Roll call
Oh, let's talk about the yarns I used on this hat. You'll want three, one floofy, two smooth. I know mixing and matching yarn can be a tiiiiny bit scary, but it's actually sort of fun once you get the hang of it, and it's a fantastic way to use some of those partial balls left over from other projects! For the smooth yarns, you want them to both be about the same weight (here they're both La Bien Aimée's merino dk). The weight itself doesn't matter much. The pattern is written so you can work at 5, 5.5, 6, [...]
Continue down that path
Remember how we talked the other day about doodling out the important bits of a stitch on paper to help you understand it and how that can come in handy if you want to do things like scale a stitch up or down (or tile it...or mirror it...or offset it...or get it to flow smoothly into another pattern)? (It's back a few posts if you want to listen to me flop fabric around and point at things while talking about it.) Yeah, well this is what happens when you continue on down that path. The swatch is a scaled down [...]
Fluffy
Ever see a stitch you just want to burrow into and take a nap? Because I'm pretty sure this is about the closest I've ever seen a stitch get to 'fluffy duvet on a cold, rainy afternoon when you're exhausted and really really really need a nap.' Something about the structure of it just makes it feel so snuggly and welcoming. Especially when it's knit with a yarn combo like this, where it's fairly loosely knit, but the fuzzy yarn keeps it feeling solid. It manages that drapey-but-warm thing that is just pure magic.
Solved
Ooooh, you know how I said these needed a 'page' in the middle of them to feel even more bookish and to give you a place to pin things? Yeah, yeah well it turns out finding the correct yarn to go with sparkly pony glitter plastic extravaganza was more challenging than you might think, and my stash had absolutely nothing suitable. Luckily a trip to my delightful local yarn shop (waves at Cashmere Goat, if you're visiting midcoast Maine do yourself a favor and swing by) solved that problem.
Fairness
And, just in the interest of fairness, here's the same hat as yesterday, in the same yarn (well, same base, just a different color) knit straight through the gradient, rather than pulling from the opposite end for the fancy stitches. No, I will not be picking a favorite. They're both delightful and picking favorites is no fair at all. Well, I mean *you* can pick a favorite. I just shall steadfastly decline to do any such thing.
In Trouble
You know that thing where something is so damn pretty it gets you in trouble because you Just Cannot Stop Petting It (fine for knits, not ok for people)? Yeah. This hat is doing that. I had meant for it just to be a hat. But god those colors are too pretty to be done with, so there's a very good chance I might (accidentally you understand) be making a pair of mitts to match. Do I already have a pair of mitts to match with the gradient going straight through? Yes of course. Of course I do. But somehow [...]
Floofy goodness
Ok, here's the color thing I was telling you about the other day. The pink fabric and the orange fabric both use the same background yarn (a single ply from Seven Sisters Arts), the only difference is the floof color (both fuzzy laceweights from Haute Knit Yarn). For some reason, this delights me to no end. I'm going to need someone to provide me with a very convincing reason not to find a purple floof yarn and continue the shenanigans...
Paper
Um, so, speaking of being distracted by shiny objects, did you know that you can iron and sew mulberry paper preeeeeeetty much the same way you'd sew fabric? And that this can lead to no end of distraction? And also to some lovely window shades to help deal with the glaring daystar of death lurking outside your window? Because you totally totally can...and very possibly should.
Shiny Objects
So I'm in one of those phases where I have A Whole Lot of Projects, all at various stages of completion, yet somehow all I want to do is Start New Thiiiiiiiiiings. Like this guy. This guy that's all the way knit, and which I actually wrote the whole pattern for, charts and all, and then...sort of forgot about? Because I was distracted by the new shiny somewhere between here and there? Because my brain can apparently just do that if I'm not careful? It's time to tidy some of that up! There's a testing call up for this over [...]
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