Non-allergenic shawls and socks with Allegro and Naked Sock yarn

This week, we’re looking at 2 non-wool Wisdom yarns by Universal Yarn. Yesterday, I described the fiber content (what is PBT anyway?) and other attributes which make these excellent non-allergenic yarn options to wool and wool blend sock yarns.

Sock knitters often complain about color pooling in variegated and dip-dyed yarns. Color pooling is the unintentional appearance of areas with one color concentration. It may look blotchy or spotty, and not everyone likes it. Some people try many tricks like knitting socks with 2 balls of yarn at the same time, changing the yarn every round or so to interrupt the pooling. Other people use textured patterns to “disrupt” the patchiness.

The Allegro yarn we’re looking at this week has been dyed to be a self-striping yarn, but there are not only stripes. There are variegated segments that break up the stripes with a more mottled look. There’s a free basic sock pattern which is ideal for the yarn and highlights its colorways and dye patterns.

The Naked Sock yarn from this week’s focus doesn’t have clearly defined stripes. Four of the yarns are variegated with 4 or 5 different yet coordinating colors. The other 4 yarns are ombre colorways, with differing shades or intensities of the same hue. Looking at the picture below, you can see how evenly the color speckles are distributed. What I find intriguing is how, on the foot section, the dark gray seems to be the predominant stripe color, where as in the leg and cuff, the light grey is what stands out. How cool is that?

The basic sock pattern for Naked sock is available here.

There is also a free pattern for a shawl called “I heart you”.

This lovely shawl has a pattern repeat of only 6 stitches and 8 rows, which will be easy to memorize. The border is added on later by knitting it together with stitches held in waiting on a provisional cast-on edge. Some people may be leary of knitting lace with acrylic because in general, acrylic isn’t blockable. With the PBT content, that makes the yarn springy, even I’d be worried that the lace wouldn’t block well. But, the pattern instructions say to pin and steam the yarn firmly. While you won’t want to touch your iron to the actual shawl, lots of shots of steam will make the acrylic learn a new “memory” will make it so that you don’t have to reblock the shawl aggressively after subsequent washings in cold water.

These yarns can be used for more than just socks and shawls. Tomorrow we’ll explore another application for Allegro and Naked Sock.