So you saw the swatches the other day, and here's how it's shaping up. There's no way to make a few rows of stockinette all that interesting...so I'll distract you with the purple hat (Entrapment, that one's out now) and the pink hat (out soonish...probably) instead. Then you join in the gray bits...though it's still not all that interesting. Then you get to do the fun bits! That's much better...   [pextestim pex_attr_set="looking-for-this-pattern" pex_attr_autoplay="false"][/pextestim]

So every now and then, some lovely person says 'oh, all your knitting is so pretty.'  And that's very very kind, but it's also totally not true.  A fair bit of my knitting actually looks like absolute trash.  It's just that I usually go through that stage while I'm swatching, not on the full project stage of things.  See? Absolute crap.  There is nothing appealing about this save the yarn. But the secret is, that's just a swatch.  It's all of three inches across.  That means I can keep going and keep experimenting and it's just not a big deal.  [...]

I'm pretty sure this is cuter and more fun than should be allowed... Of course it's also unblocked and has its ends waving shamelessly in the wind.  But we won't talk about that. How about we distract ourselves with the cute way the top of the hat folds over on itself instead, yeah? Or, failing that, we start daydreaming about how the third in the series should work...swatches soon (just as soon as I get the book off to the printer and sleep for 48 hours straight).   [pextestim pex_attr_set="looking-for-this-pattern" pex_attr_autoplay="false"][/pextestim]

This is just about ready for the decreases. Which means it's time to start figuring out what to do for the third one (the blue one here). Expect swatches soon...

So when I say I'm thinking of doing a set, I'm speaking fairly loosely.  We're not talking a hat and mitts and a cowl, we're talking a few pieces that all explore a similar idea. In this case, that idea is 'what if I start with a lovely, neutral background and a simple shape...and then pull another yarn in to do something a bit crazy with a funky stitch for some fancy texture?' So here you can see the first iteration of that (it's Entrapment, and it's already out on ravelry if you simply must have it). And here's the [...]

The hat continues to grow, and I continue to be hopelessly smitten with it. It starts out with the rows of doobly-dos all squinched up together, but then as you go along they spread out. I love having things taper off like that.  It makes it feel like the hat is picking up momentum as you go along (because the fancy rows do take a bit more time than the plain ones). Yarn is Tosh Vintage in Smokestack (the gray one) and Tosh Merino Light in Alizarin (the pink one), and I'm loving the combo!   [pextestim pex_attr_set="looking-for-this-pattern" pex_attr_autoplay="false"][/pextestim]

This is growing, and I'm loving it. And apparently we're going to have one last snowstorm (oh please let it be this winter's last...I'm so ready for spring), so maybe I'll get some time to tuck in and finish it up. The wee twirly bits are going to spread out and become more sparse as we head to the top of the hat, so it should get even faster as I work along.  And yes, yes I have already started day dreaming of what to do for the third in this 'gray background, funky secondary yarn' thing I'm playing with [...]

I'm sort of loving this mellow gray yarn as a background, funky colorful single for an accent thing.  I think there may end up being a few of these. So far it's going well. And you know I love how it came out for the hat that just came out. I think there just might be something to this...   [pextestim pex_attr_set="looking-for-this-pattern" pex_attr_autoplay="false"][/pextestim]