Am I unspeakably pleased with how the spacing on the top of this worked out? Why yes, yes I am.⁠ ⁠Now, someone is out there wondering why I didn't put the leafy bit over the whole hat. And the answer is that the hat would fit kind of weird if you ran that pattern over the whole thing.⁠ You've got a fairly dramatic difference in the number of stitches between the narrowest and widest rows of that stitch. Which is absolutely fine if you use it in a constrained space like this (where the stockinette on either side acts as [...]

You may have noticed I only put the fancy bit one one little stripe of the hat. And we'll talk about one of the reasons I did that in a day or two. But one of the reasons is just 'I absolutely needed to leave room to just let this lovely fabric shine.' Because really, look at that. It's a tweedy yarn (Hypothesis Yarns' Tweed DK in Wildcat) held double with a fuzzy laceweight yarn ( Shibui Knits' Silk Cloud in Cove), and together they make something that's rich and deep and prettier than it has any right to be. [...]

Earlier this morning I sent an email out to my yarn shops letting them know that I'm down to my last tiny handful of copies of Curls 1 and Curls 2 and that I'm starting to run low on other titles and planning to have them all wrapped up by the end of the year.⁠ It's a little bit sad (I'm a sucker for paper books and always will be). But it's also the right choice for a whole host of super practical reasons (turns out getting a literal, actual ton of books delivered to your house a few times [...]

There we go, that should give you a pretty good idea of just how delightfully textured this stitch is. Now, normally this is where I'd tell you it's coming out in a little while. But in this case, it's not. It will come out at some point, but I'm actually not doing individual patterns for the next few weeks. Instead, I'm wrapping up a couple of my paper books. ⁠ I'm moving away from paper books (for a whole host of reasons that are sort of too big and complicated to go into). And I'm down to only a tiny [...]

There's always a slightly awkward part of these projects where I know it's going to be lovely (because I knit the swatch and because I can pet the fabric and feel how smushy and cozy it is and because I can tug on it to approximate what it will look like after blocking) but it might not be quite far enough along for you to fully appreciate its charms.⁠ So I find myself singing the praises of something that you could be forgiven for finding, well, let's just say somewhat underwhelming. ⁠ So I worry I sound like a deranged [...]

There we go, that's the fun bit. I mean, I'm not suggesting it says anything particularly flattering about my character that I find this as amusing as I do. But since it seems to be true whether it's flattering or not, I might as well enjoy it. Because really, just LOOK at that. How can you not like that. ⁠ I mean possibly you'll like it more when we get a bit more of it done, I won't hold it against you if you're not yet as smitten as I am. But I'm already taken with it. ⁠ ⁠

Look, perhaps you're cooler than me (I mean you're probably cooler than me, that's setting a really low bar). Perhaps you can knit mile after mile after mile of twisted ribbing and not lose your will to live.  Perhaps you can tell yourself that the undeniable charms of that fabric (sturdy! warm! stretchy! pretty!) are worth the clanking grinding process of actually knitting it. But I? I know my limitations. And my limitations are about an inch of the stuff before I declare it good enough and move on to the fun bits. Especially when the fun bits look like [...]

Ok, with our swatching all taken care of (remember this one was four 'do I like the stitch in this yarn' swatches and two 'do I like the fabric at this gauge' swatches, so nothing too daunting), it's time to cast on. I settled on Hypothesis Yarns' Tweed DK in Wildcat and Shibui Knits Silk Cloud in Cove.⁠ And the two held together do something suspiciously magical that I cannot quite explain but absolutely adore. At some point, I will show you the fabric with both yarns sitting on it and you'll look at it and go 'huh, how do [...]

Ok, so this is neat...look at the difference blocking makes.⁠ The first picture is the blocked swatch, the second one is the exact same swatch fresh off the needles before blocking.⁠ Look how much more clearly defined the stitch pattern is after blocking. Look at the lovely scalloped edge on the bottom of the blocked one (that you couldn't even see on the unblocked one). Look how the fabric opens up and drapes so much more nicely.⁠ All knit fabric benefits from blocking, even if it's just to let the stitches relax and even out. But fabric like this, with [...]