Substituting Yarn, or, It’s Supposed To Look Like That!

My current WIP is the Sunrise Circle Jacket from Interweave Press. Apparantly I didn’t do the math real well when I figured that the amount of hand-dyed, one of a kind yarn I bought over a year ago was enough.

Almost, but not quite.

What to do? I wrote to the company that I bought this yarn from www.yarnhollow.com to see if maybe, just maybe they had more of the same dye lot. Not likely, but what the heck, worth taking a chance. Then, I ran down to my stash room (what? You don’t have enough stash to take up a whole, entire room with no space to spare?) to see what I had enough of to kind of “go” with this. I found 5 different yarns that I did have enough of to finish the jacket.

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So, I’m almost done with the first sleeve/front combo. and while I’ll have enough of the original to maybe make the next sleeve, I’m still out a front. I’m going to do this:

Since these sleeves/fronts are made in one piece each (left sleeve knitted in one piece with the left front, and right sleeve knitted in one piece with the right front) I think I’ll take the different yarn and do the right sleeve/front. There are two yarns that I’ve narrowed it down to, so I’m going to do 2 rows of one, then 2 rows of the other, then 2 rows of the first, then 2 rows of the second, then… whew. dizzy! You get the point.

See the picture? It’s kind of “stripey” when doing rows of each color. Don’t like it. And the bamboo splash green is too close to the original color. So, while I’m still holding out for the original (she did email me back and said she could dye another hank of it for me – happy dance!) I might be able to go with the brown. I like it, the brown (in the picture it’s brown, actually, there’s blues, purples, teals, burgandy’s and a gold fleck), so as usual, I never really know what I’m going to do in the end.
When someone asks me about it, I’ll just tell them that I planned it that way!

My other current WIP (can it really count if you haven’t cast on yet, but are planning to any day?) is the Mossy Roving’s cardigan from Jane Thornley’s current KAL.

Stay tuned…..

Fall will be here before we know it, and that means there are holidays coming right behind where we might be entertaining at home. It’s always fun to have a hand knit touch in your home for other people to see, and if you’re going to be in the kitchen all day you might as well have some nice knit dish cloths to use.

I love this little plaid hand towel from Darling Jadore. Use a little bit of leftover cotton yarn from another project for the plaid portion. It looks like the horizontal stripes are worked as you knit and the vertical stripes are done with duplicate stitch, making this a quick and easy project even newer knitters can make.

Combine garter stitch and an easy eyelet pattern worked sideways to make the Annette Dish Towel from Cluck Cluck Boots, which is meant to be reminiscent of flour sack towels. It calls for DK weight yarn and you can work it in one color or two (or even three!).

Add a little more texture with this set of kitchen towels from Whileberry Creative. They’re mostly worked in garter stitch with borders in easy knit/purl patterns, and you can work them in sport or worsted weight yarn.

Two of Wands Shop has another cute allover knit and purl pattern they call the Seersucker Textured Tea Towel. It’s an easy repeating pattern worked in worsted weight yarn, and there’s a chart in the pattern you can use, but don’t have to, if you want to practice knitting from a chart.

The Classic Cloth dish towel from Handmade Home by Connie is another one that can use a little leftover yarn in a contrasting color, or you could color block it our use stripes throughout the pattern. This one uses worsted weight yarn and another easy repeating knit purl stitch pattern.

If you like to hang your towel on the oven handle or elsewhere but it’s always falling off, try the Stay Put kitchen towel from Fancy Step Knits. This project is worked in garter stitch and includes a hole partway through so you can pull the towel through itself over a rod or handle. Stripes are optional but a nice addition.

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