Patterns and Wool - Common Mistakes

So you've found that perfect wool. It's the right colour, a nice thickness, the right wool content and just perfect. Well, here is your new problem, finding a pattern that will compliment both the wool and look good, at either the right thickness or in something you'll actually wear. Here is my answer. Buy the pattern first. It is far cheaper and it takes up far less space to hoard patterns than wool, and then you can just match it to your wool as and when you find it.

Another common thought is that you have to have the wool that the pattern says. This is utter rubbish. As long as you follow these few simple guidelines you can use almost any yarn for your pattern:

1. Ensure that it is the right thickness, if no thickness is stated you can usually take an educated guess from the size of the needles it suggests. On the ball of wool there is also usually a suggestion as to what size of needle that likes, so matching these is a good start. Remember if you are using an older pattern the needle sizes have changed.
2. Check the tension. This should be on both the pattern and the ball. If they're almost the same then that should do, but the closer the better.
3. Check the yardage. Yarn A may have 100 metres in a 100g ball, whereas Yarn B may only have 80 metres in 100g. This means that even though the pattern suggests you should need 500g of Yarn A, you will have to buy 600g in Yarn B for it to go just as far. You'll regret it when you have half of a sleeve to do and they've decided to release a new dye, or have discontinued the yarn.
4. Don't be afraid to ask. Most decent wool shops will be quite happy to help you out. You should also be able to contact online shops to ask for this information if they haven't displayed it already.
5. Remember: one of the reasons why that wool is used in that pattern, is so that instead of getting just a couple of pounds off of you they get far more. The outcome may differ slightly from the original, but it could be nicer on your wallet and its now in the colour/style you want.

I know that is a lot of information for just a simple switch, but the closer it looks to the pattern the better you'll feel about it :)

I hope that this helps some of you out when it comes to making wool/pattern decisions. Is there anything you would like to ask about or see in my next post? Just comment below :)

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