Pattern: Citron by Hilary Smith Callis
Yarn: Wolle’s Color Changing Cotton in Mellow II
Needles: US 6 – 4.0 mm
Ravelry Link: Click Here
This is the present I gave to my mom for her birthday! I always said I’d probably never make a Citron because stockinette is SO BORING, but using a gradient yarn makes it more interesting to make, and I knew when I saw this color that my mom would totally love it.
The yarn is a bit of a pain to knit with. It’s made with four separate plies of cotton that aren’t twisted together at all, and the color changes are made by switching out one ply at a time with the new color. The plies are knotted together and the knots are really small, so they just blend in with the work.
As long as you use a really sharp metal needle, the splitting can be managed, but you still have to keep watch for dropped plies so you can tink down a bit and pick them back up. I wouldn’t use this for a true lace project, though. It’d be harder to fix the split plies.
I was surprised at how well this yarn blocked, too. You can see the difference pretty good in the gallery below. I didn’t think cotton blocked well, but apparently good-quality thin cotton will behave. :)
I didn’t have quite enough yarn to finish this project even though the yardage should have been more than enough. Apparently the cotton works up differently and I ended up a few rows short. I used as much yarn as I could in the last ruffle, and then used the yarnless crochet bind off to finish since it didn’t have to be stretchy.
Go to Tami’s Amis to see what other people finished this week!
November 4, 2011 at 10:22 am
Looking good, I love the colours in it. and it blocked really well. I hope your mom loves it!
November 4, 2011 at 10:37 am
Why did you have to show that today!!! I am thinking I need to make another Citron, and now you are just reinforcing that. Hmm, what yarn do I need to buy to make one???
November 4, 2011 at 10:53 am
It looks beautiful, love the colour ;)
That yarn sounds really intriguing, no wonder the gradient is so subtle, but I can’t quite get my head around it!
November 4, 2011 at 11:55 am
Ooh, love the autumn colors in that ! I thought Citron would be a terribly boring knit too, but I really enjoyed it. I think it’s the fast start that hooked me.
November 4, 2011 at 12:06 pm
That’s really lovely. I’d not thought of knitting Citron in a graduated yarn.
November 4, 2011 at 1:13 pm
Looks like it was worth working with the finicky yarn. The gradual color change with those Fall/Sunset colors is really beautiful.
November 4, 2011 at 2:09 pm
Wow! What an amazing Citron…and so much hard work to make the colors change! LOL I’m far too lazy to do that. What a great gift :D
November 4, 2011 at 3:09 pm
I didn’t make the colors change. The yarn designer did. :)
November 4, 2011 at 4:52 pm
Ah! I was confused based on the description of the plies.
The “pretty” picture on the blog post was used with Instagram. I just got an iphone this week, and i’ve been playing around with it :D
November 4, 2011 at 2:34 pm
This is such a beautiful shawl! Gorgeous autumn colors!
November 4, 2011 at 5:45 pm
I love the colours :)
November 4, 2011 at 8:45 pm
Very pretty! I really like the colors!
November 4, 2011 at 10:18 pm
I love the gradient in the yarn (I’m into all things ombre lately)! The yarn sounds like a pain but the result was well worth it.
November 6, 2011 at 10:43 pm
I do LOVE it!!!