I know I don’t have to convince you how wonderful it is to experiment with color in your crochet. The popularity of color changing is evident by just looking at all of the patterns with colorwork here on Crochet Spot, for example Amy’s newest baby bib pattern (check out the one in the middle!) Color enriches our lives and adds excitement to our projects. Previously I never thought of crocheting in variegated yarn as “colorwork” but that was before I really dug into the topic.

The first time I fell in love with this technique was a really specific project. I was crocheting out of Edie Eckman’s now classic book Beyond the Square Crochet Motifs with delight. I had found that making these motifs with sock yarn was very satisfying because the resulting shape could be used as a soft and pretty key chain. As you probably know, sock yarn is made in all kinds of amazing colorways. Therefore it was only a matter of time before I discovered the joy of watching these colors stack up in these tiny crochet motifs that were worked in the round. The picture on the bottom right is an example of one of my projects at that time. Two of my favorite yarns were Patons Kroy Sock Yarn in the Summer Moss Jacquard and Fern Rose Jacquard colorways and Deborah Norville Serenity in Gems. I found these same yarns to be beautiful for crocheted jewelry as well.

Then a bit later on I bought some Knit Picks Chroma yarn on sale. The thing about this yarn is that it has long and subtle color changes and the colorways are just gorgeous. I did the projects on the top middle and top right in that yarn. The first is a hat crocheted in the round and the second is a medallion scarf made from motifs crocheted in the round and then joined together. See a trend there? 😉

Lest you think these yarns only work in circular projects, I should tell you about my final three featured projects. The top right is a chunky Mexican yarn crocheted using a Peruvian Loom. The bottom left is Malabrigo Rios and the bottom middle is Red Heart Boutique.

So, yes. Your yarn can do your colorwork for you. And it’s really fun. And pretty. I favor the yarns with subtle changes as opposed to stark ones and long stretches of color as opposed to choppy changes. But no matter how you choose to put color in your crochet, enjoy it!

Just for fun, below is a list of a few variegated yarns you might like to try. If you happen to buy using these affiliate links, we will get a little kick back to support Crochet Spot. No pressure, though! Just check them out.

Red Heart Boutique Treasure Mosaic
Lion Brand Amazing (One of my faves!)
Trendsetter Yarns Tonalita
Katia Jaipur Variegated
Cascade Heritage Silk Paints
Fiesta Yarns Boomerang Harlequin

So what about you, my friends? Have you ever let your yarn do the colorwork for you? What is your favorite variegated yarn? What is your favorite kind of color change in a variegated yarn? Which colorways do you la la looove? Please leave your thoughts, ideas and questions in the comment section below.

Tags: Caissa McClinton, colorwork, variegated yarn, yarn

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 18th, 2015 at 12:00 AM by Caissa "Cami" McClinton and is filed under Fun Ramblings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.