The knitting has been done! I don't know about you, but things like knitting and writing are taking twice (or more) the amount of time that they used to.

I had to tear out a swatch I knit for Mason Dixon Knitting four times and it was only 20 stitches with a 6 stitch repeat. Brain overload is real my friends, be kind to yourselves.

Minnies+minnies. Ply, left and draft+ply, right.

Here are my yarns and their respective swatches. By now you could probably guess that I like the drafted together minnies the best. All of that mixed up color makes my heart go pitter pat.

But because the minnies are small amounts of color (and can be made smaller by splittling them) I like the plied minnies muuch more than I thought I would.

The plied minnies tend to be brighter overall, since the higher the frequency and number of colors touching (I'm looking at you combo drafting) causes the overall color to get dimmed.

Minnies+braid. Ply, left, draft+ply right.

There is a bit of continuity in mixing minnies with a braid that I like. It would be more apparent if I made bigger samples.

This is something I’d really like to try for a big project, like a sweater. Using the braid makes the colors all hang together magically.

Because all of the minnies and the braid I used were from the same dyer, there were more colors that matched than if I had used random braids and minnies. If you like your colors to match a bit more in their randomness use fiber from the same dyer.

It’s really apparent in my plied together samples. You can see in both of my knitted ply samples that I broke out long stretches of matching yarn. I would have probably been fine in a garment, but in a 24 stitch swatch it would take over.

I hope you enjoyed #samplealong2! There is something fun and freeing about working with minnies. You get to change colors quickly and put together colors you’d never dream of if they were in big braids. Plus, you can spin down your stash in a different way. It’s so satisfying.

I’ll be leaving these posts up for anyone that isn’t finished or anyone that wants to start down the road. Tag your photos #samplealong2 on Instagram.

Let me know if you have questions or have a topic idea for our next #samplealong!

Happy Spinning!