When the Parts Are Beautiful and the Whole Is Not

I spent two years in the engineering school at University of Virginia before I came to my senses.

I was at the top of my class in French and literature. Thermo and E-sci were another matter entirely. At  some point the it became clear to me (and everyone except my father) that a change of direction was in order. 

But I did learn a few things in those two years. Calculus. Chemistry. And Frankenstein.

Not the movie. The book. Mary Shelley’s actual novel, which my engineering program assigned because the UVA faculty believed — correctly, I think — that engineers need a healthy dose of liberal arts. This particular book was intended to teach future engineers that just because you can build something, doesn’t mean you should.

The Frankenstein franchise has been framed as a horror genre. But in truth, it is a deeply moving psychological tragedy. Here was a man, Dr. Frankenstein, whose life’s ambition drove him to "penetrate the secrets of nature" and banish disease, aiming to become a pioneer in science. He envisioned creating a thing of beauty and grace,  and every choice he made for the creature was to that end.  Impressive stature, lustrous black hair, pearly white teeth. Each element, considered on its own, was just what one might want.

But together, against the undeniable fact that  of a creature that was literally undead, these well-chosen components became something not beautiful but gruesome. 

Dr. Frankenstein, bemoans the two years spent, forming this creature. The despair made that much more poignant by the anticipation.

It might be a little overly dramatic, but I know that we’ve all felt a measure of that despair on finishing a disappointing sweater. 

I think about it sometimes when I’m on Ravelry. Projects that have been a horrible disappointment to their creator. I know, because I've been there

A hideous example of poor yarn choice on my part

If you’ve spent any time browsing project pages — and I know you have — you’ve seen it too. The same pattern, knit by dozens of different people, producing wildly different results. Some versions are stunning and make you want to cast on right away. 

Others are… well, let’s just say, less than inspiring. 

Same pattern. Perfectly skilled knitter ,

It’s almost always the yarn.

I understand. Variegated yarn is beguiling.   Beautiful colors. They look like a happiness.  All your favorite colors are in there. Usually hand dyed and often high contrast with fanciful names that speak to your soul. Cozy Autumn Fires. Rainbow Unicorn Berries. American Pie. 

So you take it home because of course you do. You can’t wait to wind  it, and your 4 inch swatch is playful and alive.  You love it so much you might cry

About halfway through you think,  “Wow, those unicorn berries were brighter than I realized.” 

But you soldier on, adding sleeves and finishing the neckline. 

And now, as you put it on and bring it to full life, you’re Dr. Frankenstein, face-to-face with the depressing knowledge that you just spent a considerable amount of time creating something you despise. 

So where did this all go wrong?

 It isn’t you. You’re a good knitter, and you did a good job on the sweater.

It isn’t the pattern. It’s lovely. Dozens of successful examples exist.

It isn’t the yarn. You still love that yarn, and it is undeniably beautiful 

Here’s the thing nobody tells you about variegated yarn and sweaters.

The yarn has too much personality for the project.

Those high contrast variegated colorways — the ones with both lights and darks  — are spectacular in socks. Wonderful in a hat. Fine in a scarf.  At that scale, the colorway gets to be exactly what it is: playful, expressive, a little wild. 

But in a sweater, something shifts. The eye doesn’t know where to go. It keeps searching for a place to rest and can’t find one. Not because you did anything wrong. Because the yarn doesn’t  work the same at that scale.

It’s not that variegated is always wrong. I’ve seen genuinely beautiful sweaters in hand-dyed yarn. But the colorways that work at scale share something in common.  They’re low contrast. if you took a black and white photograph of the yarn, it would read as almost one color.

That’s the test.

Low contrast on the left, high contrast on the right

When all the colors in a variegated yarn have the same value — the same relative lightness or darkness — the eye reads the fabric as unified even though it’s technically multicolored. The variation is there, but it’s subtle. It hums rather than shouts.

When you have true lights and darks jumping randomly across the fabric, the eye is working constantly. It’s not enjoying the sweater. It’s exhausted by it.

That’s why it feels wrong even when you can’t quite name why.

The same principle runs in the other direction.

A complex stitch pattern — cables, lace, anything with real architectural structure to the stitch pattern — needs a yarn that steps back. Solid. Tonal. Low contrast variegated at most. The stitch is doing the talking. The yarn needs to let it.

When both elements are trying to be the star, neither one wins.

We don’t have to make the monster ourselves. Ravelry has done us the favor of archiving thousands of them, right alongside the sweaters that got it exactly right.

The difference, once you see it, is very hard to unsee.

That kind of seeing — understanding not just how to knit but how to make decisions about what you’re creating — is what I teach inside the Crazy for Ewe Sweater System. If you’ve ever finished a sweater and felt vaguely unsettled without being able to name why, a look at the yarn is a great place to start.

~Ellen

This week's video goes more deeply into value and how to assess it. Subscribe to be notified when the video goes live.