Color Chasing

Linen-stitch scarf using two skeins.

One of my favorite things to do is to use two color-changing yarns together. I think I've only done this with two skeins of the same colorway, and I've always used them from the opposite ends of the skein.

That's fine until you get to the middle, and suddenly you can't tell which skein is which because you're striping the same color from each end.

Removed yellow (top)
First four colors (bottom)

What to do! I knew the last time I did this that I would do it differently. So I am doing what I call a "chase", whereby one yarn color "chases" the other yarn, about four colors behind. I'm using Noro Taiyo Lace. As I know that I need to use no more than 50% of the skein for the first half of the shawl, I have wound it into a cake. This allows me to remove the cardboard insert so I know exactly how much yarn I have to begin with and don't overshoot. Just to be sure, I wrote down the total weight on the cardboard and shoved it back into the center of the cake, and I weighed it with the cardboard. Just covering all my bases!

Groovellous by Nim Teasdale

I wound the first skein and noted the color changes as I finished it up, and decided which colorways I wanted to work together. I started with a pale green for my main color and the fuscia for the contrasting color.

I used this colorway on a sweater (in fingering weight), and although the yellow made it interesting, I did not want the yellow in this shawl. First, it would be too matchy-matchy with the sweater (I'll show you some matchy-matchy later), and everything else looks great in this yarn without the yellow. So as I wound it into cakes, I removed the yellow.

The result is that the color pairs are lovely. Both yarns transition to grays and then reverse themselves. I am pretty sure I won't end up striping the same color from both skeins at the same time.

This pattern is easy to memorize once you set it up and get going, so it's a nice piece to knit while watching entertaining blogs, shows, etc. I took it with me while I taught a couple to knit last week -- and only knit once I had them knitting along.

As a final note, I chose this yarn because it was in my stash.* I am mostly working from my stash, using yarn as is or over-dyeing it to make it match better with other yarns I wish to use. A couple of years ago two of my local yarn stores went out of business and I bought a lot of yarn, mostly with projects in mind. However, having lots of yarn sitting around makes me anxious that there's not enough time to knit up all my inspirations, so moving through it feels really good.

*As I neared the 50% mark, I realized the shawl would be too small, and I prefer and extravagant size. So, I searched on ravelry for someone with a skein they were willing to sell, and expect it any day now.