Sunday, June 29, 2008

Swatching Sunday: Silky Merino Edition

How do you solve a problem like Bahia?

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

I've been working on some swatches of new yarns, but for "official" swatching Sunday, I've been playing with the two skeins Malabrigo Silky Merino in "Bahia" that I got at Gauge.

As I said before, one skein seems to be light than the other, despite the fact that they are officially the same dyelot. It's pretty common with hand dyed yarn.

This swatch is half in one skein and half in the other. I cropped it weird so you can't see where I switched yarns. (I know it's blurry, but you get the picture.) Can you tell the difference?

I knit this swatch while switching skeins every other way. This is the way you're "supposed to" to do it. It looks fine, but it's a pain to knit this way.

I also tried holding both skeins together and using a larger needle. (This one was knit with US size 8, the others were knit with US size 5.) I like the effect of holding the two skeins together to blend the colors. However, for the idea I have in mind for this scarf, I think I want to single strand it. I'll save this idea for another time.

So what do you think. Can you tell the difference between the two skeins in the first swatch?

1 comment:

SpinalCat said...

Big time. Depending on the project, you could switch every few rows (as long as it's a short enough distance to carry up). Then it would at least be consistent instead of having an abrupt shift halfway through.