Swatching – what a waste of time, right? I mean, it’s yarn, what’s it going to do?

Well, I’ll tell you!

There are so many cool things that swatching can do for you, especially when you’re not entirely sure what you want in the first place. Take, for instance, a self-striping sock yarn, like Felici:

The idea that a self-striping sock yarn could only be used for self-striping socks is just silly. But what else could you use it for?
The cool thing about the new colors of Felici is that the stripes are evenly sized – which means they’re totally predictable. That allows you a lot of great options if you weren’t so keen on socks. For example, when you run two strands at a time, it works up to worsted gauge. So why not try out a worsted gauge self-striping sweater? Or big comfy slippers? The possibilities are endless – but you’ll never know until you swatch.

Especially with striping yarns, you can get really neat effects when you double-strand. What if you pulled from both ends of the ball, lined up one color repeat, and knit?

You’d get a mix of different width stripes and marls, as well as some solid colors. Now how about if you pulled from both ends and offset the color?

The result is even width stripes, but in a slowly shifting color pattern.

Who knew all of this could happen with self-striping sock yarn?

Ingenuity and experimentation are vital to the knitters’ craft – especially when you want to design a new garment, or use some yarn you already have in a totally new way. The best way (and possibly the least stressful and most fun!) is just to cast on a few stitches and see what happens. Sometimes, what you come up with might be so serendipitous that it is destined to become a cherished garment.

More on that later! 😉 <