To Match or Mismatch

Variegated yarn calls to me all the time. I love the way the different colours blend together on the skein or hank. They always look so good and then you knit with it and things can turn ugly.

I've talked about variegated yarn pooling before here; it is one of the major drawbacks of variegated yarn. Here's a couple of pooling variegated yarns that are tolerable although they strike me as less than ideal.

Pooling on the front doesn't match well around the sleeves

Pooling in the upper half doesn't match the lower half

But pooling isn't the only concern when using variegated yarn. For instance, if one is knitting a pair of socks with variegated yarn, should you or should you not make sure they match by starting the second sock at the same spot within the variegation? (I know these are earth-shaking dilemmas.)

There was a discussion on Knitting Paradise about this specific topic recently. It seemed equally divided when it came to socks or mittens/gloves. Fifty percent were for the pair to be fraternal twins and allow them to mismatch, while the remaining 50% could not tolerate them if they weren't maternal twins matching perfectly.

Let me illustrate. Each of these fingerless gloves are knit with variegated yarn with relatively long colour lines. It is clear they are made with the same yarn but started at different points in the yarn.

The same can be said about these two pair of sock. Obviously they are made with the same yarn, but each sock begins the variegation at a different point.

Many will argue this lack of matching makes the combination more interesting to wear and talk about. I suspect those making this argument lean toward being the artistic amoung us. They like the unique look and lack of total organization.

Then there are those of us, and I do include myself in this camp, who need things to actually match. I am more than willing to cut away a very long stretch of variegated yarn to make sure my socks or gloves/mittens actually do match. To my thinking the fraternal twins although cute on others are unsettling for me. Should I wear them, which might be difficult, I know will be out of kilter all day long.

So to help me bring back some balance here's a couple of pair of fingerless gloves and socks, all from Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. She knit these pairs and more within the last month. See how each pair actually match in a way that brings harmony, at least to me. If you want to see how this matching process goes as one knits check out AmyKnits post on Knitting Paradise. She offers good advice and plenty of pictures to help one better understand what she's talking about.

So are you the matchy, matchy type or do you like the mismatch? If you think there's potential I'll be knitting for you in pairs, let me know if you like the mismatch, otherwise you can bet you'll be receiving maternal twins from me.

Anatomy of a Sock

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Ode to the Cat

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Knitting-Related Guinness World Records

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Flagel Knitting Files

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