Bad yarn substitution

Big Box of Knitting Fails – Bad Yarn Substitution!

Big Box of Knitting FailsFor those of you that have taken classes with me, you know all about “Patty’s Big Box of Knitting Fails”. I seem to have an example of something tragic I’ve done in my knitting for nearly everything I’m teaching. So, I’m launching a new blog series to dig into my knitting boo boos. Today’s episode . . .

Bad Yarn Substitution = to felt or not to felt

About 12 years ago, I thought I’d make a fast, fun, felted scarf. The pattern was all in stockinette, and then felted to make a cozy scarf. It featured stripes of white and black yarn held together with stripes of the solid white. The felting made the black and white flecks appear in a random fashion, and it kind of widened out at the doubled yarn sections and narrowed a bit for the white sections.

No brainer right . . . unless you grab a black 100% wool from your stash and a white 100% acrylic from your stash. That’s right folks, acrylic doesn’t felt. (BTW: forgive the low res pic. This was a long time ago, so it was not taken on a fancy camera, might have even been – gasp – film)

Bad yarn substitution

What resulted was a kind of bizarre little item that rolled at the sides for every acrylic stripe and then kind of morphed into 1/2 felted, 1/2 not stripes.

Sigh.

Don’t make my  mistake. Learn about the Secrets of Yarn Substitution.

YarnSub

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2 comments

  • Margo Beckwith-Byrne June 2, 2016   Reply →

    Patty, I am a knitting learning junkie and scour the internet for the best teachers and classes and so far I would say YOU’RE the BEST!! Mainly because you don’t just “show” you “explain”. When it is explained it stays in my memory bank (what is left in the bank at my age). I am know trying to crack the code for short row heels. Did you ever consider doing a sock video?

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