Creative imagination is endless, craftswomen are always looking for new ideas and materials. Melange yarn provides the largest room for imagination and experimentation. Using a ready-made melange or creating your own, you can get an unpredictable effect. What impression will the finished thing make? An intriguing transition of shades, a tweed effect or a mottled hash, similar to those associated with sock residues, may result. In order not to waste time and energy, it is necessary to learn some of the subtleties of creating and using melange.
Melange yarn
The French word "melange" means any mixture. In terminology, this concept is used everywhere: from cooking to geology. In terms of yarn, it means mixing several colors in one thread. In industrial melange, mixing occurs at the fiber level. It doesn’t matter what material the thread will be spun from. Synthetic, woolen and cotton yarns are melange. Different colors are combined: contrasting and shades of the same tone. But no more than two or three in one thread.
Melange is used by all needlewomen. Beginners can successfully hide errors in the quality of mating against a motley background. Experienced craftswomen use the effect of this yarn in order to visually adjust the silhouette. A motley thing visually reduces the volume, and an insert of such yarn, on the contrary, increases. For example, a coquette from bright melange always looks good.
The use of threads with mixed colors for children's clothing is very popular. It turns out funny and original things.
Accessories for adults are also always successful. Knitted from melange yarn, a hat, mittens and a scarf will decorate any image. The work does not require complex patterns and accessories. It is enough to choose the main tone suitable for the face, and two or three additional ones to dilute the monophonic canvas. Below you can see the cap, knitted with an English elastic band of gray melange.
A small lapel and a decrease in six segments. No frills. The color palette of yarn gives a simple product a stylish look.
DIY melange
At home, you can twist several threads of different colors or just knit from two or three balls at the same time. Different threads are mixed in texture, composition and quality. The simple addition of lurex to the main yarn is already melange. Often needlewomen use residues from different tangles to get a colorful mixture. It is important to choose such components so that the knitted fabric is smooth and soft enough. The overall effect of the melange thing should be harmonious. It’s easier to mix shades of the same color. Flashy contrasts can ruin the impression. If dark and light tones are combined, they should not be repainted when washing the product. Knitting a sample and its subsequent washing will help to avoid unpleasant surprises. Factory melange yarn will save the needlewoman from unnecessary trouble.
Modern technologies
An interesting novelty is sectional yarn. It is created by coloring sections of the finished thread in different colors with a certain sequence. The color scheme in one thread is much larger than in melange. Several basic tones and transitions between them alternate sequentially. The product is obtained with uniform stripes or spots. To make plain areas more pronounced, you can knit from two balls in turn, using sections of the same color. A knitted fabric of such threads can be called melange, but yarn, in the strict sense of the word, is not. However, in many sources and workshops both types of yarn are usually confused, combining them into the general concept of variegated yarn.
Working with a partition is interesting and difficult. Knitting from melange classic yarn is much easier. Sometimes the joint use of both types gives an interesting result. Using sectionally colored yarns, even a beginner can create a thing with the effect of a complex jacquard. Diagonal knitting from the corner of the canvas - a very popular technique - is best obtained from sectional yarn. Successfully its application in the patchwork technique. Fantasy stripes give products a special touch. When knitting things with symmetrical details (sleeves, shelves, and so on) you need to be especially careful. Knit every detail so that the stripes and spots are also located symmetrically. With all the diversity of the product, symmetry breaking will give it an untidy look. Usually, every large part begins to be knitted from a new ball.
Knitting patterns
Yarn with mixed colors in itself is quite decorative. The knitting pattern with melange yarn should be chosen very carefully. Complex lace and arana can be lost on a colorful canvas. It is easiest to complete the product with the front or wrong side, plain or English rubber. This option is suitable even for beginners. Patterns with deflated loops will look good.
Another openwork pattern with elements of knitting along the oblique creates an impressive effect.
Crochet patterns
Always a different effect is obtained when working with the same yarn with knitting needles and crochet. To work with a crochet, a thread is used that is more elastic, twisted stronger. The crochet technique itself gives a denser fabric than with knitting. If you know this nuance and use a melange of natural shades of unpainted yarn, you can get the tweed effect.
Crocheting from melange yarn is good for knitting a “lush column”. Even contrasting colors will look good in such a knit.
Gradient: yarn blending technique
A gradient in knitting is called a smooth transition of one color to another. Colors can be catchy contrasting or similar shades. The task of the knitter is to make several transitions between them so that a clear border is blurred. Color blurring occurs in several stages. The stronger the contrast, the more bands (mixing steps) will have to be knitted.
They begin to knit with a thin thread of the same color in several additions (up to five or six). After a certain number of rows, one thread is torn off and replaced with a contrast one. A new color is mixed into a plain canvas. Further, at regular intervals, the original thread is replaced one by one with a new one. Reception is repeated until the canvas becomes monophonic, but of a different color.
With the modern wealth of yarn selection, you can simplify the work by picking up two necessary colors and several transitional varieties of melange.
When using melange yarn, most attention should be paid to the preparation stage. In order for the result to please, the craftswoman will have to knit more than one sample and think through many details.