| On the thread technique, I have used a really thin, crinkly stuff on the knitting machine with the other yarn or by itself - I usually use two or three strands of it. The kind I had was called "Krinklespun" and it changes its texture drastically after steaming - it gets a lot softer, so it must have wax in it for the machine, a lot of them do. This can also be used with hand knitting yarns for a different look - 1 or more strands with the yarn for contrast or to just add a different texture. Of course, you have to keep track of the different types of fibers you are using together, although if you hand wash them, you may not have to worry about it, depending on what you use together.
For hand knitting, the finer sewing thread shows up better on a stockinette type stitch or background and the heavier threads, like tatting thread or fine crochet thread are fine for the garter stitch or textured stitches. If you have access to it, I also use 14/2 or 16/2 mill end cotton this way - 1 strand of it with the hand knitting yarn. You just have to watch with any of these that you catch both strands when knitting each stitch. I tried some coats and clarks fine metallic rayon thread last night with some garter stitch and it was too pale to show up with the white cotton yarn that I was using, so I switched to a green 14/2 cotton thread (about the equivalent of 1 strand of fine bedspread cotton) and liked that much better. My favorite is tatting thread, especially the varigated kind, but it's getting harder to find all the time - I find it from time to time in the second hand stores. For anybody with knitting machines, I do this technique all the time with them also. I also use the tatting thread against a plain background in a weaving technique where I make long loops on purpose - across 5 or 7 needles, so 2-4 rows plain, then hang up the loop on the middle needle of the next row to look like smocking. I'm sure you could do this in handknitting also, you could just reach down and catch the loop with the needle from above - it looks really pretty done with varigated thread against a black or white background. I have also used this a great deal on the knitting machine, and you will get a different effect if you thread it through the same mast than if you thread it through separate masts or antennae. It's a great thing to play around with. I was doing an eyelet pattern for a dishcloth this weekend, and just had to keep an eye on it when I did the knit 2 together part of the pattern, other than that everything went fine. You also have to experiment because some threads are so fine that they do not show up, so I would advise kntting a small 10 - 20 sts - sample first to "check it out". You can also tone down or up a yuccky yarn by using a lighter or darker thread along with it, or one of those novelty yarns that are really thin with little slubs in it. I also have a cone of opalescent thread I use for evening type effects or for glitzy christmas stockings. It's really thin, so will probably last forever. When I was in Maine, there was a sweater manufacturer that used to sell leftover cones of sewing thread or odd yarns that were too thin to use by themselves and this is how I use them up. I even have a cone of this nylon stuff tthat they used to sew up parachutes or something from another place. I like to experiment, so use all different things together. My friends in Maine used to tease me and call me the "swatch queen" because I was always making swatches of yarns or textures to see how they looked BEFORE I made the item, because sometimes you think something will look great, but it looks terrible when you actually put it together, or a texture won't show up right in a particular yarn, or it will look too blah or something. You can always put the swatches into an afghan or something or unwind them if you are desperate for the yarn. I think it's better to "waste" my time doing a swatch, then to waste it doing a whole sweater or somethings else that I'm going to hate because it doesn't look right, or feel too stiff. |