It was fun!
I took Llady Llama’s Targhee base dyed in Manta (white to dark blue), 8 ounces of it in two braids.
I spun it up long draw, which Targhee does extremely well. It was lovely! Very squishy yarn. As I was spinning one braid fully, I got better at it, so the second braid had more length to it. When I started to ply the two braids together, at two points, I pulled some of the longer section off and did a plying bracelet to get everything evened up. I wanted to keep the colors together. Now that I’m better at spinning, I suspect I’ll see this less but overall it wasn’t too hard to fix.
As you can see, the colors stayed together instead of barberpoleing. It ended up being about 1100 yards of yarn. I didn’t figure out the wraps per inch to figure out official size (sport, fingering, DK, worsted,etc) but I used a 4.5mm hook which was a good size. This was my first time finishing a yarn with both white and dark colors and the blue did run some. In the future, I’ll do the hot finish soak and then a cold soak to rinse the whites, but the white still looks okay, if a bit more like a pale sky blue. The yarn poofed up some much in the finish, it was super cool! Very squishy.
Then I used this pattern, which I promptly modified because why would you take a stitch and make it more difficult to do and much less natural. Basically, it takes a double crochet stitch and adds a backwards loop in there that makes it difficult so I ignored that and just did a regular double crochet stitch. Worked out well. I suspect my yarn had more stretch than the one in the pattern and I ended up with a large neck hole that I came through later and added more stitches onto. As it turns out, sleeves are a giant pain and the top third of them is never ending. I had to do some fiddling with colors, disconnecting and removing a bunch of yarn to make the color transitions in the arms work. I also did some half double crochet stitches to finish the arms because I wanted the cuffs to stay put a little more than they would with the double crochet stitches.
At the end, I added 4 or 5 rows around the neck to have it less like a slouchy sweater and more like a normal one. I suspect it’s yarn characteristics that did it. Certain types of wool have a lot more stretch than certain acrylics or merino plant fiber mixes.
Honestly, crochet is no gods, no masters, no counting stitches for me, so the pattern was more of a guideline than anything else. I had been concerned about running out of yarn, but by sizing I ended up being a small in the pattern and I had about 220 yards left, which I suspect is actually due to the extra length including in my measuring (homemade niddy noddy)
And now I have a fancy sweater! I’m planning to save it for nice occasions like family parties.
