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Pooling when you Knit

Good Colour Pooling 
The photo above shows what one gets when variegated yarn is used to knit.  This particular sample is one where the colour pooling or the way the different colours come together is satisfying to the eye.  However depending on the length of the row being knit and/or the length of the colour blocks in the yarn, things can go wrong.


Colour pooling that is not so satisfying
If you look closely at this sweater front you can see that the striping above the armpits are relatively horizontal until increases are made for the bust.  At that point and below you see the horizontal lines begin to slant downward and by the time the front is completed, the blue is completely pooling in the lower right-hand corner and there are almost vertical striping on the left.  This is the type of pooling knitters generally don't like.  

In fact because of pooling many knitter avoid using variegated yarn altogether.  Just to put a really fine point on pooling, take a look at the photo below.  See how the strips on the sock look quite uniform at the top of the sock until you get to the heel.  Then the orange pools after shorter rows are knit for the top of the sock.  See that as the work proceeds to the yet unfinished toe, the striping adjusts again almost matching the top of the sock.  The knitter said she'd just give the finished pair to someone who didn't knit and wouldn't necessarily know the orange block was a problem.  Others would see no problem here at all and would be happy with the way it looks.

Pooling at the top of the foot

There are antidotes for pooling.  The most common is to use two ball of yarn changing from one to the other every two rows at the seam.  Generally speaking it is very rare to find a hank of yarn, not to be confused with a skein or a ball of yarn, that starts or ends at exactly the same point in the mix of colours, so blending two hanks causes the colour pattern to be disrupted thus keeping it from pooling.  

Knowing all of this I was attracted to a Noro yarn.  Eisaku Noro is a Japanese yarn designer who owns a manufacturing plant that hand dyes beautiful variegated yarn.  While at Little Knits I found one I just couldn't 
resist.

My Noro Pooling just the way I like it


So this is what I'm going to do.  I intend to knit myself, yes, make something for me, using my Noro variegated yarn.  I have started it already completing the left front and just begun the right.  I rather like the striping the yarn has created.  But I did have to alter the starting point on the second hank in order to get the stripes to match.  Once I get to the back it will be necessary to do more splicing of the yarn in order to make sure the striping matches both of the front sections.  


Some knitters find this need to work the yarn just too much fiddling; I, on the other hand, look forward to the challenge.  Let's see if I'm equally as enthusiastic at completion.
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