Rayon from bamboo trees is one of my favorite fibers with which to knit. In my wardrobe, I have one t-shirt made out of bamboo fiber, one pair of socks, and one summer buttoned front shirt. These are finely-knit by machine or woven fabric. I truly enjoy the way the fabric feels and the way it drapes. So when I had the chance to knit with a bamboo cotton blend, I was very excited
This week I’ll share my experiences with Bamboo Pop Dots, and a few techniques and free patterns as well.
Bamboo Pop Dots yarn in the Watermelon Dots colorway conjures up refreshing summer memories.
Bamboo Pop Dots comes in 8 summery colorways, where the main color is a solid white with 3 or four intense colors speckled very randomly to give a lovely, vibrant dotted effect on the knit fabric. There are also 20 variegated colorways of Bamboo Pop and 26 solids that range from classic baby pastels and neutrals to attention-seeking tropicals, and jewel-tones.
The bamboo rayon in this yarn traps the light, giving the stitches a crisp sheen, and great definition.
Bamboo Pop Dots is listed as a double-knitting or light-worsted weight yarn that is 50% bamboo rayon and 50% cotton. The recommended needle size is a US4 [3.5mm], but oddly enough the gauge is 20 stitches per 4″, which is almost a worsted gauge. I guess it’s the yarn’s springy nature and sponginess that makes it a perfect multi-gauge yarn. I knit with it on US3 [3.25mm], US5 [3.75mm], and US7 [4.5mm] needles and it looked great on all of them. The tension was different for each different size, and so was the fabric’s density, but there wasn’t a moment that the drape was lost, not even for the smallest sizes.
Another characteristic of this yarn is its slipperiness. It just glides smoothly and like silk through your fingers…this also means that you shouldn’t try to pull the center end of the ball from the middle…drawing from the outside is suitable for the way this yarn behaves.
The dots consist of short segments of dyed yarn that are long enough to appear in about one stitch, once knit.
Bamboo Pop Dots is a 12 ply yarn. There are 6 pairs of plies and in each pair, one ply is bamboo and the other is cotton. Once spun all together, these give the yarn a lot of dimensions as there are reflective strands and matte ones that are interspersed in an almost microscopic way through the yarn.
Texture stitches have a lot of character and visibility. You can see in this swatch that I tried a variety of textured stitches to see how the yarn would show them off. I’ll be explaining these stitch patterns later on in the week.
One-color brioche stitch patterns create a perfect backdrop and make the crisp texture of Bamboo Pop Dots stand out.
This is part 1 of 5 in this series.
Go to part 2: Sleuthing for knitting patterns you can make with Bamboo Pop Dots
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