Saturday, July 9, 2011

Double Trouble... Kauni

Gotta luv that yarn!
But here's a tip.  A tip that should be kept in mind for all long self-striping yarns:  Don't use it doubled from the inside AND outside at the same time.  That causes the color pattern be in the opposite order:  red - orange - yellow vs. yellow - orange - red.  Putting those two together (doubled) can you imagine what's going to happen?  Solution is easy:  Divide your ball and make sure both strands are changing color in the same pattern or direction:   Red to Orange, and Yellow to Green.
I didn't think that far ahead, and it has been worrying me for months--the months that I haven't been knitting on this project.  Looks tremendous, IMHO, but in the back of my mind I've been running through the colors and imagining what's next.

 And my fear is that I'll have the same color doubled up. Look at this:
I start with (think rainbow) strand 1:  Blue Purple Red Orange Yellow Green;  Strand 2:  Green Yellow Orange Red Purple.  They line up like this:
Blue-Green, Purple-Yellow, Red-Orange, Orange-Red....Yellow-Purple etc.  Since the color change is so subtle, I know I'll have red-red or orange-orange in between my color changes, and I can't stand that much red and orange in the middle of my scarf.
OK, let's hear it... just shorten one of the colors, you say.  And I tell you, that would be fine if I discovered the enormity of the problem before I got to Red-Orange above. Once I was knitting with Red-Orange I couldn't shorten the red because it would still run into the orange of the 2nd strand, and the same goes with shortening the orange to red.  But...
My motto:  Divide and Conquer!  Divide (cut that yarn), roll up yards of red and orange, cut again, and reattach the yarns "switched".  Now I expect the order to go retrograde.  Blue-Green, Purple-Yellow, Red-Orange, Purple-Yellow, Blue-Green.  The only thing I'm losing is the two sides will never have the same pattern.  Each side will be unique, and THAT I call "A Plan".
I removed 27 g from the 160g ball and all is right in the Kauni world.  Hope the news gets out and prevents at least one other person from gnashing their teeth.

Somewhere out there, someone SHOULD do the calculations for where you can start as I did and using the right combination not have the same colors meet.  Here's a quick attempt:  Red - Orange - Yellow - Green - Blue - Purple - Red  AND  Green - Yellow - Orange - (no same thing happens)... Blue - Green - Yellow - (no)...  I don't think it can be done.
Contest time!  I have a ball of Kauni to give away... Send me your combination of colors where the six colors follow each other in the opposite order, and they don't cause the two colors to repeat themselves (as mine did) or the same color to occur at the same time.  Good luck!

2 comments:

  1. am I the first? and I am a non-entry: I already have 4 balls of that colorway. I think I will have a variation of that problem. I started with 2 separate balls and did a corrugated ribbing, now I will start a Fair Isle type pattern. I am afraid the pattern will become indistinguishable b/c of the colors becoming the same, even though I started at different parts of the color sequence. I should work on it a bit so we could see! LOL

    ReplyDelete
  2. However you put it there will be a color problem with this yarn, so cutting is the only way to avoid it.
    Nice work!

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