Many of the squishy, soft sweaters I see knitters working on are knitted with a base yarn and strand of laceweight brushed mohair. If you’ve knitted or even had a chance to touch this kind of fabric, you’ll understand why this trend is so enduring. Soft yet surprisingly durable, lightweight even at DK and worsted weights—these characteristics don’t always go together.
The key to this combo lies in the fact that the yarns are spun separately and combined later. Brushed mohair is quite literally brushed with drums covered in thin metal wires like you might find on a cat or dog brush, which creates a soft halo. It works brilliantly for strong, slippery mohair, but can you imagine what it might do to a skein of fine Merino yarn? Shredded saddness. These fibers have very different qualities. Once spun, these differences lead to challenges when knitting the yarns together. Finewool is elastic and stretchy, while brushed mohair usually has almost no elasticity.
Hey, what if these yarns were plied together?
I’ve been swatching this week with a yarn that was way ahead of the current wool + brushed mohair trend. Rowan’s Kid Classic, launched about 25 years ago, has a strand of brushed mohair plied right into the yarn—no need to carry an extra strand!
Take a closer look at Kid Classic, and you’ll see it has three singles of wool plied with a strand of brushed mohair.
Kid Classic creates the same delicious fabric as a finewool yarn held with brushed mohair but with less fuss. The mohair strand is just a bit loose, which gives the yarn plenty of elasticity, but the halo keeps the yarn from being splity. If it didn’t have that little bit of looseness, the mohair would bed down in the yarn and not rest on the surface of the knitted stitches.
Kate swatched in broken rib and simple colorwork motifs.
I swatched in the two motifs included in a great new Rowan pattern—the Devoted Cardigan by Chloe Thurlow—that we just added to the Farm & Fiber Knits library (see below). The broken rib pattern is plush, and you can see the gentle halo on the surface of the fabric after blocking and handling.
I also swatched in some quick colorwork motifs using colors that were closer in value (light vs. dark) than in the Devoted pattern to see if the hazy surface obscured the motif—it really came through nicely.
Rowan Magazine (issue 78) was just released and celebrates the 25th anniversary of Kid Classic, which really has become a classic. Check out the issue for more patterns, and join me in casting on the Devoted Cardigan just as cold weather decends!
— Kate
Knitted from the top down, the Devoted Cardigan combines a textured motif with a colorwork yoke. Photo courtesy of Rowan