yellow you can make it a colored pencil using whatever color’s your favorite). And if you want to make a bigger version check out this pattern from Orange Olive Road on Etsy.

If you want to knit a pencil pillow by hand, check out Sketchy, available on Ravelry from Shana S. Cohen. This one uses worsted weight yarn and has two size options and the choice to make a pencil with an eraser or a colored pencil.

Pencil scarves seem to be the most popular kind of pencil knitting pattern, and there are lot of cute ones. This one from Cosy Craft UK mostly uses garter stitch, with some welts to add texture and what looks like an I-cord edging. It calls for DK weight yarn.

If you want to go all garter stitch try this version from Emsley Co Creations, which uses five colors of DK weight yarn and just a little shaping to make the point of the pencil.

There’s also this fun, mostly stockinette so it looks like it curls a bit, pencil pattern that looks like it’s worked in chunky yarn from Little Knits Studio. This one uses just a little garter stitch and easy shaping for the point.

If you don’t want a pencil scarf, how about some pencil socks? The No. 2 Pencil Socks from The Yarn Enabler are available from Ravelry and use five colors of sock yarn. They feature wide ribs to mimic the texture of a pencil and have options to be worked from the top down or the toe up.

Needs Sharpening by Alexander Walker is a free pattern on Ravelry that uses five colors of sock yarn to make a sort of shortie sock. The little bit of black at the tips of the toes inspired the name. These, too, can be worked in either direction and are available in three sizes.

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