3 Awesome Yarn Tips For Your Knit And Crochet Projects

Hey everyone, it's Deja with Knit and Crochet Ever After and today we are doing yarn. Three tips once again to really get you familiar with yarn and kind of like what should I pick when I'm making something? What color should I use that's going to be good contrast? How do I make this drape better? Like we're going to talk about all that stuff so that it really improves your projects and Some really gives you an idea of when you go to the store, What you should be looking for. So let's get started. Okay so my first tip is yarn consideration and what do I mean by that? I mean what kind of yarn should you pick when you don't have what the pattern's calling for? So it's really you know it's always going to be a personal preference but there But there is... Certain ways that you want to approach it if you want something similar to what you're seeing in the picture and the main thing is looking at what they made it in so if it's an acrylic yarn or a wool or an alpaca really consider if What you're substituting with is going to give you the same kind of outcome. So for example, I have an alpaca this little green guy and I have a wool this orange. So if you see just holding this Near the end, you can see that my wool, standing straight up, my alpaca just wants to flop over. I can get that going a little if I work on it, but it wants, it stands up pretty straight and my alpaca will never ever stand up straight. So that should tell you right off the bat, this has more structure and this has less. This is going to be drapier, which would be great for a shawl, not so great for like a basket like this. This Great for this basket because we want it to stand up and hold our stuff. This is made with the same kind of wool that this is. This is a Cascade Eco Wool, so it's just a real hardy wool. This is Vidilana Tweedy Sheep, and this is kind of a basic wool. It's not merino, it's not superwash. These are great for structure projects as well as certain acrylics. Even acrylics have their own kind of drape to them so if you get a Caron Simply Soft it's going to be more like this alpaca than if you get a Red Heart Super Saver which has a lot more thicker, harder, stronger. So all of those things you want to think about when you're looking at substituting. So not only looking at is it a medium worsted but did they make it with A natural fiber, did they make it with acrylic? Did they make it with a plant fiber? All of those will behave differently when you substitute. So a cotton yarn is like alpaca, it's very floppy, it'll stretch though. So if it's a project that you know like a summer breezy top that needs like that needs drapiness and stretch. You don't really want to make it out of acrylic. It's going to be very boxy and not have drape so you want to stick kind of in the same fiber family when you're substituting. You can get, you know, a little different when you're thinking about it. So if you're doing a shawl it may, you know, they may be using wool but this wool you're not going to want to use. This is too You want to find like a merino wool that's going to be more drapey like this alpaca so that it's nice and comfy around your shoulders and draping nicely and not just this structured thing that's like, you know, so you really want to look at that when you're making those yarn considerations. So let's move on to tip number two. Okay, so the second tip is... Using your needles or hooks to help you create drape or structure. So if you're going to venture into making your own patterns or you want to change up the pattern that you're reading, maybe you're looking at that yarn consideration or you've heard me a million times say worsted weight like go bigger with your hook for a more drapey fit like that's In your head and so you'll make some swatches and so let me start with this crochet here. These two swatches are the exact same amount of stitches and rows. It's 20 stitches by 20 rows. The difference you can see that the size I should put the smaller one in front there's a huge size difference but there's also a huge drape difference. So you can see when I use the larger hook on this yarn I get Much better drape. So that's really important if I'm making a scarf or a shawl or whatever, and it's really important to use those smaller hooks if you're going to make like a basket that's going to be structured and stand up, or, you know, a washcloth, if it's like one of those kind of scrubby washcloths, you might see a stitch pattern for a very pretty washcloth that's very floppy, and once you make it, you're like, it's too floppy, I want it, you know, to be stronger so I can scrub with it. Go with a smaller hook and it will help you out. Same thing with knit. Knit is inherently drapey already. So it's not like you're gonna get super more drapey, but you can get a bigger. project just by going with bigger needles. It does take up more yarn so make sure that you account for that when you do that but if you have a scarf pattern and maybe you knit very tightly and your gauge is very small switch to a larger needle or even if you just want a bigger project overall switch to a larger needle and you'll get that bigger project and it does give you More airiness to it, so it's not, it's the density as well, so it feels much less dense on this larger swatch than it does on this smaller one, but you're still going to get drape because it is knit, but when you are trying to create that kind of nice feel, And it's not quite making it with the needle that it calls for. If you want to make it in a bigger one, try it out. See the difference and see if you like that better. So using those needles and hooks don't always necessarily go for what's on the ball band. Try different sizes and see if you like it better. I usually will always go bigger when I'm doing crochet And... You know, it depends on what I'm making and knit. Sometimes I'll follow the ball band, sometimes I will not, but crochet, usually not. So definitely venture outside the ball band and try some different sizes. So let's head on to tip number three. Okay so time for the third and final tip and that is color choice. So and this is mainly when you're working with more than one color and kind of how to To quickly tell. If it's going to work together or is a good contrast, different things. So let me explain. So I got some Ogo yarn here, I've got a review if you have not seen this stuff in action and then I have some orange yarn over here. So we've got some blues, kind of a dark gray. White-ish color and then this orange so let's do some movie magic so you can see the difference with the color values of these. So as you can see when we are in black and white this orange really kind of meshes And looks similar to the blues. You definitely get a contrast with the white and you get somewhat of a contrast with the dark gray. So that tells me that if I want to make something kind of harmonious that doesn't compete with each other, I can do the oranges and the blues which makes sense because it's opposite on the color wheel. But if I want to do something striking, Where if I'm doing a Fair Isle project, this is going to give me lots of contrast so I can see the pattern that I'm trying to make. This is going to give me more of kind of a harmonious outcome. So another example, let me show you. So here we have two. Cakes, this one is a variegated, and if you look closely, it's got kind of like a lime-ish green that's almost similar to this kind of greenish, yellowish that we got going on over here, so it could be good to use together, but I really want them to Stand on their own. I don't want them to be harmonious. I don't want them to blend together I want them to be a good contrast so that this solid color really pops Against the variegated. So let's go back to black and white and see if that's gonna work. So as you can see Major contrast this is much lighter than the variegated So that is definitely going to give me the color work that I am looking for So taking your phone to the yarn store, grabbing some colors, taking a picture and switching it to black and white, it's going to show you what is a good harmonious color group and what is a good contrast group so that you can make your decision on what you really want the project to look like. So that is the third and final tip, let's go wrap it up. So those are our three tips. I hope that they were helpful to you. I hope they make you think the next time you go to buy some yarn and really allow you to make an informed decision that will make your project better. So if you enjoy tips like this and free patterns and all the other good stuff on this channel, make sure that you hit like and subscribe. I'm Deja with Knit and Crochet Ever After and thank you for watching.