Hand-dyed yarn is in a class of its own....
It is fun, exciting and challenging to knit with hand-dyed yarn and you can very easily get hooked. If you are not used to knitting with it, here are some good tips:
When you knit with hand-dyed yarn, there can be segments where the colors seem to clump together. In professional terms we call this " Pooling". This means that when you knit, for example, a pair of socks or a sweater from the same hank of yarn, the color masses will often gather in the same place instead of distributing across the entire sock or garment. You can avoid pooling by alternating between the hanks. This is called Helical/ Helix knitting/ strik. The video below shows how to do this when you want to alternate between two colors of yarn, but it is exactly the same as when you switch between two identical hanks of hand-dyed yarn. There are plenty of videos of the method on youtube.
When you have finished knitting your project, it is a good idea to wash it. This is best done in cold water and possibly a little wool soap. Personally I then place the project on a towel, roll it up into a sausage and step on it to get the water out. I do this to avoid wringing the yarn. Afterwards I take it out of the towel and let the project lie to dry, and if it needs blocking this is when you do it while it is drying.
