Held Double
Flexes fingers...stretches arms...ok, this is all stuff I've said before, so totally feel free to skip right over this if you've been here a while. But just in case you're new, here's the spiel on the cast on. Yup, I totally cast on over two needles held together. Before anyone screams or cries into their tea or sends me worried messages...don't panic, I know that doesn't make the cast on any looser or stretchier. To make the cast on looser, you need more space *between* one stitch and its neighbor. But casting on this way does make each individual stitch a tiny bit [...]
That’s going to work out nicely…
Pretty sure we need more brioche. And I'm pretty sure this is going to be the way to do it. That orange is some seriously deep stash. The company is, alas, apparently out of business...and normally that means I would not use the yarn, but it's a common enough base that it won't be hard to find an equivalent yarn. And my goodness but it's too pretty not to use. All my suspicions are confirmed by the swatch (insert 'yay swatch, swatch is important, swatch is useful' peptalk right about here). That is, indeed, going to be smashing. Yarns are Punta [...]
They grew
Turns out, if you keep making stitches at even a slightly faster rate than you rip them out, your project will eventually grow. Even if you're tired. Even if it's been raining for two weeks straight. Even if you have a crew full of marvelous folks doing necessary but noisy (oh so noisy) repair work at your house. And if your knitting grows for long enough, you get to make a thumb. And if your brain works the way mine does, two things happen. First, you absolutely adore the thumb. Second, you think it looks just the tiniest bit like [...]
Show off
I have this little voice in the back of my head that says I should attempt to maintain some sort of semblance of self effacing modesty. That I should not let on about how tickled pink I am about this whole thing. But you know what? That little voice is absolutely drowned out by the ever so much louder voice saying "Holy crap look what I made. Isn't it fabulous? Don't you just love it to bits?!?" And today? Well today the louder voice is winning. Because this really is rather delightful. It's off with testers now (some day we're [...]
Pretty much like that
So after that 'let's go straight for a nice long time...no...longer than you think' part, then comes the 'aaaaaaand three rows and you're done' bit. At least that's how my hats tend to work. I'm a tremendous fan of a quick decrease on hats. It actually means you're knitting a bit more fabric (because you have to make the straight part a bit taller before you start the decreases), but I feel like it fits better and it doesn't give me hat hair. Plus it lets you do all sorts of delightfully dramatic stuff on the top. This one is [...]
Remiss
Yeah, so somehow I've been distracted and not shown you as much of this as I should have. Which is a shame, as it's lovely. But it does pretty much do that thing all hats do in the middle where you can just sort of assume 'and then it got taller for a while with no particularly notable changes.' Because well...that's how hats work. At least with this one you can distract yourself by wondering if the color is changing yet (hint, yes, yes it totally is). Yarns are Malabrigo Rios in Natural and Friea Handpaint Sport in Flare. If [...]
And now we start actually knitting
So, after all those swatches, it's time to actually knit the thing! I'm doing a rolled brim (in part because I like how it looks and fits, but also in part because I want to get to the color change bit as quickly as I can, and plowing through a solid brim in the colorful yarn lets me get there quick). And I generally cast on over two needles (not to make the cast on stretchier, it doesn't do that, but it does make the loops of my first row of stitches a better match for the rest of my [...]
Field trip
Went on a yarn field trip last week...needed some stuff to play with my newly developed obsession with two color brioche. The dark purple bit of lovely is Shibui Knits' Silk Cloud in Velvet. The fluff in plastic is two disks of Lopi's Plötulopi, one in white and one in purple, but I don't see color names. And the other goodness is Malabrigo's Lace in Natural (white), Polar Morn (gray), Archangel (pink), and Whale's Road (blue). And no, they're not all getting used together! The Shibui is probably going with the light purple stuff I got from Martin's Lab a few weeks ago [...]
At least my feet will be warm…
I'm absolutely positively convinced that warm feet make all the difference on cold days. And you all know I have a slew of wool socks (perks of the trade...). But sometimes you want an extra layer, and that's where the slippers come in. I've been rocking the slippers over socks thing the last few mornings (what can I say, it's chilly...) and found that I wanted some taller ones. So these are going to come up all the way over my ankles. And they're out of seriously thick yarn (Malabrigo's Twist in the color Zinc) knit just as tight as [...]
Mailing List
Want to hear when a new pattern comes out or something fun is going on? Sign up below!
Patreon
Want to support the content I create, get nifty bonus material for some of my favorite patterns, or get every new release delivered right to your inbox? Head over to patreon and sign up!
