A couple of years ago a friend gave me a skein of handpainted cashmere yarn. Tiny but gorgeous. I petted it for months, trying to figure out how to stretch it into an entire Something.
After some trial and error, I combined it with a matching solid yarn, and feather-and-fanned my way through a scarf, alternating the handpaint and the solid. I knit the wrong side rows after the eyelets to make the handpaint stand out as ridges on the front.
For some reason, this scarf really impresses non-knitters (always a plus for gifts). It’s relaxing to knit, and it does indeed stretch little skeins of fabulous yarn into entire Somethings. And it seems to go more quickly than one-yarned feather and fan.