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broodings from the burrow

July 8, 2019


tour de france knitalong
posted by soe 1:56 am

The Tour de France Knitalong, which runs concurrently with the bike race, has commenced, and I have decided on a knitting pattern:

4-Ever in Blue Jeans by Cally Monster

I knew I wanted to use some purple sparkly MadTosh Sock (colorway: Iris) Rudi gave me this winter for the solid color, and Rudi and I scoured my stash for something that would be a good contrast color.

Holi Festival, also by Madelinetosh, was, somewhat reluctantly, what I settled on. I think the white base is too white, and, frankly, I suspect the purple will run, which might be fine or not, depending on how it goes.

While looking for the right needles, I stumbled across a skein I’d started a sock in that seemed like it also might work. It has gotten separated somehow from its ballband, but I’m nearly positive it’s Araucania Itata Multy, a wool-silk-bamboo rayon blend. Because it contains silk, the kinkiness where I’d knit with it seems to have flattened this end of the yarn a bit, but where I haven’t worked it yet, it looks similar to the MadTosh.

I did a bit of a swatch:

TDFKAL Swatch

The Holi Festival skein is used at the bottom and follows the pattern exactly, but it was making my swatch double in size, so I bound off all the extra stitches and sort of approximated things at the top for the Araucania just to get it done.

What do you guys think? In the morning I’ll rip out both and start knitting with my purple yarn. I’ll have a bunch of rows before I make a commitment for that second yarn, so feel free to weigh in if you have thoughts (including if your thought is to go stash diving again).

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