The Knitting Fiend

I tend to swatch on weekends.

I bought a half pound cone of this blue-green cotton yarn yesterday. I think it will make a nice table runner for the living room, which has an emerald green carpet with bluish flecks. The room is decorated in dark reds and blue greens.

Jim and his brothers have both approved of this project, so it looks like a go. (Beside, I’ve got the yarn, and making it will take 20 minutes. I should have it done before the Superbowl begins! My table will be protected. The only question is this: Will I have enough yarn for matching beverage socks? )

While at the yarn store, I also bought a more challenging yarn. This is a black-beige-olive-creme rayon slub yarn. I thought I could knit it along with a strand of a complimentary color and make a nice manly, yet somewhat unique, sweater for Jim.

I’ve knit the yarn solo, which you can see on the far left of the photo which shows the mini-swatch on top of Jim’s slacks. I like the look of the yarn by itself, but the weight of the fabric is suitable for a woman’s shell, not a man’s pull over. I’d expected that, but I always feel I should try the yarn by itself first.

So, since yarn by itself isn’t suitable for the man’s sweater, I knit the variegated yarn with three strands of olive colored 2/20 rayon, which I bought specifically to knit along with the variegated yarn. This added an extra $5 to the cost. (I’m a big spender!)

Both the triple stranded olive and the variegated yarn are mill ends, and come from the same fashion designer’s studio who used them to make coordinates. Unfortunately, three strands of the solid knit with the variegated slub doesn’t really work well. While the two yarns used separately will make nice coordinates, when knit together, the variegated slub yarn just gets buried in the thicker yarn. I can barely see the slubs, and that strikes me as a waste.

You can examine the center of the mini-swatch and decide for yourself.

Anyway, since neither of my first two tries worked, I dug up a 2/20 camel color yarn, and knit one strand with the variegated yarn. That knit nicely; I like the fabric fairly well. I think it goes with Jim’s slacks. Jim and his brothers both think it looks both attractive and masculine.

I might use these for Jim’s sweater, but I think I’m going to put this yarn on my wait list. I want to find a creme colored rayon and test that. I’d also like to find a single strand of 2/20 in olive because I think the olive blends best with these slacks. (Jim has plenty of camel colored sweaters.) I told Robert and David, my brothers-in-law, that I’ve learn I just can’t guess how these mixes are going to work until I try them so we’ll be evaluating more swatches.

Let me know which you think look best!