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I have been itching to get my hook into some SKIES Light yarn as I loooooove Indigo and this fingering weight premium blend of cotton is dyed using deepening shades of this ancient textile colourant. My new project in this yarn is progressing well, thus my optimistic blog title. lol.
SKIES comes in two weights – the fingering weight is “SKIES Light” which I am going to use, and the DK weight is “SKIES Heavy”.
Here is the essential info for SKIES Light
Fibre Content: 100% Cotton Premium Blend
Yarn Weight: Fingering
Ball Weight: 100 grams
Length: 340 metres
I am planning on making a garment and Scheepjes sent me with 3 skeins of 110 Cirrus! Aren’t they divine!?
Each skein needs to be wound into a ball or yarn cake before you start crocheting with it, and I used to do this by hand. Those days are long gone as years ago I splashed out on buying myself a yarn swift – best thing EVAAA!! It shrunk a 40-minute exercise down to under 3 minutes!!
And it produces these most excellent yarn cakes:
The beautiful thing about hand-dyed yarns is that no two skeins are exactly the same and the subtle variations in tone and depth of colour are quite mesmerising… Check out all these gorgeous graduated colours:
111 Cumulus 112 Altocumulus
113 Altostratus 114 Stratus
115 Cirrostratus 116 Cumulonimbus
117 Circumcumulus 118 Undyed
As a hookster or knitter, the slightly challenging thing about working with yarns that have subtle variation in tone is that no two skeins are exactly the same and the colour can pool in different sections of your project… It's beauty adds some complexity.
So how does one deal with this? Well, you can be like all go-with-the-flow and “whatever” about it – it’s a natural variation in colour that happened by chance and maybe you like the idea of carrying that random ethos into your project. That’s cool…. Particularly if the project is a shawl or wrap – the colour asymmetry could be awesome!!
Or you can go with “yarn domination”: carefully analyse your project stash in conjunction with the pattern, grouping skeins to balance out the tones over the front and back of a garment for instance, and make it bend to your will. Once you make a plan of attack of what skein-pairs are used where, you can swap between the skeins every 2 rows and carry the yarn not-in-use down the side of the project which is good if the edges will be hidden in some kind of edging or trim. This approach can be ideal for garments as it makes everything look cohesive over the whole project, though clearly comes with some extra effort.
I am going to go with an approach that falls somewhere between “whatever” and “yarn domination”: I have three skeins, two are very close in the tone and the way the dapple, and the third is a deeper richer indigo shade even though they are all 110 Cirrus. See the two major tones below:
I am making a simple tee, and I am using a top-down approach, so I am just going to switch over to the darker third skein of SKIES Light for the lower bodice, so it provides some visual weight. I think of this as a kind of “planned adventure” - let’s see how that turns out….
Check back soon to see how it’s coming along!
Susan (Peppergoose)
If you are in a shopping mood, Scheepjes Retailers are here.
You might like to source SKIES Light from the affiliate links below – it does not cost you any extra, and it helps to support me as a designer as I receive a small percentage of the sale.
Wool Warehouse (in the UK)
Caros Atelier (in the Netherlands)
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