Does anyone know of an alternative for patons zhivago wool? I have a pattern that I would like to use but finding the right amount of zhivago in the colour that I want is well outside my price range. So I wondered if anyone had tried any alternatives and if they worked out ok?
This may or may not help.
I googled Zhivago and it looks like it will knit as a DK.
General rule of thumb I use is as long as the tension square and needle size are the same. Find out the meterage of the Zhivago wool by ball size. x mtrs by balls required.
gives you overall meterage, say Zhivago is 100m per 50grm? and you need 12 balls that gives 1200 mtrs, you could use a plain DK same tension and needle size but has 300m per 100grm ball divide the 1200 by 300 = 4 so four balls are needed. but to be safe I always add 1 extra, think thats right.
If not I am sure someone will point you in the right direction
Standard dk tension is 22 stitches / 28 rows for a 4 inch square, Zhivago is 20 by 28, so not quite standard dk.
However, the tension that matters is the one given in the pattern, not the one on the ball band (although they often match, which makes life easy).
Also when yarn substituting, you do also need to look for a substitute that has a similar texture to the original...some yarns bounce a lot, and others hang, this can make a big difference to the way the pattern works.
In this case I'd try any soft fluffy yarn that might turn out the right tension, maybe Aran weights that look a bit thin for Aran, and therefore might knit up ok on 4mm needles.
