Matching the Stripes

I am a big fan of variegated yarns and use them a lot in my knitting. When making socks, I never worry about making the colour pattern on the two socks match. In fact I feel cheated if they do. You can't do this with matching socks.

I'm a bit more fussy when it comes to knitting clothes though. I rarely get time to knit anything for myself but I do have a longstanding project on the go - a jumper using two shades of King Cole Bramble DK. I'm switching between the two every four rows which of course gives me stripes.

Just to make the matching more difficult, I've worked the ribbing in one row stripes too. This has led to much re-winding of the yarn when I start a new piece so that I can try to start at the same place in the colour run. Have you noticed that sometimes balls of variegated yarn are wound in opposite directions too? All in all, it's a bit tricky.

I was reminded of this when I knitted one of my Baby Kite Jackets for a new baby in the family earlier this year. The patterned yarn I'd chosen had a longer colour run than I'd used before so I made the effort to match the two knitted halves.

This worked out well and the jacket is now keeping baby Kiana warm in the Zimbabwean winter.

Inspired by this, I decided to try another yarn with a longer colour run when I knitted a Tolly Baby Jacket for another baby this spring. The yarn is WYS Signature 4 ply; the cream is 'Milk Bottle' and the variegated 'Rum Paradise', quite different drinks for a baby jacket.

The front body sections are worked on fewer stitches than the sleeves and the back so the width of the colour stripes varies but I think it still looks planned.

See what I mean?

I didn't match the stripes with the matching booties and the hat was knitted in one piece so there was nothing to match there.

I hadn't actually designed a hat to complete the set when I first published the patterns for the jacket and booties so I've done that now. You can download it for free as normal from my ravelry shop.

What about you? Do you match up the stripes in variegated yarns when you're knitting? I must say, I found it easier to do with a small baby jacket than with my adult sized jumper but clashing stripes do bother me.