This yarn was a dyeing disaster. I was aiming for Garden In Spring, one of my favourite colourways, and the colour just went all wrong on me. I pulled it out of the dyepot and… Oh no! The pinks were crazy-bright, the greens were just plain ugly, and the purples totally non-existent. I have a picture of it… I can’t even show it to you, it was that awful. It was embarrassing.
I set it aside and decided not to think about it for a few days.
When I finally went back to it and turned it over in my hands (cringing, cringing the whole time), I realised what I wanted to do with it. I thought I knew the shade that would salvage it. I mixed my colours and in went the yarn. And a little while later, this is what I lifted out…
I had hoped to salvage it — instead, it has been saved. It came out so much better than I could have hoped!
There’s one skein in Astrid DK and one in Celeste Fingering weight. And now I just have to decide if they go in the shop or… if I keep them for myself!!! I may have to think about this for a spell.
In Abigail‘s post last week about Choosing a Knitting Pattern for Hand-Dyed Yarns, she focused on reading the yarn’s colour repeats in order to choose a pattern that would work best with the yarn. Doing this avoids undesirable pooling and flashing, and brings out the best in the unique colour changes in each hand-dyed yarn.
But there are a few other things to take into consideration when choosing a pattern for a hand-dyed yarn, and one of the most important is the type of colour changes the yarn contains. Whether a yarn is dyed in gently undulating shades of the same hue or with wild changes from one colour to another makes a big difference to the type of pattern that will suit it. And understanding thise difference will help you choose a stitch that will really show off both the pattern and the yarn.
Hand-dyed yarns can be generally put into three categories. I tend to call them “Semi-Solids”, “Gently Variegated”, and “Wildly Variegated”. Carol J. Sulcoski, in her wonderful book Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarns, calls them “Nearly Solids”, “Muted Multis”, and “Wild Multis”. Either way, the distinctions are the same.
Semi-solids gently move through different shades of a single colour. The transitions from lighter to darker are usually subtle and gradual, giving the colour more life than if it had been dyed in a single shade. Because the colour changes in semi-solids aren’t very attention-seeking, they don’t draw the eye away from intricate stitch work. And for that reason, semi-solid yarns are a wonderful choice for complicated patterns and delicate lace work. Examples of semi-solids are SpaceCadet’s Luna Laceweight in Sage and in Plum Wine.
Luna Laceweight Yarn in Plum Wine
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Luna Laceweight Yarn in Sage
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Gently Variegated yarns contain more than one colour but the overall effect is still subtle and gentle. The colours are all closely related in either hue or value, so the changes don’t pop out too much. Gently Variegated yarns can be used for textured stitchwork, but they work best where the patterns are simpler so the colour changes don’t compete with the stitches. The kind of intricate patterns that work so beautifully with Semi-solids would be overwhelmed by Gently Variegate yarns, but choosing a simpler pattern lets their colours sing. SpaceCadet’s Celeste yarn in Spiceberry and Astrid DK yarn in Red Brick are good examples of Gently Variegated yarns.
Celeste Fingering Weight Yarn in Spiceberry
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Astrid DK Yarn in Red Brick
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And finally, there are Wildly Variegated yarns. These are the yarns that grab everyone’s eye, the ones that seem to jump right out of the yarn basket and yell, “Look at meeee!” They contain multiple colours, of wildly differing hues and values, and their colour changes are distinct and eye-catching. With colour as commanding as that, the key is to choose a knitting pattern that will make the colours the feature, and not compete with them. So, with Wildly Variegated yarns, the best patterns use simple stitches that really let the yarn show itself off. Good examples of Wildly Variegated yarns are SpaceCadet’s Celeste yarn in Garden in Spring and in NightDive.
Celeste Fingering Weight Yarn in Garden in Spring
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Celeste Fingering Weight Yarn in NightDive
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So, there we have it. Three categories of hand-dyed yarns — Semi-Solid, Gently Variegated, and Wildly Variegated — and one simple rule: with wild colour changes, go for simpler stitchwork and, conversely, when the colour changes are gentler, the yarn can handle more complicated pattern work. Just keeping that in mind when you match your yarns to patterns will help ensure you end up with finished objects in which both your yarn and your stitches shine.
Note from the SpaceCadet: My friend Abigail of TAAT Designs is a wonderful knitter and real connoisseur of hand-dyed yarns. And I am delighted that she agreed to share how she chooses the right pattern for each unique yarn…
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By Abigail
In a recent post on my blog, I was reflecting on my relationship with yarn and I realized that it’s not just about the yarn, but also about the potential contained within it. When I see a skein of yarn, I see more than just the yarn itself. I see the twist of the yarn, the way the colors blend together and how the fiber appears. From here, however, it’s not always straightforward to picture what the yarn will look like when it is knit up, which makes it hard to choose a pattern. Especially with handpainted yarns, there’s always a bit of uncertainty. How long is each bit of color? Do the colors repeat in a systematic manner, or are they completely random? With experience, it becomes easier to predict these things without knitting a swatch, but even a prediction is still no guarantee of what the finished product will look like.
Most handpainted yarns do have a predictable repeat. This means that they will tend toward pooling or striping, depending on the length of each stretch of color. The best way I have found to determine this is to unwind a length of the yarn – two yards is usually enough. If the entire length is all one color, then the yarn will stripe in many usages (socks, children’s sweaters, hats, mittens – anything that is less than about 2 feet in circumference or width). If the length is multiple colors, then you can try to predict whether it will stripe or not by estimating how many stitches you can get out of each color section (a good rule of thumb is that it takes 3x as much yarn as the length of fabric you are knitting across).
Once you know roughly whether the yarn will stripe or not, it becomes easier to choose a pattern. My preference is for yarns that do not stripe, or have minimal striping – I like a new color in every row of my knitting. I’m also a big fan of knitting socks with handpainted yarns, so that’s usually where my mind first goes.
When I received my skein of SpaceCadet Creations’ Cold Waters earlier this year, I wasn’t sure at first what it wanted to be. The colors were so subtle and yet striking all at once, and I wanted to choose a pattern that would really show off the colors. From looking at the yarn, I was able to predict that it would stripe slightly, but not be too overpowering. There was also not much chance of pooling (which I do my best to avoid). This told me that I didn’t need to choose a pattern that would actively reduce pooling, but I didn’t want to choose a pattern that was too busy, either, so that I didn’t overpower the yarn. Because Cold Waters uses tonal shading rather than lots of different colors, however, I knew the pattern could have a little something going on.
The stockinette portion of the sock clearly shows the beautiful, subtle, not-quite-single-row striping of Cold Waters.
Around the time I received my Cold Waters, I also received a gorgeous pattern from Yarnissima (through a monthly sock yarn club I belong to), The Portland Gussets. I had been looking for the perfect yarn for this pattern, and Cold Waters seemed like it would fit. It had everything I was looking for: medium-length color repeats (too short, and the pattern would be lost in the yarn), not too much color variation (any more, and the yarn would obscure the pattern), but enough visual interest (not enough, and the pattern would be boring).
I quickly cast on, and the socks just flew off my needles. The pattern and yarn were a great fit!
When you’re knitting hand-dyed yarns, each skein is a unique adventure. With a little practice, it becomes easy to match a yarn to pattern. If you take the time to examine the yarn and read its color repeat, the yarn will help you decide which pattern to choose for it.
TAAT Designs is a newly formed design group created by four friends — Trisha, Allison, Abigail and Tesia — to combine their love of knitting with their desire to create unique and fun patterns for knitted objects of all types. Read more about their adventures on the TAAT Designs blog.
SpaceCadet yarns have been featured in an Etsy Treasury several times now, and each time I have been absolutely delighted to get the news. There is nothing quite like having your work choosen by your fellow Etsians and highlighted right there on the screen to make you feel all warm, right down to you toes.
But the interesting thing is that, so far, every time my yarns have been included in a Treasury, it’s been the Freshly Cut Grass colourway that’s been picked — every single time! And that’s great, because it tells me that the green I created for that colourway is as eye-catching to others as it is to me. But at the same time, I couldn’t help wondering why none of my other colours were ever chosen — or if they ever would be.
So you can imagine my surprise when I clicked on the link in an email today and found that it was not Freshly Cut Grass but instead Cold Waters that had been chosen for the “I Feel Like a Blue…” Etsy Treasury. I believe I actually let out a whoooop, I was that excited!
Ladies and Gentlemen, I proudly present you Cold Waters, the newest Etsy Treasury star in the SpaceCadet lineup…
The other day, when an unfamiliar knitting term tripped me up and I reached to my knitting books to find the answer, I realised just how important it is for every knitter to have a really great knitting reference book. It needs to be a book that you can turn to when you’ve tried to figure things out for yourself and nothing has worked, when you’re frustrated and contemplating pulling the needles out and frogging the whole project. It has to be a book that you trust and, most of all, one that really makes sense to you.
See if you can spot the book that's used most often...
And if it also happens to be a book that inspires you, challenges you, helps you to grow as a knitter… Well, then, you’ve found a keeper — a book you will turn to year after year.
My (now vintage) copy of Vogue Knitting
I found exactly that book, back when I very first started knitting, and it has been my go-to knitting reference ever since. It’s Vogue Knitting, The Ultimate Knitting Book and it’s excellent. When I bought this book, I had been shown how to cast on and I could make knit stitches, but nothing more — and I had a real hankering to move past garter stitch! This book taught me everything. I started with mastering purl stitches and binding off (very exciting additions to my repertoire!), and then used it to move onto increases, decreases, cables, intarsia, stranded colourwork… All learned on my own, just me and my trusty reference book.
The thing that I loved about this book is that the descriptions are so clear. The pictures just made sense to me — I could see exactly what I was supposed to do for every single technique.
And it’s comprehensive. As well as basic and advanced knitting techniques, it covers everything from the history of knitting, to the properties of different yarns, the care of knitted garments, and even the principles of knitwear design.
The Table of Contents
I tried other books as well — in fact, I began acquiring them with all the enthusiasm of, well, a new knitter — but none of them ever worked as well for me as the Vogue Knitting book. Often the descriptions simply weren’t as clear, or the illustrations were too confusing, and always, always they simply weren’t as in depth. Eventually I stopped collecting other reference books and realised I had found The One.
And we’ve been together for over 20 years now. I couldn’t be happier.
Evidence of a well-loved book
So what is your favourite knitting reference book? I’d love to know!
