Lindy's Knits & Laces knitting,Knitting Techniques,Yarn A Study of Pooling in a Variegated Sock Yarn

A Study of Pooling in a Variegated Sock Yarn


Several days ago, I decided to knit a pair of plain vanilla socks using Serenity Sock Weight Yarn (Premier Yarns) in the colorway Amethyst. This was a yarn I had purchased at my local Hobby Lobby and had been sitting in my sock yarn stash for a few months. In the skein, the yarn appears to be a mix of greys and purples, and I thought it would result in a striping of the socks. The label does not indicate that the yarn is “self-striping”, but the picture on the label shows a sock with an interesting variation of stripes.

Since I had never knit with this yarn, I knit a circular swatch to determine needle size and gauge before starting on my socks – and this is where my study in “Pooling” began. I started with US 2 (2.75 mm) needles and cast on 64 stitches (which is what I would use for my socks with a gauge of 7 stitches per inch). As I worked on the swatch, I noticed that the yarn was not knitting up in the stripes the way I had anticipated – in fact, it seemed to be predominately purple on one side of the swatch and predominately grey on the other side.


Obviously, I had some “pooling “ going on. Pooling is an effect that occurs when a variegated yarn knits up in “pools” of color, rather than in stripes. Now, I wasn’t really sure I liked the effect – and my stitch gauge was 6.25 spi, rather than the 7 spi I wanted.

So, I decided to do a second swatch with fewer stitches, a smaller needle – and because I had read about pooling in a Rav thread, I also decided to knit from the outside of the skein instead of the inside. I cast on 52 stitches on size US 1.5 (2.50 mm) needles and knit away – and I got more striping – not even stripes, but definitely stripes on both sides of the swatch.


So, I took a picture of the two swatches and posted a comment on Ravlery under the thread, “Examples of Pooling Good & Bad”, stating what I had observed along with my assumption that the change was probably due to knitting from the outside of the skein – and completely ignoring the fact that I had changed the number of stitches in the swatch and this might also be contributing to the way the colors were knitting up.

I must admit, I did not anticipate much of a response to my comment in this thread. But I received several. It’s one of the things I love about Ravelry – fellow knitters are always willing to share and question things. Anyway – after reading the comments, I decided I needed to do a little more work before I could actually answer my fellow Ravelers’ questions.

Off I went to swatch again – this time I decided to start from the inside of the skein, use US 2 (2.75 mm) needles and begin by casting on 72 stitches. I knit approximately 1.5 inches, then purled and decreased the number of stitches to 64 stitches, knit another 1.5 inches, purled and decreased to 54 stitches and knit another 1.5 inches. Here’s a picture showing how the yarn pooled with different numbers of stitches.

So – in response to Robocass and Hypercycloid, who asked me if the difference might be due more to the difference in the number of stitches in my swatches: Clearly, the number of stitches used results in very different color patterning and it doesn’t really matter whether I knit from the inside or the outside of the skein.

Hypercycloid also asked about the length of each of the colors in the yarn. Hmm – I hadn’t thought about that, so I got out the measuring tape and discovered that each purple section of the yarn was approximately 19 inches, while the grey sections were approximately 12 inches. Not quite, but almost a 3 to 2 ratio. Statnerd suggested I count the number of grey stitches compared to the purple stitches in my wider swatch – I did and ended up with 27 stitches of grey to 37 stitches of purple. Again, this is close to a 3 to 2 ratio of purple to grey. All of you were correct in your observations that the colors shift around the circumference of the swatches – and due to the differences in the number of stitches, the colors stack up very differently for different numbers of stitches.

Zgma commented:

“It doesn’t look like a self-striping yarn to me. The striping you got in the top sample is a result of the colors pooling in a way that looks like stripes, not actual “self-striping”. When yarns are labeled self-striping, it is because the runs of color are large enough that for the project intended (as in, socks for self-striping sock yarn), the color will last for all the stitches in at least one round or row, usually more. When a particular color (for instance, the black in your sock samples) lasts for part of a row, but then in the next row the color occurs before or after it did in the previous row in such a manner that it looks like striping, it doesn’t mean that the yarn is self-striping – just that it is prone to pooling in a stripey way.”

Yep, you are right about that.

To each of those that took the time to comment — thanks! I learned a great deal about pooling and variegated yarns.

I did a little internet surfing on the subject, as well. I found two informative posts about Pooling — One from the Yarn Harlot and the other from Knitting Sutra.

So – I am not really sure if I like this particular yarn – but I have decided to proceed with using it to knit a pair of plain vanilla socks. I am going to use US 2 (2.75 mm) needles with a gauge of 6.25 spi and cast on 54 stitches (this should fit my foot). I’ll post pictures of the final result.

1 thought on “A Study of Pooling in a Variegated Sock Yarn”

  1. Wow. I can’t believe there was that much difference in the pooling just by changing the number of stitches. I believe it now for sure. This is really helpful!

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Long Tail Cast OnLong Tail Cast On

The Long-Tail Cast On is one of the most common and popular cast ons. It is an all purpose cast on that gives an attractive and elastic edge and works in almost every type of project. Because of its structure, this cast on creates the first row of your knitting – which is usually considered the wrong side of the work for stockinette stitch.

As the name implies it starts with a long tail – which can be a challenge for a knitter to figure out how long to make the tail before you start making stitches on your needle. A general rule of thumb for this length is 3 times the length you need to form the number of stitches to cast on. Some knitters wrap the yarn around the needle the number of times that equals the number of stitches. I’ve used both methods and both work fairly well.

The cast on starts with a slip stitch (some knitters omit this step). You then form a “slingshot” by holding the needle in your right hand and using the thumb and forefinger of your left hand so that one of the two strands wraps around the thumb and the other wraps around the forefinger, forming a “Y”. The tail strand should go over the thumb and the working yarn should go over the forefinger.

To form a new stitch, put the needle under and into the loop on the thumb, then go over the yarn on the forefinger and bring the strand through the thumb loop. Drop the yarn off the thumb and gently tighten the loop on the needle. Repeat until you have the desired number of stitches.

There are several variations of this cast on. I have included a link for the Alternating Long Tail Cast on, which provides a way to alternate knit and purl stitches for a ribbing and gives a moderately elastic edge.

Everything About the Long-Tail Cast On

Long-Tail Cast On in Pattern – Alternating Long-Tail CO

How to Knit a Helpful Swatch – Part 2 Stitch PatternsHow to Knit a Helpful Swatch – Part 2 Stitch Patterns

In my previous post, I discussed how to make a preliminary swatch to select the size needle that gives you a fabric that you like and then how to knit a gauge swatch. The gauge swatch is measured to give you your stitch gauge (stiches per inch) and your row gauge (rows per inch).

At this point, you might think you are ready to cast on and begin knitting your sweater – BUT….

Are you planning on using some type of ribbing for the bottom, cuffs and neckline of the garment? Are you planning on using a certain textured stitch pattern, a lace pattern or cables in your sweater? Will you be combining two or more stitch patterns in the body of the sweater? If the answer to any of these questions is “yes”, then you need to do more swatching.

Swatches with Borders: Have you ever knit something with a definite edge made by knitting either garter stitch or seed stitch and then found that the edges curl? The reason this happens is usually due to a difference in gauge between the stitch pattern used for the border and the stitch pattern used for the body. Thus, if you are knitting piece with a border that is different than the body of the piece, knitting a swatch with the borders on it provides you with an opportunity to make adjustments to minimize or eliminate the problem.  Suzanne Bryan has a nice video on this that you may find helpful, here’s the link:

Short Rows in Garter or Seed Stitch Border

Note: I don’t recommend using garter stitch borders on gauge swatches even though others do. The border tends to distort the swatch and may affect the accuracy of your measurements.

Swatches of Ribbing: Ribbing by nature tends to “pull in”. Which means that 30 stitches of ribbing will have a smaller width than 30 stitches of stockinette stitch. How much of a difference can be quite significant and affect the way the garment fits around the hips and neck as well as around the wrists on a long sleeve. Also, some knitters find that their ribbing stitches appear larger than their stockinette stitches due to changes in tension. One solution for this is to use a smaller needle when ribbing – but if you do that you may need to have more stitches to get the right width of fabric for a proper fit. Knitting a swatch with your selected ribbing pattern followed by a transition to the stitch being used for the body of the sweater will provide you with the information you need to decide what you want to do. You might want to knit separate swatches with different ribbing patterns to select which ribbing you prefer to use in your garment. (You don’t have to use the same ribbing that the designer did for the pattern if you don’t want to…just saying.)

Swatches of Stitch Patterns:

In this post, stitch patterns refer to textured pattern stitches, lace patterns, cable patterns, etc. Basically any grouping of stitches that combine to make a pattern from the variations in stitches used.

I think making a swatch of the stitch patterns used in a written pattern provides a great deal of useful information about how the finished garment will look and feel – and fit! It’s also good practice before doing it as part of your finished item.

Keep in mind that most written patterns only give gauge in stockinette stitch and while that tells you what the designer’s gauge is – it does not tell you how the gauge changes in the stitch pattern(s) used in knitting the garment. If you find a written pattern that states the gauge of the stitch pattern – great. But does your gauge match that? Swatching is the only way you will know.

If you are only using one stitch pattern, then knitting a swatch with two or more pattern repeats will help you figure out how the pattern affects the width and length of the garment and what adjustment you might need to make to obtain the correct size of garment you want. If you combine it with your ribbing, you will see how the ribbing affects the transition to the main fabric of the garment.

If you are combining more than one stitch pattern within the main fabric of a garment, I recommend doing individual swatches for each stitch pattern to use as a gauge swatches.

Then to see what happens when the stitch patterns are combined,  you should do a swatch large enough to include all of the stitch patterns used in the order you plan to use them. This may end up being a very large swatch – even enough stitches for the back of your garment. This type of swatch will provide you with a lot of helpful information and give you insight into what adjustments you might need to make for a great fitting garment.  More on this in a later post.

Works in ProgressWorks in Progress

I have decided that I have too many projects in progress and absolutely cannot start anything else until I get at least three of them done: Not only do I have 5 knitting projects and 1 crochet project “in the works”, but have 3 more planned, plus a sewing project that must be completed in the next two weeks. I have always had the tendency to have several things going at once – but really, this is ridiculous!

Here are the knitting projects I must complete BEFORE starting anything else:

Knitted Bunny – ready for assembly.

Knitted Bunny

Knitted Bunny

Lace Scarf – this is a Christmas gift:

Lace Scarf WIP

Lace Scarf WIP

Cable Ribbon Socks – Guild Meet Up project.

Cable Rib Socks - knitting magic loop method

Cable Rib Socks - knitting magic loop method

Vintage Crochet Edging – just need to finish the write up on the pattern:

Vintage Crochet Edging -- WIP

Vintage Crochet Edging -- WIP

I plan to do the sewing project over the Labor Day Weekend and will post pictures when finished.