I have a bad idea
It's done, I still don't like it, but I do have a bad idea you should talk me out of...or into! But first, please note, I have no complaint with the yarn. The yarn is lovely, it's one of my very favorite bases, and I have a whole bucket of it. But the color just does not want to play nicely with this stitch. And again, please note, this is an entirely subjective judgement. I can tell from the comments yesterday that many of you are smitten with it, and that is absolutely fine! It's just not currently calling my [...]
Not even close
From time to time, I'll post a picture on instagram or on the blog, and someone will say some variation of 'oh my goodness, your knitting is so perfect, mine never looks like that.' And this is very very sweet...but absolutely not true. My knitting is somewhere around middling to fair. Now, I am pretty good at blocking, and blocking is a huge part of making your finished knitting look great (that's why I've done so many posts about how to block stuff...I really really really want you to be blocking your projects). And I do have a slightly fancy camera, [...]
Swatches…So. Many. Swatches
So I know I've talked about how swatching is a thing...but I'm not sure if you really believe me. I'm not kidding when I say that I sometimes spend as long swatching for a project as knitting it (especially for little things like hats). I mentioned last time that I stared with some swatches to see how I liked the needles and the yarn together. But that was just the beginning. I doodled around with the blue yarn for a while, but didn't like how things were shaping up, so I set it aside (and I did that at night [...]
A sickness I tell you
So when last we left the hat it had gotten pleasantly tall. But it whispered to me that we weren't quite done...it needed one more little thing... Yes, it's true, I've fallen prey to the dread pompom sickness. From what I can tell there's no cure. Luckily, with the right treatment, it's a fairly manageable condition. And the symptoms aren't even that bad when the yarn is this pretty! For anyone wondering, the purple one is Entrapment, the pink one just came out this week and is called is Misprision, and the blue one should be out later this summer, [...]
Misprision (plus giveaway)
If you've been around for a while you know I'm scared of proper colorwork. The sort where you use two (or more, eep) colors in one row. But I don't want to be left out of all that multicolored fun, so I've started playing with ways to use two different yarns, but keep it to one yarn per row. Misprision is one of the results of my experiments (and through Friday, it's 10% off with the code POMPOM)! It's also more fun than it has any right to be. The background is just lovely, mellow stockinette (can't ask for anything [...]
Tall enough
So we've talked about this before, but it's helpful enough it bears repeating. If you're doing a hat with fast decreases (and a lot of mine use those), my favorite way to know if it's tall enough is to get all the stitches on two needles and try it on. Fast decreases distort the fabric (and that distortion uses up some of the fabric you've made), and arranging it like this does a good job of mimicking that distortion. If it's tall enough on two needles, it will be tall enough when you've done the decreases. Here I needed a [...]
It grew
So there's this nifty thing where, if you keep working on something, it will usually grow. That does seem to be happening here. The hat is getting markedly taller. It still needs another inch or two (I have a few things in mind for the decreases here, but any of them will need the hat to be pretty tall first), but the end is in sight (this is the inside, because some folks have asked...though honestly that feels a tiiiiiiny bit like asking to peek in my medicine cabinet...). Then? Then I think maybe it will need a pom pom...
Once you pom…
Sorry folks, didn't mean to leave you hanging on the pom pom front! The first round went pretty well. Though I did learn a few things. Namely, you want to fill that pom pom maker up as full as you can, and you want to be nice and tidy and keep your wraps straight and even as you go. Also...the large pom pom is, well, rather large. Hence a slightly smaller pom pom for the second go round... I suspect the pink and gray hat will have this perched proudly on top from time to time! I may end up [...]
Woven
I'm loving how this is shaping up. Once you're done with the colored bit on the brim, you don't actually ever make another knit stitch with the contrast yarn. You just weave it in and out of the stitches knit with the gray yarn. For some reason this both entertains me and makes me feel clever (and yes, I realize that I probably am not actually terribly clever if that entertains me, but I'll take what I can get. And once more, for anyone wanting to track down their own, the yarns are Tosh Vintage in Smokestack and Tosh Merino [...]
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