Am I going to knit gray yarn in January? Yes. Yes I am.⁠

Is this advisable? Possibly not. But you’ll note that all these grays have Wee Tiny Speckles of Bright Shiny Colors. And I’m hoping that the speckles override the gray.⁠

I thought it might be interesting to take you all the way through a project, from ‘hmmmm, I have An Idea’ to ‘this lovely thing exists in the world’ to ‘and here’s the pattern you can buy.’ ⁠

Because normally you get a fairly compressed view of that (I often take the photos way ahead of time and then parcel them out close to when the release is scheduled), but real life is, um, not that tidy.⁠

But I think you can probably handle a tiny bit of untidiness. So we’ll start here.⁠

I have an idea for a cabled hat I want to make, a hat with a very particular shape. There will probably be mitts to go with it too because doing a set is just always more fun if I have enough yarn. ⁠

I know I want a gray speckled yarn, I know I want something a bit rustic/tweedy/sturdy feeling, and I know I do not want to be knitting on itty bitty needles.⁠

With that in mind, I tossed the stash. I had a bunch of gray yarns with dyed speckles, and I love them all, but I wanted something a bit different for this. I wanted more of a tweedy feel that you get when the colored bits are done with inclusions, not with dye. I had the Hedgehog Fibres yarn already, but I wanted a few more options, so I ordered the La Bien Aimée one online and got the Berocco one at one of my local yarn shops.⁠

There’s not really much to show you when something is in the ‘I have an idea’ stage or the ‘I’m waiting on yarn in the mail’ stage, but now that the yarn is all here, I can start showing it off. ⁠

And the next step is swatching!