A little yarny experiment...

Being in a mindset of using up stash - as fast as I can - for the next few weeks (in order to possibly make or at least approach my goal of using up 100 skeins of yarn this year) I picked out yarn I haven't felt impressed with since the day I bought too much of it, and I decided to experiment with it.

I decided to knit and crochet, using different stitches and just see how it pooled.

The results were mildly interesting.  Not interesting enough for me expound (much) on them (and I'm sure there is math involved in the why's and how's of pooling - that I have no brain cells for today), but the different patterns (or non-patterns) that emerged were kind of...  

did I say interesting?

Maybe mildly entertaining is more correct.

So for your entertainment here is the picture show...

Knit with a stockinette stitch (with a garter stitch border):

Then I think I increased the whole thing by 3 or  4 or 5 stitches and this is what resulted:

Taking a break from knitting, I crocheted this dense stitch pattern:

Then I remembered I wanted to do a round cloth.  Variegated yarns sometimes create a more interesting "pattern" when crocheted in the round than when crocheted in lines, back and forth.  So I made one of my favorite round dishcloths:

Eh...  Not as interesting as I had hoped.   Ah well..

Then I decided to make a slightly more open cloth (I'll write this pattern down one of these days and share it here):  

While one might be hard pressed to actually call the one above pretty, I like the slightly random, sort of diagonal thing that's going on here.

So I made another one, and this is what I got:

I used the exact same number of starting stitches (as the one above the one above), but the yarn may have been a different dye lot; and I probably started in a different place in the color layout, but I was surprised to get something resembling the start of an argyle pattern on the second time with the same pattern.   Argyles are interesting and entertaining when they show up in crocheting variegated yarn, but I prefer the slight randomness of the one above the one above.

Then ready to knit again, I knit one up in garter stitch:

The only thing I find interesting about this is that knitting a variegated yarn in garter stitch mutes the colors.  I can totally see how that happens with the way the stitches lay on top of each other, but this was not something I had ever considered.  Totally worth knitting this up to to learn that first hand.

And finally, starting to tire of the experiment (and the yarn), and wanting to be done already, I decided to make an easy cloth in crocheted linen stitch:

I see I'm going to get something reminiscent of argyle again.  No surprise there with this stitch pattern, but to get the argyle to show up in the middle of the cloth???  That was a happy happenstance.  In other words, I could not have made that happen if I'd tried.

Sooo...  there you have it.  While it's fun to pretend this was a useful experiment, mostly it was just an exercise in using up some yarn and now I have some Christmas-y dishcloths to use this December.  

Another more satisfying finish was this autumn-colored scarf:

Made with Lion Brand Unique yarn in the colorway, Harvest

I originally thought I hadn't used a pattern (and technically, I didn't), but I got to thinking it was awfully familiar.  And then it dawned on me...  It's actually the same pattern as the Ribbed Pom Pom scarves I made a month or so ago.  Super easy pattern.  Works well with bulky or worsted yarns.  And looks equally good pommed or not.

And that's it from me!   To see what other YOPers are up to, visit our group on Ravelry.

2018 Yarn Stash-Down:  68.46/100 Skeins