"Hold two strands together..."

You may have noticed that many of today's hot designers (especially those Nordic ones like PetiteKnit!) love to design with two yarns held together — often a mohair laceweight held with another yarn.

Last week we announced our Spring Knit Along — Love Note by Tin Can Knits. It looks stunning in all types of yarns, and one option is to hold a fingering yarn with a laceweight "fluff" yarn.

When choosing two yarns to hold together, there are a few things to consider about the role of your fluff yarn. Read on for our tips!

Imagine the possibilities.

Pictured here are Kathmandu Fingering by Queensland (Mocha) and two options of Mohair by Malabrigo (Heirloom Vegetables and Diana).

How would the look of the fabric change if you held the Mocha with that juicy purple (Heirloom Vegetables), compared with the brighter and more variegated option (Diana)?

There are no wrong answers here — it comes down to your preference for the look of the finished fabric. 

Tone down or highlight?

One way to use a fluff yarn is to either tone down or lift up the color of your main color yarn. Sometimes you want to add a highlight glow to your finished fabric. Other times, you might want to soften the overall look.

In the example above, that's Iris' Ranunculus sweater (Midori Hirose). Her main color was Plush Single by ontheround in Blue Mussel. Iris wanted to tone down the strong variations in this colorway and lighten the overall fabric, so she chose to hold a white strand of Cashmere Dreams by Lang.

Painting with yarn.

On the flip side, you can also add interest to a solid main color by adding a variegated fluff, as in the example above. Here we have two solid skeins of fingering-weight Delish by Jody Long, flanked by two skeins of Mohair by Malabrigo.

One of our Local Goats was knitting a sweater with a solid dark brown yarn from her stash, similar to the photo at the top of the post. She's typically a knitter who chooses bright and bold colors, so we were a little surprised at her choice. Turned out she got bored quickly and purchased that beautiful Diana colorway (Malabrigo Mohair) to hold together with the main color. The effect was subtle, but added just enough softly glowing color to keep her interested.

Swatch it out!

You knew this was coming, right? You know we're Swatch Evangelists at The Goat! Take some time to swatch it out and see how your fluff and your main color play together. It's really the only way to know if the magic is there!

Enjoy your fluff yarns and... happy knitting!