working with hand dyed yarns

we are bringing a lot of hand-dyed yarns into the shop. the colors are yummy and they are all the rage right now. we have small boutique companies like madelinetosh, vice yarns, lorna's laces and dream in color but there are larger companies such as manos del uruguay and malabrigo that are considered hand-dyed.

when we place an order with these companies, the yarn is dyed for us at that time and so the yarn is from one dye lot. but the nature of the hand dyeing process make each skein of a color unique and that is one of the reasons hand dyed yarn is so pretty. knitters need to be aware of this when knitting a project that required more than 1 or 2 skeins. 

so if you love hand dyed yarn and you want to knit will it, just switch from one end of the ball to the other every few inches. or you can switch balls entirely every few inches. this allows any changes in color to spread out over the garment and not concentrate in one place. plus it makes the end result even prettier. try it the next time you pick up a hand dyed yarn to work with. i think you will see the difference.