Knitting

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Knitting With Variagated Yarns.

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I’ve always loved variegated yarns. The mystery of the pattern and the striping, or pooling, or even flashing is intriquing. That being said, not everyone likes these surprises. There are some who want perfect stipes with no pooling, and no flashing, just perfect stripes in their projects. That’s ok too. One of the wonders of variegated yarns. Toddle on over to any LYS or even department store craft section and you’re sure to find at least a minimum of selection on the this versatile yarn.

How do you knit with this stuff? Me? I throw caution to the wind and just love to see the way the colors knit up. Everything from drop dead gorgeous, to eewwwwwww, what were they thinking.

Currently I’m working with some sock yarn, Flat Feet from Conjoined Creations. I don’t like the colors in the flat, just not my style, but knitted up they are cool. Very blue-jeany, almost desert southwest-y colors that I normally wouldn’t wear, but I do like them. And yes, there is pooling, striping and flashing but that’s ok. When they are finished, my socks will not be identical, but hey, I call it a good day when I can find two that match anyway.

I recently found a really good site with information on working with variegated yarns. Keeping You In Stitches publishes this article, it’s here:  http://variegated.k1p1keepingyouinstitchesstudio.com/asi1.html And guess what? she’s got lots of free patterns there for dishcloths etc.

Check her out here:  http://freepatterns.k1p1keepingyouinstitchesstudio.com/

Comments

  1. I am currently in love with Bernat’s Baby Jacquards. (I knit newborn caps and donate them to my local hospital.) I’ve used three of their variations so far. Photos of the first, “Boo Berries,” knit into a cap can be found on my blog: http://www.karlakrafts.com. I’ll post photos of the other two soon.

    The third variation I used, “Spearmint Candy,” didn’t come out quite as neatly as the first two. I think it’s because of where I started. I use the long tail cast on, and when I start the next cap, I think I’ll make sure I begin in the middle of a large section of a solid color. We’ll see! In the meantime, hats, I mean caps off to Bernat!

Have you read?

A Shawlette with a Ton of Design Options

There’s a lot to like about the Eloise Bandana from Katryn Seeburger. This cute little colorwork triangle can be worked as a bandana or kerchief size or a bigger shawlette. 

It’s worked in two colors of fingering weight yarn so you can use whatever yarn you have in your stash and just make it as big as you can (since it is worked from the bottom up). 

You can see the two sizes from the photo, and also two colorwork options: strawberries and lily of the valley. 

But that’s not all the choices you have. In fact, there are 34 different charts you can choose from to knit onto your project. Some of the options include happy faces, a lobster, a pumpkin, a snail and a butterfly. There are cherries, peaches, tomatoes and radishes.

There’s even a blank square you can use to draw your own little design if you want to use something else. Or keep it blank and make it a plain checkerboard design. 

And while both of these shawls use the same icons throughout, you could also use different designs throughout if you want. Say a fall version with a bat, pumpkin, leaf and acorn, or a summer beach theme with sailboat, fish, lobster and a bird? I keep suggesting four different icons because the larger size has four rows of squares, but the smaller has three, so you could do stripes of the same icon or alternate a couple of different ones, whatever you like. 

Look through the finished projects on the Ravelry project page to see lots of different options, from rows to individual icons. There are also some projects that are smaller than the suggested size to make a smaller bandana. You could also keep going a make a bigger shawl working increases in the same way as you have been going. 

Check out all the details and grab a copy of the pattern on Ravelry. 

[Photo: Katryn Seeburger]