No yarn gets left behind...

Way back in the day before you could buy ready made skeins of gradient yarns I knit this:

Knitters will recognize Kaffe Fassett's Poppy pattern, but I also used Kaffe's "Magic Ball" method for assembling colours. Essentially that means taking a whole bunch yarns, splitting them into two groups (darks and lights),  arranging each group into a sequence, breaking each yarn into 0.5-1m lengths and then knotting them together according to the sequence.  The colours were inspired by a  a Peter Dombrovskis postcard of shells on a Tasmanian beach:

There's 38 different yarns in different weights from 4ply to 12ply, a motley crew of wools, mohair, angora, alpaca silk and chenille; Jamieson and Smith, Jo Sharp, Patons, Cleckheaton, Rowan, Anny Blatt, Aarlan.

Basically, anything I could get my hands on in those pre-internet days.

Allora, fast forward 20-something years and I'm preparing to teach some classes at Sunspun. First up for the second half of the year - Slip Stitch and Mosaic Knitting.

Slip stitch knitting is one of my favourite techniques (mostly because you can knit a lot of colour with very little effort).Truth is, I really don't  need to knit any samples for this class.

But... I have a big crate of leftovers (I keep everything, 'cos all knitters know that every scrap could be useful). What's more I have trial subscriptions to Netflix and Stan atm with a couple of series queued. So it seemed to me like a few swatches were in order. And guess what I found nestled at the bottom of the crate -

Just on 50g of leftovers of the dark yarns. No sign of the light colours, so I grabbed a part used ball of Morris' 8ply (I think it's Norway); chose a really simple slipped stitch pattern and volia:

 

Who needs Noro?