The hat clearly needed some mitts to go with it. These are Incorrigible, they're every bit as fun as the hat, and they're up on ravelry today. All the things I said about the hat? About how it breaks all the supposed rules of colorwork but still comes out just fine in the end?  Yeah, well those all still apply here. Plus you get to satisfy that little voice in your head that says knit accessories are more fun in sets (please tell me that's not just in my head, I'll feel weird if I'm the only one hearing it). [...]

Of course, the only downside to mitts is that you pretty much do have to knit two. Though when the yarn is this pretty, it's not too much of a hardship. Now I just have to see if spring stays chilly enough to get any wear out of them, or if I'll need to wait till fall. As always, pattern coming shortly, you know the drill!

Now clearly what the hat needs is some mitts to go with it. I'm a firm believer that accessories are better in sets.  For me, that's almost always going to mean a hat and some mitts to go with it. Cowls are nice and all (and I've knit quite a few).  But I tend to think a cowl has to go with whatever shirt I'm wearing, whereas a hat and mitts just need to go with each other. And while I fully admit that these are my own weird rules and should hold no sway for anyone else, they do [...]

There's something to be said for knowing what the rules are.  Not necessarily so that you can  follow them.  More so that you can know exactly when and how you're breaking them and plan accordingly.  This is Obstreperous, and it's not terribly interested in following the rules. There are kind of a lot of unspoken rules when it comes to colorwork.  Use one yarn at a time. Use yarns of the same weight. Carry each color all the way around the whole piece. Keep your floats short.  I'm not doing any of that here. Here you'll pair your very favorite [...]

The swatch parade continues, but I think we're getting closer. This little bit of frippery looks like nothing so much as a baby manta ray.  Which is actually quite delightful...but not what I'm going for at the moment. I'll likely play more with that stitch in the future, but not just right now. Right now, I think this is the way to go.  I mean once again, I find myself loving the teeny tiny skinny yarn, which will mean once again knitting a hat on size two needles.  But at least it will be a fetching hat with excellent drape.  [...]

And there we are, done, blocked, ends woven in.  All finished as though it were the project of a proper grownup with an attention span longer than that of the average goldfish. Now of course I have to take it out in the world to have its proper photo shoot (the giant rock in my office window is fine for blog pictures but not for pattern photos), and the pattern will be ready to come out. Look for it next week if the world doesn't present me with any exciting catastrophes between now and then.  And if you want me [...]

I've said this before (oh so very many times), but you should block your knitting. Look how much better this hat is after I blocked it. The stitches are smoother and more even.  The decreases lay down flat.  The top is nice and round and noticably less reminiscent of a screwdriver.  It's just better. And no, it's not hard.  Get it wet, get it into the shape you want it to hold, let it dry.  That's really all blocking is (there's more in depth info over here, and even more if you put 'blocking' into the search bar on the [...]

I have a bad habit.  I knit a lot of swatches (that's not the bad habit part, that's the good habit part).  And I take photos of them to share them with you (also not the bad habit part).  But then I forget to show them to you (that's the bad habit part).  So every now and then I clear out my camera's memory card and stumble across all sorts of stuff, most of which I have no memory of. Like this...all I can tell you is it's from Shibui's fluffy yarn, I have no idea of the colors (the [...]

You wouldn't think one stitch would make that much difference.  But sometimes it does. This was the first try at the decreases.  I used centered double decreases, stacked up in a nice neat line.  And while it gave the general rate of decrease I wanted, the line of decreases itself was just a little too sharp.  The top of your head would have looked rather like a screwdriver, and that's not generally my goal. So out it came (yes, ripping suck, yes, you should do it anyways). And then I tried again with the decreases bumped apart by one measly [...]