Letting your variegated yarn shine

I didn't really mean for it to happen

I didn’t really mean for it to happen. I was just innocently walking into a yarn booth at a fiber festival, minding my own business, when I saw it. A perfect skein of yarn with, like, all 12 of my favorite colors dancing through the merino fiber.

Take me home and knit me into something amazeballs, it whispered (note: this was years ago when it was still cool to say “amazeballs”).

What can a knitter do when yarn speaks to you like that? You gotta comply, so I did. And then that skein sat right in my stash for a few years because I didn’t have any idea what to knit with it other than socks (which is always an excellent choice, but I’m not much of a sock knitter *gasp*).

Unlike a semisolid shade, you can never be quite sure of how a variegated one will knit up. That’s part of the beauty of it, right? But there are some ways to let it reach it’s full potential, and for me, that usually involves a not-so-well-kept secret:

Pair that variegated yarn with a semisolid shade that lets it stand out.

Why does this work? Because the solid shade breaks up potential pooling, and lets individual stitches (if the colorwork isn’t too intricate) or the overall variegation stand out.

Here’s what I mean. Check out Yellow Brick Rodeo. I designed it with that “amazeballs” variegated yarn (called Zombie Prom…another reason I couldn’t resist) and paired it with a solid shade of yellow that contrasted with most of the colors in it:

See how the striping with the yellow really sets off the variegated colors? And the little slipped yellow stitches add some extra interest. Cleverly placed increases for the yoke shaping (it’s a top-down) make the little zigzag pattern absolutely seamless.

With a more lightly variegated skein, on the other hand, you might want to let it sort of “dance” on top of a semisolid as in You’re a Firework:

For a variegated skein with a long color change, you might consider something like my recent Sister Act scarf—a simple slip-stitch pattern (no stranding!) that shows off that slow gradient along with a contrasting semisolid. This skein started off purple and turned blue then teal then green, but it will totally work with any type of variegated skein:

If you read the last newsletter, then you know that these (and all my) patterns are on sale at 40% off for a few more days—no code needed, through June 19th.

And because my brain was running on low-battery mode when I emailed last week, I totally forgot to add the sale to my Payhip shop as well. So if you prefer Payhip, then sale works there, too.

Click whichever button you like best:

And have a Happy June! I’m so grateful to be in your inbox, and it’s a privilege I don’t take for granted:)

Enjoy,

Mary (aka Lyrical Knits)