Barberpole, My Foot!

I have a history of odd results with yarns that are supposed to barberpole. And here we go again.

The yarn is Gypsy Girl in the Stormy Skies colorway, purchased at The Fold on our most recent field trip. (Was that in April?) The yarn is nice overall, but has some slightly undesirable characteristics, one of which is that it squeaks against my wooden sock needles. It also feels a little stiff, which is a feeling I've come to associate with yarns that bleed. It's almost as if you can feel the extra dye in the fiber. I know that's not really what I'm feeling, and that not all stiff and squeaky wools will bleed, but I'll be watching this one the first time I wash it. It feels like the kind of yarn that will soften and bloom in the wash.

Otherwise, the yarn is nice to knit with. It's got a nice, tight twist, a little extra loftiness, and a good woolly stretch to it. I like the hand -- the slight stiffness I described doesn't interfere with the hand at all. The resulting fabric has a slightly rustic appearance, but I expect that will even out somewhat in the wash. I will definitely look at buying more of this whenever we happen to go to The Fold again.

Now, we'll get to see how it stands up to frogging. That blotched, blocky, slanted column effect is simply not going to stand as it is.

When I started knitting it, I was really digging the tight barberpole spiral at the cuffs. Then I switched to regular stockinette and -- sing along if you know the words, cuz you've heard this song before -- the yarn stopped spiraling as I knit it. It abruptly reversed directions, looked like it would spiral the other way, then started make thick blotches of color. The problem is a little more evident in this picture. See the way the black and blue come together? For almost an inch, a good eight rows, the color change forms a column rather than a slant.



















So I'm going to rip back to just above the ribbing and reknit to see if I can get back to that lovely tight barberpole again. Or something kind of like it. I don't care if it switches directions. I don't care if the barberpole wobbles here and there. My only goal is to end up with something that looks more deliberate and less clown-barfy.

And if there's one thing I've learned by now, it's how to manipulate this type of yarn to get a semi-decent effect. So even though I'm complaining some, I'm not really worried. We'll get it there. Plan A -- 56 stitches in plain stockinette on size 1.5s -- didn't work. Plan B (the last two rows, including the row on the needles) was 52 stitches, and it causes the spiral to twist too sharply. You see how above the blue, all the stitches on the needle are grey? It took only two rounds to get that far, and that's too fast. So now that I know that, I'll rip back and go with Plan C, 54 stitches, which ought to produce a result I can live with.

(Side note: I finished the book. Great read!)