Texture is a yarn’s way of saying I love you

The past year has been dominated by fades, Fading point, Find your fade, Free your fade, What the fade etc. They’re all over Ravelry and Instagram and we love them!  Fades are the perfect opportunity to play with color and use those one skein beauties you had to have! You may noticed a few other themes emerging on Instagram: texture and colorwork. We’ll touch on colorwork in another post, but what do we mean by texture?

Highlighting texture

Texture and fiber

Designer StevenBe confirmed our suspicions declaring that indeed texture is where it’s at during his recent Birdhouse visit. Steven’s texture focus capitalizes on mixing yarn fibers. Mixing yarn fibers is a wonderful and simple way to highlight the texture of each fiber through placing contrasting fibers next to one another. Often Steven holds them together while knitting to create a new texture. Mixing yarns is also the perfect opportunity to mix some of those workhorse yarns with a fine yarn with sparkle, or mohair, or silk. Pairing vastly different yarns together alters the drape, movement and texture an otherwise simple garment.

Check out StevenBe’s Spirograph Vest as one example which uses three very different yarn weights to achieve texture, and the brand new Stephen West pattern Moharino which incorporates kid mohair and merino…get it – Moha -rino. Forget a whole sweater made of mohair, pair a swath of mohair next to some cotton, or merino. We have some new mohair in the shop right now if all your stash is uniform in it’s texture and you want to play! Of course, mixing fibers is just one way to play with texture.

Texture and stitch

Texture can be achieved also through patterns. For example the simple repetition of a textural stitch in Hermione’s Everyday Socks or the brand new Casapinka pattern Sugar and Ice Mitts.

For a more complex textural pattern Greenwillow by Elizabeth Doherty is definitely not mindless quick knitting, but maybe technical and rewarding as a result. These patterns create texture through stitches.

Looking for a quick pattern to explore  a textural approach through stitches? Check out Holly’s version of Perky Little Hat . Made in Malbrigo’s Rasta this hat knits up in a couple of hours, perfect for last minute gift making.

Whenever we choose a yarn and a pattern we are making decisions that will affect the texture of the finished item. Of course this is the beauty of knitting and crochet, exploring and experimenting with texture.

If you’re not sure whether a particular yarn will be shown to it’s full textural beauty, or whether a detailed textural stitch pattern is best shown off by the yarn you’ve chosen come in and talk with us.