KNITmuch | Issue 06

These curly fibers are quite long (mostly longer
than 2”) which means that the likelihood of pilling is
greatly reduced. There’s a lot of bounce and “air” left
in each of these two plies because the fluffy fibers
are spun around a core of two fine white threads.
The threads give the yarn the structure it needs
to behave well, and to keep the integrity of the
knit stitches, but they are surrounded by the softer
crimped fibers, which are what bring the colors and
color transitions into the yarn.
Let's look at how the yarn looks in a swatch or two to
get a better idea of how gradual the self-striping color
changes are, and the type of drape we can achieve.
The blues and grays in Toy Box Wiffle Ball, will have you knitting many
fun, airy and soft projects.
Crimped soft fibers give Toy Box loft, softness, and warmth and the 2
fine binder threads give the yarn integrity and sturdiness.
Using a swatch to practice weaving
in ends with a crochet hook
I know that those of us who do
swatch do so because we want
our finished items to knit to the
size and proportion that we’re
trying to achieve, and we don’t
want to frog back a huge number
of stitches. Some of us also
swatch to practice new-to-us
stitch patterns.
I also think that swatches are a
good tool for practicing finishing
techniques, which brings me to
the topic of weaving in ends with
a crochet hook because we’re
knitting with a chunky yarn called
Toy Box. We looked at the colors
and yarn structure of Toy Box.
You can see what it looks like
knit up.
This swatch of Toy Box Hula Hoop was knit on size US 11 [8mm].needles.
KNITmuch | issue 6
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