Indecisive Yarns

I'm Drea I'm Meg. I'm Tina. And I'm Jess. And this is Pardon in My Stash. Welcome to Pardon My Stash, a podcast about knitting within the fiber arts and how awesome it is. Geez. You're supposed to say woohoo. Oh, woo. It was just aggressive. How awesome. Look, it is. Okay, got it. Can't change that. No doubt. It's awesome. It's going to be that kind of nice. Before we get into this week's topic, what are you working on this week, Meg? It's a calliope sweater. Again. It's good, though. It's warm.

And it is also a heat advisory right now. Yeah, it's really hard. But like, I really want to finish this and I really don't want to cast on another project right now. Because I, yeah, I'm trying monogamy. It's not working. We need couples therapy. It's not for everybody. It's not working for me. Like, this is the time when I would dive into the stash and start looking for another project. And I'm like, you know what? No, I really want to finish this. I love it. It's just really warm right now.

It's like knitting a big blanket. It is like disgusting. And as someone who generally does not complain about any heat, like whatsoever, like I never complain about somebody listening to this in Arizona is going to be like, you guys are whims. Listen, man. We are. Yeah, we are. It's not that it's hot. It's humid. It's both. I walk outside and it's wet. It feels like you're walking into a furnace. It's really bad out here.

No, I left work today and it felt like I got slapped in the face with a wet towel. Yeah, it's real nasty. But I may cave tomorrow and cast on something else. I don't know. I don't want to. It's been really hard to be tough. I'm excited for your next project, whatever it may be. I'm excited for it too. But I'm trying to hold off until October. Tell me more about this one. This one is made out of critical hit dies, wizard and mystic. They're yarns I love. And the colorway is a theory illness.

It's nice. Thank you. And I did finish my make along shawl. Lovely stripes, which it was not stripes. But the pattern was called lovely stripes by Leah M. Zezines. And I made that out of critical hit dies, barred and sapphire dragon. It's done. Thank you. I like it. I want to wear it to work, but not right now. Gonna wait a few weeks to wear it to work. I am working on my Stormy Skieshaw. It is out of wool circles, white face woodland foreply. And I am holding it double in natural.

It's not dyed. And I'm actually closing in on it. Because my rows are much longer and I only have this little heave of two balls left. I finished a couple projects. I finished my youngest daughter's sweater, which was the southwood sweater out of yarn that shall not be named. And I also finished my make along tee cozy, which was an actual tee cozy. And I did that perfectly. Dude, I didn't measure this at all. I didn't measure my pot. I was just like, I'm just gonna make it. And if it fits, cool.

If it doesn't, it's just gonna look awkward. It's fine. So I made it and I didn't end up making any pattern that I wanted to make. It was like, I just look for like the kind of the easiest thing I could find that wasn't boring. So the pattern I used for my tee cozy was the modern cable tee pot cozy. So it had two tables. It had two cables on each side and then it was seed dot in between. So it had a little bit of interest in there to keep my attention.

By the way, if anyone has to do the seed dot stitch, it is much easier in Portuguese style. I'm just just fair warning. Don't do it English style. It's so much better in Portuguese style. But yeah, I made, I didn't follow the directions entirely because they did a lot of seaming. So and I thought I didn't want to do that. So I did it as a seamless piece. It worked out great. I did have to tink back one side when I realized I didn't flip it the right way.

So it was like two sides were going the same way and I was like, crap. So I had to tink back like I think I was like maybe you made up the difference real fast. Oh yeah, because it was the repeats go super fast. It's only I think it was like row four to row 13 is a repeat. So it wasn't it wasn't that much of and I wasn't fully done with one repeat. So no big deal. And I finished it and then I put it all together and then I put it on my teepot and I was like, oh my god, it fits.

It fits my grandma's teapot. Perfect. So I went from finishing no projects to I have all the projects done. I'm excited. That's a good feeling. Yeah. It's good to feel accomplished when you feel like you just working on whips endlessly. What about you, Jay? I am working on my snail. Finally. Yay. Get in there. You have your teapot with you. I do. Well, because it's a very small teapot. So it's cute.

I'm not making it specifically the way that they said to make it, because I think that if I made it held double, it would come out enormous. Yeah. And this is a very small teapot. Is that like a two serving pot or one serving to? Yeah, I think there's like two cups of tea in here. And I mean, cups like right. Yeah. Tea cups. So this is the knitted snail tea cozy by Anka Plummer. And I'm using Baroko Vintage DK in blue. I like how you looked at the label and you're like in blue.

Well, I thought it was going to be like a like a color name, but it is a number. Be sure to check out our website, PardonMyStache.com for more information as well as pictures regarding our current projects, patterns and yarns.

So this week we're going to talk about indecisive yarns. And I feel like we've all been there. You're at a fiber festival or you're at a craft show or you're in the yarn shop and you find the perfect skein of yarn. And it's a beautiful addition to your collection. You've been sitting there, you've been staring at it for a long time. You're finally ready to knit with it. Check out what you think is the perfect project for this perfect skein of yarn.

And you get going on it and it just, oh, it just isn't working. Have you guys been there? Good question. I was using hand dyed yarn. A friend of mine had hand dyed me. Actually, I had asked her to make me up some yarn in these particular colors. And I loved the yarn and I didn't know at the time, because this is how inexperienced I was, it was what we call flashing where you're getting like big spots or splotches of color down the scarf.

And the hard part about it is that I needed two skeins of yarn. It was worsted weight scarf. The first skein did not do that. Oh, it didn't do that. And the second skein did. I didn't love it, but I kind of, you know, I got to the point where I'm like, there's no helping it. It's not like I can change my needle gauge. And it's too late for me to alternate skeins because I've already knit half the scarf.

So I just learned going forward of when I am using hand dyed yarns, you know, whenever you, you buy a hand dyed yarn, a lot of times the dyer will actually put like, make sure you are, if you were using multiple skeins, make sure you are switching skeins every few rows to avoid that. Yes. Thank you. Alternating skeins. That was the word I was looking for and couldn't find. That is why. So that first off, I'm asking them. No, it's not a stupid question.

I'm sure some listeners did not know what alternating skeins meant. Right. Well, it's, it's partially for that, but it's also because like, even, even if you try really hard unless the, the yarns are in the same pot, they're not going to, there's going to be like a dye lot is not going to be perfect. Yeah. It's very, very hard to have things be exact. So if you're using hand dyed yarns, you always want to alternate skeins. If it's a big project.

So you don't get, I mean, I say that right now, I'm knitting a sweater. I'm not alternating skeins. I'm just hoping for the best. Like I don't listen to what I preach. But yeah, it is, it is one of those things like I could have gotten upset about it, but after a while I was like, I'm just going to live with it. You know, it's, it is what it is.

So nature of the beast, you could, um, if you still wanted to alternate at some point, um, before you get to the end of that ball, you can start alternating them. Oh, I totally could do that too. I could. I'm just very much like most of these were from one dialogue. I think I did two skeins that were from another dialogue and I kind of made up my mind to be at peace with it. I was just like, whatever, I'm not going to bother because I didn't want to try alternating skeins with the mohair too.

I felt like that was going to end up being a huge mess. So um, yeah, it's, it's definitely, I've never had a problem where like I couldn't get the yarn. Well, no, that's not true. I had a problem where I couldn't get the yarn to do what I wanted to do with it. Um, but my tolerance for trying to fix it is low apparently. And I just kind of was like, whatever, you know what? That's the way it's going to be. I'm going to just let it be what it wants to be. That's fair. And I live with it.

I respect that. Really? Yeah. I mean, I look at my, um, simple lines shawl and I used, uh, Malabrigo. Yes. Oh, that's a huge, uh, offender. Yup. Huge offender for that. I can definitely tell how many skeins of yarn I used because they're all different. I love Malabrigo so much, but it does not matter. Even if they're all from the same dye lot, they're so, so different. Who else has a skein that didn't behave? I feel like I have two categories of non-behaving skeins.

Um, I have like the skeins that when I put them in a specific project, I just can't make it work. And then I have the skein where it's more like what you're talking about, where like I didn't anticipate that's what it was going to look like knitted. The former category, I find that a lot with my groovy Hughes. Um, which again, I love that yarn. I love that yarn. But, um, every time I put it in a specific project, I'm just like, Nope, that's not the right one. Nope. That's not the right one.

Or it's like not good enough. It's like, no, that's a waste of fantastic yarn. So it's like, um, it gets frustrating though, because I feel like I've had literally yarn that's like almost 10 years old at this point. And I just won't commit a project to it. Um, it's actually like part of the reason why I've been trying to like give away some of those skeins. Cause I feel like maybe if I see someone else knitted up, like I'll, I'll, I'll come to terms and like just do it.

But, um, but that's like one piece of it. And then I definitely have problems with actually, you know, which one I don't have issues with is to be fair is the critical hit yarn. If I don't, I'm serious. If I like, I used it for my make-along came out just the way I thought it was going to come out. Um, it makes me happy. Yeah, no, it's like, I don't usually have so far. I haven't had an issue, um, in terms of like, Oh no, no, that looks right. That looks right.

I think that's a big problem and it's, it's an oversight that a lot of people have with like a hand dyed yarn is, is so, um, you know, kind of it's put out on a pedestal, um, because it is, it's, it's a form of art. It really is. But at the same time, um, that art doesn't always translate really well into like a flat knitted piece. It, it, it doesn't look the same in the skein.

We brought this up during our hot takes episode that they look beautiful in the skein, um, but they don't always behave the way we want them to. And I think that turns a lot of, especially new, new people off of the variegated yarns because it's like, I spent so much money on this skein hand dyed yarns, not cheap. And then you try to knit with it and it doesn't come out the way you wanted it to. And you're frustrated. It's like, okay, well then what do I, what do I do with this?

What am I going to do? I think I also find that the more complicated the yarn is, the least complicated their project needs to be. Correct. Um, yeah. And I'll be less frustrated about what I'm putting them into. Um, I think I've mentioned it before with like that one particular like unicorn barf for the news. If I do any kind of fancy stitch work, it's just lost. It's gone because it's just so busy and it's like, okay, this is this, you need to be stocknet or garter. Congratulations.

Um, but, um, what else I, what I was also going to mention, uh, Plies and Hellhounds and also less traveled are also very reliable in terms of like, okay, I'm making this and I'm expecting it to look somewhat like this. And it does. Um, I agree about Malabrigo too. It is never the goddamn same ever. Um, and also like it blocks like crazy. So like sometimes, yeah.

So sometimes it's like when I'm working with even Malabrigo, it's like, yeah, I make it, but then I'm like, I can never get this wet ever. Which is it, which doesn't work a lot of the time. Um, completely out of color, God, completely out of, um, without, um, going more into color. I was actually going to talk about material too, because for me, I also find, so I like cotton a lot. I get the least irritation from like cotton and bamboo and stuff like that.

Um, but I think the one thing that makes me sad, so I love my Lumiere cowl and I love wearing it because, um, I always feel like it's very breathable. So it, but warm because it's that double kind of doubled up with the two colors, with the color work. Um, but one negative I would say with it is that because it's cotton, it has no shape. So if you want to see the pattern that this beautiful color work that I've done, basically I have to like either prop it on my chin while I'm walking around.

That's a look. Yeah. It's real classy. Um, well sometimes like I'll prop it on my nose if it's especially cold. And then like, you can like, if I'm, sometimes you also wear it like, like, like, okay, you don't need to, you don't need to bring up the babushka. Okay. You just outed me. I love that you wear it like that though. So cute. If everyone doesn't know what I'm referencing or what Jreya is referencing, it's so my Lumiere cowl is a length that I can actually kind of wear it like a hood.

So essentially, so, um, when we were shoveling snow last winter, um, I found that when I wore a hat, I actually would have to take it off because I would sweat so much. Um, but if I put my cotton Lumiere cowl over my head, uh, it covered my ears and it kept me warm, but it let me sweat. Like it was breathable and I could wash it cause it had the cotton. Um, but yes, I did look like a little babushka. Correct. I left that for you though. It was very cozy. It worked out great.

It was a utilitarian kind of thing. But yes, when I wear it that way, yes, you can see the color work because it's all flattened out. Maybe that's how I should just wear it from now on. Over your head. Yep. Just who needs this on the neck? It shows it off well. It does. Actually it does. But then it's like, wait a second, why is she wearing it like that? Um, right. Um, but I do feel that material is also really important and about what you're making.

So if you do, if you do want it to stay a certain way, like shape wise, then it really, you should use a yarn that is more structural and the meaning it's not going to fall and go flat. I've definitely frogged a lot of projects because the yarn did not behave the way that I wanted it to. Yeah. Like it didn't make the fabric the way that I thought it was going to. Didn't fall right. Or the cables don't look plump. That also annoys me. That really annoys me. What a grievance.

That is such a grievance. It's just not, you do all this work to twist the yard and make it look pretty. And then it's just flat. I'm like, now I wanted a bomb. I want to point of the cable. Yeah, exactly. Otherwise. Yeah. Just do stitches. Just do a weird stitch pattern. Well that's like, that's why I can never understand. And no offense. But if you made a lace project with super variegated yarn, I'm sure it came out lovely.

But whatever I see like really intricate lace made with some wild variegated yarn, I'm like, oh my God, it looks like a magic eye painting. I'm talking about. You can't see the pattern. Let me look at it real, real close and then I'll gradually move it away from me. I do see a lot that to see this should be on our hot take episode. I think I did say something about the magic eye painting.

I do feel like I see that is a common thing where they do this intricate lace work and the color is not consistent. And I'm like, and then they put, and then it's like, oh, and then the best part is they do that. The color is not consistent. And then when they wear it, they wear something busy underneath it. So it's like, it's just all gone. You can't see any of it. It's hard because it's like, I'm sure the project is beautiful, but it can't be seen. You lose it.

You lose something in the, in the color. But also with lace, you have to be careful with the style of yarn because if it's not a style that's going to block and hold its block, you're going to lose all of those nice eyelets that you spent so much time to make. Yeah. You need to pick a yarn that's going to hold its block. And yeah, that, that can make or break my simple lines. It actually makes me want to make another simple lines. But then I think about the bad decision that would be.

So you didn't like the simple lines. I liked the simple lines, but I think Meg can agree with me on this. You get to a certain point in it and then you go, why did I do, why did I do this to myself? I made two, two was a choice, right? Two was a choice. Yeah. It's not, it's not the border. The border is actually very satisfying. It's the section before the border. That's it. Because it's just stuck. It's a lot of stocking.

Anyway, but so, but that actually, my simple lines, my orange one, my burnt orangey colored one, it actually curls on the bottom because it doesn't block well. It didn't hold a block. Nope. Yeah. So it's hard to take photos of it because it's just looking, it just looks curled the whole time. And that annoys me because then I'm just like, ah, this looks like I didn't know what I was doing, which I didn't. But still, I feel like I'm, I know better now. Well, and that's the tough part too.

Like you, you can only kind of work with what you've got. And if that's mentally, that's what you had at the time. That's what you were, you didn't think about that aspect. I just, I just wanted a red, like some sort of red based, um, shawl, but yeah, I, yeah, I love the color, but like, Ooh man. All of us have a project I want to say, I want to say it has like nylon or something. The material I used was like a wool nylon blend.

And that's not a good choice for a shawl, at least for that shawl in particular. It just didn't work out. But interesting, you know, we talked about variegated a bit and I'm, I'm just looking through my projects right now. And so this brioche scarf that I did, it's called the basic brioche scarf or brioche base, whatever. Um, something basic brioche, um, which by the way is totally f'd up.

And I feel bad because every time I have up on a project, it ends up being the project I'm making for my mom. And she's supposed to love it anyway. She does wear it all the time. I will say this particular scarf she does wear all the time, but like if you lay it out and you look at the, there's supposed to be a bunch of like increases and decreases, not increases. I'm sorry. Not increases and decreases, but, um, crossovers.

Yeah. And there's like a, not a continuous X on one side anyway, but that one, I used a variegated, uh, yellow and white and it actually came out. Okay. It, I don't know if it's because I had a solid purple behind it. I'm trying to get like a good, probably because you had something solid to balance it out. Yeah. So, so that yellow and white is totally variegated. Yeah. Um, but the purple is solid. So I feel like it balances, it gives it the depth it needs.

I think that's a good point to make too. Like nobody is saying here, like variegated yarn will never work on a pattern. Nobody is saying that you can't make a sweater out of Malibre. You go, nobody is saying those things, um, or that you have to alternate skeins every time. Um, this is more just kind of almost like a, um, buyer beware sort of things. Well, be aware that these are problems that you might run into.

If you know how the yarn operates, it's going to give you a better idea of what to, what you're going to put your time into. Are you suggesting a gauge swatch? No, because I would be suggesting a gauge swatch right about now. No, no, no, no, no. Even okay. But even if say you don't do a gauge swatch, which I don't recommend, say you don't, I still think if you at least know the material type that it would help you in some capacity.

Yeah. If you're familiar with the, um, with the content, yeah, the yarn. Yeah. Like we all know Malibre go blooms, right? So yeah, I might make a shawl out of it because I don't care if that Rios blooms. We gotta, we gotta be sorry. Mecca also blooms. Yeah. Cause that's the one I used for my seed. And that is why I didn't block it. Yeah. That is why I didn't block it. It was already big enough.

Um, so yeah, like, like if you know that it's going to bloom and you're working on a project where you don't care if it gets bigger, then you're good. Like it's fine. Like you can totally use it. Or if you do have a really complex variegated and you don't know what to do with it, if you balance, like Brioche is a fantastic option because you can balance it out with a solid. Yeah. Um, it kind of gives that variegated a background to live on.

And with Brioche, you can make it super complicated and it works. I also really like drop stitch with variegated, which is like this shawl. That helps avoid the flashing, the pooling, all those fun things that yarn does. Yes. And even if you, the drop stitch in particular, like gives more air behind the stitch, if that makes sense.

So if you're wearing like a solid, um, shirt or top behind it or in front, I'm sorry, in front of it, so then the shawls on top of that, it would let you see the pattern a lot more. Yeah. So Jess, what about you? What do you do with your indecisive yarns? Um, so if I don't realize I don't like it early enough, I just power through and make it work. See, I have tried to do that and I will sit there in misery.

And like, it's when the rows start coming like super short, like I'll be watching football, quote unquote watching football and I'll be knitting and I'll do like 10 stitches and then I'll be like, oh, check the Instagram. What's going on Instagram right now? What's on Instagram? How's the old Facebook doing? Um, see variegated, it's weird because I love variegated yarn because I like the shift of color.

I have trouble with tonals because I get bored with the color, but I also like complicated patterns and it is harder to see that with variegated. So I have to decide, do I really care about seeing that pattern as much as I enjoy the color of the yarn or do I want to see the pattern more than play with the variegation? And what a choice. It is a choice. Um, honestly, my, uh, Celtic myth shawl, I was like, whatever. I like the color of this variegation better than the pattern and I'm keeping it.

And you can still sort of see the cables through it. You do kind of have to get a little close for some of it, but I do not care because Bridget's flame was a beautiful color. No, it's just Bridget. Is it just Bridget's flame was one of our colors. That's right. Yeah. Um, but Bridget's color was really beautiful and I was so sick of the stockinette at that point that I wasn't going back and I wasn't changing my choice. So well at that point you were at the border and not going to restart.

I wasn't. That's it. Wasn't going to your all in ride or die. It's like I was making it and I still like the way that the colors look on that. Even though, like I said, you kind of, you do kind of lose the cable from a distance, but I can still see it and feel it up close. So I was okay with it. Um, there have been other projects where I started and I'm like, I really don't like the way the color is pooling on this. I need to try something else.

Um, sometimes I'll just start from the other end of the skein. Like if I started from the center pole, I'll start from the outside. And sometimes that's enough to adjust where your colors are falling. If it's, if it's kind of pooling kind of thing. That's a good point. And, and that's enough to get through it. Um, I have alternated skeins surprisingly, uh, before I did on my sweater of sorts because my color ways were a little, um, too far apart and I didn't want it to be like really weird.

So I alternated every row and you can't really tell now. So no, you can't tell. Um, so I have done that. Yeah. One had a bit more blue and one had a bit more purple. I didn't want, I wanted that mix. I was going to say you could do that. Um, unless I misunderstood, sorry. Uh, you could, you could do that alternating skeins with the center and the out, like with that same skein. You can, that's harder because you risk twisting it together. Cause I didn't break the yarn.

I just carried it up one of the seams. Um, seems I carried it up where a scene would have been. Um, so, and it wouldn't have really worked for that skein because the entire skein one was more blue. One was more purple. So it was like, um, it was our yarn. So I knew where the color was. I knew how it, how it was going to do.

Um, but if you look ahead of time, you can kind of see like after a while, I feel like by looking at a skein, you can kind of see what it's going to do to an extent, to an extent and decide, um, and like I said, a lot of times mine does just come down to, I really liked the CRN and I really liked this pattern. So I'm going to do it. Everyone else is like, wow, that's a mess. And I'm like, it's beautiful. But that's really all that matters. If it makes you happy, then who cares? Right.

And if it, if it really bothers you that much, then you know what to do about it. You can steer clear of those yarns for those projects. And if you finish the project and you really don't like it, you can always harvest the yarn back and try a different project. Right.

That's the one thing that I like about crafting and like the fiber arts is that most projects, you can re harvest that yarn and, and try again, do something else with it, get like fine new yarn to finish the project you started and use your yarn that wasn't working into a different project. And sometimes that yarn is just meant to sit on your wall so you could look at it. I have had several skeins where sometimes the skein is art. That's how I feel about my groovy Hughes.

No, it's, it's, it's honest. You're being honest and true here. Like that is the, sometimes I, I, oh, those pink cakes. I don't know what to do with the unicorns. Like it's just, I have four of them. That's the problem, like I, I really, really liked that colorway, but it's to be a stockinette sweater. I don't know. Maybe I'm just going to force skeins of fingering. No, no, no. They're actually worsted. I was going to say four skeins of fingering.

There's no way you couldn't make a sweater with that. Four skeins of worsted. You are a child's tank top. Yeah. I was thinking either a tank top for me or I was just going to make a crop sweater for a cat because my daughter would be all over that. She'd be like, yeah. And she's been asking me for crop sweaters just every single day. Just I don't know. It's the thing right now. That's what's in.

Yeah. Yeah. I personally have had a lot of schemes where I have started projects and then frogged them because I just didn't, I didn't like the way that it was going. There was nothing wrong with the pattern. The pattern was fine, but. And the yarn was fine. And the yarn. They just weren't meant to be. Yeah. And I don't know if there's like any like real answer to that question. Like what do you do with indecisive yarns? I feel like the best answer is keep trying.

I think that's a good point because it depends. Especially if you love it. Yeah. You could use it in a different capacity too because I've, I've heavily considered that groovy Hughes yarn that I keep talking about making them into palms because they'd be pretty palms on top of a hat. Palm, palms. Oh yeah. You could do that. I heard palms. Like yes. Palm trees. I'm going to make palm trees and then hand palms and yeah, no, um, I would support you. Um, but yeah.

Um, because it is so busy, but it actually works like a pom pom looks cute when it's got tons of different colors. And so I've thought about that. Yeah. But that's, I mean, honestly, one of the things that I love and we don't do it, I wish we did. But the hand, uh, hand dyers show what a yarn looks like in knit and crochet. And I'm not going to lie. I don't crochet. Um, 90% of the time I love the way it looks in crochet. I almost love it better than the knit.

Like it's amazing how different they do. They come out way different. Um, from stockinette versus crochet. Totally different. Um, so if you are a bi-craft jewel, maybe that's the answer. Maybe that yarn is not, uh, maybe that yarn is not meant to be knit. Maybe it's meant to be crocheted or vice versa. True. Or woven. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or string art. I've seen that too. You like place it into, and you glue it into certain shapes and stuff. That's really pretty too. Yeah. I like that.

Um, there's something for every skein out there. Yeah. If you can't get it, yeah. If you can't get it to behave. I know if it's not behaving, maybe it's just trying to tell you to try a different craft. Exactly. Well, that's it for this week's topic. For additional content and opportunities to connect with the cast, check out our website at partofmustache.com. Be sure to tune in next week for more laughs, love, and llamas at Part of Moustache.