Periodicity 3: Common Effects Intro

Images on left: © Cathy Byland Weeks.  Top Right: © Nathalie/Skeincharmer. Bottom Right: ©Susi/SusiJB.

One thing you can always count on with variegated  yarns; working with them is never boring. Disappointing, surprising, sometimes lovely, sometimes ugly, but boring it is not.

They have a tendency to surprise us, especially when we give in to our impulses and bring home that multi-colored skein of goodness, wind it into a cake and start knitting with it.  Some yarnies have a high tolerance for chaos and enjoy the often surprising effects. And others will find themselves dissatisfied.

And really, mitigating that dissatisfaction is the main point of this series.  The other point is for the ones who enjoy the chaos and winging it and just seeing what you get (and have a low tolerance for testing) by the end, if you are still with me, you'll at least understand why things turn out the way they do.

There are several common results when working with variegated yarns:

• Pooling and flashing
• Inconsistent results
• Color confetti (aka: fully color-mixed fabric)
• Richer color

It is probably not surprising that knitters often seem to either love or hate the above effects, particularly pooling/flashing and color confetti. But even then, there are always exceptions. I can't tell you how many times I see stuff like, "I normally hate pooling but that is just ... cool."  Or, "Variegateds always turn to color-mush when I use them, but that fully-mixed fabric is kind of ... flickery and lovely."

So, I guess what I'm telling you, is that every project I show as an example - you may not like it. And that's okay.  Just remember that there could well be other examples you probably WILL like.

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