Variegated yarn: the problem with beautiful hand-dyed yarns
On my previous post I've talked about pooling, an effect that can occur when using variegated yarn. In this post I'm going to talk about a completely different problem that can occur when using hand-made variegated yarns. I'll call it inconsistent colouring, and I've come across it recently while knitting the sweater I've mentioned in my previous post, as a justification to write about knitting-unrelated subjects.
After working on this sweater for months, I've frogged it. I admit it, this was traumatic experience. The reason I've frogged it was that when I was close to finishing the sweater I realized I had areas of different colour and I didn't like the overall effect.
So this post is a warning if you're planning on doing something with this type of yarns. Some hand-made variegated yarn is only suitable for small projects (or colour knitting) that require a few skeins, but not projects, like a man's sweater that may require as much as 8 or more.
Here is my story. My sweater was made with Malabrigo Yarn Mecha in the colorway Queguay. All skeins are from the same dye lot, but they also have very different colours from each other. Malabrigo has the following warning on their webpage about this yarn:
I did all that, but I didn’t carefully look at all skeins before starting. So I used 4 skeins and finished the yoke and arms of the sweater in beautiful shades of purple and cream. One of the arms was slightly darker than the other but that was kind of OK. However, even this level of homogeneity was only achieved because, not only I'd been using two skeins at a time, but at some point I frogged the project and changed the order of the skeins I was using in order to achieve a better result. I started the body when I realized that the skeins left had a completely different colour scheme, even though they are supposed to be the same. They are much more colourful with shades of green, yellow, brownish purple, very dark bluish purple nearing on black, etc. I continued to knit thinking that I was just going to have to resign with a sweater with a different colour in the body than the yoke and arms, but I stopped after realizing I simply didn’t like the effect in this particular colour scheme.
I guess I could start over and mix the skeins in a different order to achieve a more homogeneous result, but I've already done that once. Starting again is too much work considering that until I’ve knitted the sweater almost to the end, I can never be sure the end result will be suitable.
After working on this sweater for months, I've frogged it. I admit it, this was traumatic experience. The reason I've frogged it was that when I was close to finishing the sweater I realized I had areas of different colour and I didn't like the overall effect.
So this post is a warning if you're planning on doing something with this type of yarns. Some hand-made variegated yarn is only suitable for small projects (or colour knitting) that require a few skeins, but not projects, like a man's sweater that may require as much as 8 or more.
Here is my story. My sweater was made with Malabrigo Yarn Mecha in the colorway Queguay. All skeins are from the same dye lot, but they also have very different colours from each other. Malabrigo has the following warning on their webpage about this yarn:
Be sure to get enough yarn to complete your project since each bag is a different dye lot, and skeins may vary from bag to bag. […] The skeins may vary one from the other even within the same bag. To ensure random color distribution, work from two balls of yarn at once, alternating a few rows from each ball.
I did all that, but I didn’t carefully look at all skeins before starting. So I used 4 skeins and finished the yoke and arms of the sweater in beautiful shades of purple and cream. One of the arms was slightly darker than the other but that was kind of OK. However, even this level of homogeneity was only achieved because, not only I'd been using two skeins at a time, but at some point I frogged the project and changed the order of the skeins I was using in order to achieve a better result. I started the body when I realized that the skeins left had a completely different colour scheme, even though they are supposed to be the same. They are much more colourful with shades of green, yellow, brownish purple, very dark bluish purple nearing on black, etc. I continued to knit thinking that I was just going to have to resign with a sweater with a different colour in the body than the yoke and arms, but I stopped after realizing I simply didn’t like the effect in this particular colour scheme.
I guess I could start over and mix the skeins in a different order to achieve a more homogeneous result, but I've already done that once. Starting again is too much work considering that until I’ve knitted the sweater almost to the end, I can never be sure the end result will be suitable.
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