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Sport
Transitions
$24.00
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Transitions shifts between hues like nature's most enchanting moments—dawn breaking over mountains, dusk settling on water, or auroras dancing across night skies. Watch your creations transform, capturing the ephemeral beauty of a world in constant, gentle change.
Perfect for: Simple stitch patterns like stockinette or garter stitch, open stitches like...
Description
Transitions shifts between hues like nature's most enchanting moments—dawn breaking over mountains, dusk settling on water, or auroras dancing across night skies. Watch your creations transform, capturing the ephemeral beauty of a world in constant, gentle change.
Perfect for: Simple stitch patterns like stockinette or garter stitch, open stitches like eyelets, slip stitch colorwork with coordinating solid shade yarns.
This sport-weight color-changing yarn creates a fabric with a subtle halo that reveals shifting color segments, with the pattern's width determining how dramatically the transitions appear in your finished piece.
Additional Information
- Cake weight: 100 g
- Fibre: 50% alpaca, 50% Peruvian Highland wool
- Length: 300 m (328 yd)
- Tension/Gauge: 23–25 sts per 10 cm (4 in)
- Needle size: 3.25–3.5mm (US 3–4)
- Care: Gently hand wash colors separately in cool water
- Made in: Peru
The blend
What fibres we use and why
Transitions features a carefully balanced 50/50 blend of alpaca and Peruvian Highland wool designed for the perfect combination of softness and structure.
Alpaca fibre’s smooth surface and semi-hollow core provide warmth, luxurious softness, and elegant drape. With fewer scales than sheep’s wool, it reflects more light—enhancing color depth and vibrancy.
Peruvian Highland wool adds strength and resilience, helping finished pieces maintain their shape and resist wear. This robust fibre also lends elasticity and "memory," supporting the yarn’s shape retention and dimensional integrity.
The process
How is the yarn made?
From farm to finished yarn, our mill uses certified natural fibres and proprietary treatments to ensure quality and sustainability.
1. Blending
Our 50/50 blend begins at the source, where farmers carefully shear both alpaca and sheep. At the mill, the raw fibres are then sorted and scoured (washed) to remove natural oils and impurities. The alpaca and wool are then carded and combed to align the fibres, before being blended together in precise proportions. The resulting blended unspun fibre is known as 'rovings' or 'tops'.
2. Dyeing
Each cake of yarn is created by spinning together four differently colored 'tops'. The color story begins with the careful selection of four coordinating hues for each yarn shade. Our dyers then individually dye the 'tops' in each of the four hues and prepare them for spinning. The mill only uses dyes that meet REACH or OEKO-TEX® standards, ensuring rich color through responsible production.
3. Spinning
The magic happens during construction, where one dominant color runs continuously through the yarn to create a unifying base tone, while the other three colors are added at precise intervals. Spun as a single-ply sport-weight, the yarn is made using a specialized "fancy yarn machine" to ensure consistent and smooth color transitions. The spun yarn is then steamed and finished into cakes ready for knitting.
Knitting with Transitions
The knitting experience
Transitions offers an exceptionally soft and comfortable knitting experience, with gentle give and bounce that’s forgiving on the needles. Stitches soften after blocking, resulting in a relaxed, organic fabric that beautifully showcases the color transitions.
This yarn is best suited for plain or open stitches, with color shifts varying based on project width or circumference. Wider sections reveal more pronounced vertical contrasts, while narrower areas produce subtler transitions.
Transitions pairs beautifully with coordinating solid yarns in slip-stitch patterns for controlled effects, or can be used on its own to showcase a natural, dynamic interplay of color.
The vision, ideal projects and more
Find out more about what makes Transitions an extraordinary yarn choice for making.
The vision
The vision for Transitions began with an appreciation of color in motion—a yarn that echoes the gentle, unhurried shifts we find in nature. We imagined long, fluid changes of hue that unfold across your stitches like brushstrokes on a canvas, drawing the eye and heart into the fabric. This is a yarn meant to inspire: to be worked alone in projects that let the colors sing or paired with another yarn in slip stitch or mosaic patterns to create new textures and stories.
The palette
The shade names for the Transitions palette were inspired by the subtle shifts and natural gradients we see in the world around us—sunsets melting into twilight, the way light plays across a landscape. Just as these changes in nature occur gradually and effortlessly, we wanted each shade in the Transitions range to flow gently into the next, bringing that same sense of harmony and beauty to your knitting.
How it feels in hand
When you hold Transitions in your hands, you'll appreciate the soft feel of the alpaca together with the squishy bounce of the Highland wool.
Ideal project types
Transitions can be used alone in projects that call for variegated color changes, or paired with another yarn in slip stitch or mosaic patterns to create new textures and stories.
Care and blocking
Steam or spray blocking is recommended to set the fabric’s shape while allowing the yarn to soften and bloom, creating a fuller, more unified look.
New supporting designs
Coming soon for Autumn Winter!
Two debut designs showcase Transitions’ color-shifting magic through thoughtful pairing with Cumbria Fingering. By combining these yarns in slip stitch patterns, we’ve created pieces that highlight the gradual color evolution.
Flowing Tides Shawl (small)
By Audrey Borego
Transitions shade ‘Liminal Tide’
Cumbria Fingering shade ‘Eden Valley’
The Flowing Tides Shawl features three distinct textural bands—cable patterning, slipped stitches, and purl-striped stockinette—each revealing different aspects of the color interplay across its asymmetrical triangular shape.
Flowing Tides Shawl (large)
By Audrey Borego
Transitions shade ‘Vesper Bloom'
Cumbria Fingering shade ‘Calluna'
The Flowing Tides Shawl features three distinct textural bands—cable patterning, slipped stitches, and purl-striped stockinette—each revealing different aspects of the color interplay across its asymmetrical triangular shape.
Merging Shades Sweater
By Becky Baker
Transitions shade ‘Stratum Shift'
Cumbria Fingering shade ‘Catbells'
The Merging Shades Sweater has an updated silhouette with a contemporary fit, featuring an open neckline and cropped profile that perfectly frames Transitions’ subtle color shifts.
