Yarn - center stage front

In this week's newsletter I talked working with fabulous, stand-alone yarns.  In this post I want to give you an example of the process of choosing stitches and patterns that highlight special fibers. 

Tandem from Tahki Stacy Charles is one of my favorite yarns.  It has a beautiful and subtle mixture of color, marle, matte, and shine. 

It looks nice worked up in a variety of stitches. Worked at gauge in stockinette Tandem gives you a blending of the yarn's characteristics.  You don't notice the yarn itself, but rather the overall effect.  Shiny here, matte there, colors blended throughout. 

A nice choice for a simple tee like last we did in last year's Cherry Twist. 

Here it is worked in seed stitch. 

To me, the  seed stitch is a little distracting for Tandem.  The alternation of knits and purls make the colors even more blended, and the textural stitch competes with the subtleties of the yarn.

My favorite use of Tandem is this twisted drop stitch.   We used this as an accent on Cherry Twist last year, and I liked the look of it so much that I decided to use it for an entire garment this year.  Unlike a standard drop stitch, this twists the yarn displaying all sides of the yarn with each stitch.  When you have a yarn with such inherent beauty, you want to maintain the beauty of the unknit fiber but still work it into something you can wear.    I've swatched it in two different versions of the twisted drop in two different yarns.  Both swatches were worked on as US size 10 needle.

Here it is with one row of garter between the drop stitch rows

and here it is with three rows of garter between.

My vision is to recreate something like this top from Eileen Fisher. 

A fabulous yarn, a stitch pattern that lets the yarn take center stage, and a simple shape that highlights the fabric.  Perfect!  I'm working on the pattern, so stay tuned!