Cherry Tree Hill's Fingerpaints Sock Yarn

Do you like striping and pooling?  When I use those terms, do you understand what I'm referring to?

When I talk about a yarn striping or pooling, I'm referring to the way a hand dyed yarns colors lay when you knit them up.  With some yarns, you may notice that the color distributes randomly throughout the project.  With other yarns, you notice that there's a big splash of a particular color, or that the colors stripe in an unexpected way.

Yarn that is dyed in long strips of color tends to pool or stripe more than does yarn that is dyed in short bursts of color.  But did you know that you can change how a color knits up just by changing the pattern or even just the needle size on the same pattern?  By changing the gauge, you can change how a finished sock looks.

For instance, above are two socks that Felicia (of Sweet Georgia Yarn) knit in her Tough Love Sock Yarn.  The color is Honey Fig, which I don't have in stock right now, but I do have lots of other colors for you.  Felicia knit the sock on the left with a US 0 (2mm) size needle, and the sock on the right with a US 1 (2.25) size.  See how differently the finished socks look, using the same basic sock pattern and skein of yarn but two different needle sizes?

Here's another example.  I knit the following sock in the Unique Sheep Gradiance Sock in the Joy color set.  Directly below that is a pair of socks knit by Sue in the Lime & Violet color set.  Her's pooled a bit, whereas mine did not.  Had she prefered a more gradual change in color, she might have achieved it simply by changing needle size.  Or had I wanted a bit of pooling or striping, I could have tried the same.

Cherry Tree Hill has just introduced a new type of sock yarn, called Fingerpaints, that is purposely dyed in long lengths of color so that it stripes as you knit in the round.  This isn't a bold, wide striping yarn, but instead a softly changing colorway that knits into thin stripes.  It's quite lovely, and for those of us who like to know how a yarn is going to perform before we knit it, it's a great find.

There are rich, bold colors like Rasta Man:

 

And there are summery, feminine hues like Summer Sweet:

Or deep, dreamy blues of Pacific Rim:

Are you a fan of earthy neutrals?  Then check out Middle Earth:

Or perhaps you're a lover of Herbs n Spices?

Whatever your favorite colors are, you're sure to find something to love in this new line.  I've already snagged a few!
 
 
 

Comments

[Lucy H]

Great info! But, since we can't rely on the ball bands to tell us the best size needle for our socks, how do we tell which size would give us the desired result?

[Allison]

You usually don't know until, you knit a few rows. But in my own socks, I've found that larger needles spread out the color pattern more, thus resulting in a more random layout of the colors. That's why I often knit the legs of my socks on a size larger than the foot- because I want a firm fabric for the part of the sock that gets the most wear, but I'd like to diminish the pooling or striping as much as possible. But that's just my own experience.

[Nancy J]

Love those
"fingerpaints".

[mwknitter]

Lovely - I especially like Rasta Man. I have had wildly different results from knitting socks with Panda Cotton variegated - one pooled & the other didn't same size needles & same dyelot. I suppose it may have been because it comes in 50 gm balls rather than100 gm. I prefer the sorta stripey effect (like the sock on the right) myself but not enough to try to figure out how to make the socks match.

[Virginia S Accurso]

ooooo, these are very lovely. Thanks for the info on the pooling and such. I didn't know that changing needle size could change the pattern in the yarn.