END OF YEAR POST

I was hoping to do more on floats this week but I'll get to it next week. Instead I wanted to look back at 2010 which was a good year overall. Knitting-wise perhaps not so much. I remember back a few years ago when I'd tally somewhere near a hundred small projects a year and this year it was more like 15-20. So that is my New Year's knitting resolution - to knit a lot more. I'd like to have more like 100 projects to show you in 2011. I have one final project to design using the gorgeous Sunday Knits yarns and then I'm going to focus on other people's designs while I work on a cookbook project.

The KP Chullo was my favorite project of the year. Here is a photo of it dry. I really like working with kits so I'm going to put some effort into finding colorwork kits to knit in 2011. I already know I'm going to get the Starmore Hat Trick kit and the Renaissance Dyeing Kilim Socks kit (3 colors per row!).

My fave design this year was my Chamrousse Gloves - I must have liked them because I knit them three times.

My favorite new book was Stephanie Van Der Linden's Around The World in Knitted Socks.

My favorite new yarn was the Stitch Nation Bamboo Ewe - I really need to order some more for a project.

My favorite online knitting discovery was Sock Knitter's Anonymous on Ravelry. I became involved last summer when my knitting mojo was pretty low and being around so many incredibly passionate knitters (with some serious knitting skills) was very therapeutic.

ONE LAST NOTE: You have until midnight (Mountain Time) tonight to vote for the Stranded forum's next KAL project. Go HERE to vote for all of your favorite projects; the KAL will start January 1.

Bubbles has made some New Year's Resolutions as well - 1) Take more bunny naps, 2) Eat more delicious treats, and 3) Insist on more jaw rubs from her two bunny slaves.


HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

A Chullo for Christmas

I decided to do an additional Christmas present for DH at the last-minute - this is the Andean Chullo from the Knit Picks kit that is unfortunately no longer available. I made some changes after reading some of the Ravelry comments about the hat. 1. I added 3 colors of teal to the beige and brown colors that came in the kit. 2. I added 16 sts to the cast on number. 3. I made the hat much shorter. 4. I striped the top decrease section. 5. I made the I-cord ties longer. 6. I did thicker applied I-cord to make sure the ear flaps won't curl. 7. I used this Raveler's method for the I-cord so the cast on edge wouldn't show through the I-cord.

I think it will fit him really well - the hat is wet in the photo but I'll get a shot of him wearing it after Christmas . When I got the kit several weeks ago he was the one who decided on adding teal for some extra colors and he also specifically requested no alpacas. (There actually is a very small alpaca motif near the top - the alpacas are black - but I doubt he'll notice.) Best of all it will be a surprise because he never pays attention to what I'm knitting.

Knitting the chullo was so much fun; I immediately went and downloaded Mary Ann's Polar Bear Chullo and I think I'll get Shirl the Purl's Blossoms Chullo pattern as well. Plus I want to make another one of the Knit Picks chullos with the alpaca patterns.

Another FO is this gingerbread house we made from a kit we received as a gift. It was DH's wacky idea to use cheerios on the roof but my piping skills for the window frames were non-existent. Plus DH kept eating the candy during assembly so we ran out.

Bubbles is modeling one of her Christmas gifts - a new plush bed. She currently has about 12 in all shapes, colors, and sizes and she never actually manages to get her entire self in the bed. She prefers to position only her front half or back half in a bed or sometimes she will stretch out over two beds. It's a pretty tough life for our large white house bunny.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday - I will try to return next week with more about floats.

What's so special about red?

I watched the HGTV White House Christmas decoration show last night; I've been watching this every year for a while now.  The hostess this year, Genevieve Gorder, said something very intriguing. She said that red is the only color that always matches perfectly with itself in all its various shades. Is that really true? You can make an all purple knitted project that wouldn't look good? Of course now I want to do an all red knitting project.

 

I did find an old blurry photo of an all-red Spontaneous Scarf I knit in a zillion shades of red.

I also remember hearing from a quilting show that red can be used as a neutral with other colors. After that I knit my Peace Gloves in a background  of red with all pastels. They turned out better than I thought they would.

I just finished adding some color theory links for the Stranded group on Ravelry and I thought I'd share them here. 

  

Suzyn’s Color Theory for Knitters - from Knitty

Technicolor Knitting by Julie Theaken in Knitty  (Wouldn't this be a great name for a book?)

PDF from Knit Picks on Color Theory

Color Theory - Color Choice in Knitting: How to Select a Color Palette for Knitting Projects - Suite 101

Knitter’s Review - How to Use a Color Wheel

ALL ABOUT FLOATS, PART ONE

I'm beginning a multi-part series about floats in stranded color knitting. I've discussed them before HERE but apparently I have more to say. A lot more! I'm going to show you four ways to deal with floats and you'll be able to see how the front and the back of the work looks.

Floats happen when you knit with two colors. If you knit three stitches in a row in one color, you'll have a float (or strand) across the back of your work in the other color three stitches long. A float is considered long when it is about an inch or so long, about  5-7 sts long depending on yarn weight.

Today I want to talk about how you can determine if a pattern has long floats. Time and time again I see beginners choose patterns with really long floats without knowing what they are getting into. Basically short, geometric patterns have short floats and patterns with asymmetrical larger patterns such as animals or robots often have larger floats.

These Bunnies and Carrots Hats have really long 15-20 st long floats between the bunny's ears.

No long floats in this rainbow mitten design I abandoned.

A really popular pattern during the Olympics was this cute reindeer hat. It has long floats between each reindeer and the original pattern used high contrast colors - white and dark blue - for the design. What this means is that if the floats were woven, the dark color could possibly show through to the front of the work. The Ravelry project photos for the hat are interesting to read - some knitters used intarsia in the round or duplicate stitch for the reindeer to avoid the long floats.


Traditional Fair Isle designs from the Shetland Isles pride themselves on not using floats longer than five stitches. Scandinavian designs do use longer floats but some savvy designers use single stitches or small designs in more complex motifs to help break up long floats. In the famous Dale of Norway polar bear sweater by Mette Handberg, check out the geometric patterning inside the polar bear. That was done to keep the floats from being excessively long.

I always consider the length of the floats when deciding on a pattern. A few long floats here and there won't deter me but if I see a pattern with many long floats I know it will take me longer to knit (whatever method you use for floats can interrupt the flow of your color knitting) and could possibly cause tension problems. Of course, long floats can also give you a spectacular looking hand knit so they are often worth the trouble.

Here are a few stranded patterns from my Ravelry queue. 

Long floats -  Nightingale Socks, Running Horse Hat (section of horses), Dancing Stars Hat

Short floats -  La Gran Fair Isle Pillow, Quo Vadis Mittens, October Fair Isle Pillow

December Color Knitting Links

Wow - I have a LOT of links today. Go grab yourself a cup of coffee or tea first. I tried to focus on holiday knits you can make quickly. If you don't have time to knit but need some gorgeous stranded hand knit items to give as gifts, I highly recommend the Baltic Shop for lovely Latvian mittens, gloves, hats etc. to send to your family and friends.

ETA: Just realized Drops is doing a Christmas Advent type calendar with a free holiday pattern each day. Click HERE each day to see the newest pattern.


FREE PATTERNS

I love Melissa Leapman's Fair Isle Pullover that uses Cascade 220.
Amy Loberg offers these pretty Winter Wonder Mittens that use sport weight yarn.
Eloise Narrigan's Rabbit Knee Socks are meant to be worked flat in intarsia but I might do them in duplicate stitch.
The Mitaines Nuit d'Hiver have a lovely snowy night scene on them and are knit in Palette.
I used to love the Magpies when we lived in Colorado so I adore these cute Magpie Mittens.
I've said before I'm a huge fan of Heather Desserud (I'm working on one of her designs) and she is offering her tenth mitten design, Lotus Mittens, for free.
Kathleen Taylor's Elephant Tam pattern has instructions for an adult and child's version.
Sandra Jager offers these cute Reindeer Socks.
These incredible Dizzy Knee Socks remind me a bit of Lucy Neatby's Paradoxical Mittens.
Lion Brand's Shadows and Light Scarf pattern looks like it will knit up quickly in Aran weight yarn.
Drops 122 offers several free reindeer patterns - knee socks, hat, gloves, and a couple updated reindeer sweaters.
Check out Torirot's adorable Selbu Sea Horse Mittens.



PATTERNS FOR SALE

Sandra Jager's Sleigh Ride Tammy is just perfect for a holiday gift.
Tabitha Rose's Snake Patterns are realistic enough to send a shiver down my spine. You can buy the patterns in an ebook or separately and they'd be a perfect gift for a little boy.
String Theory 2.0 offers these lovely Lotus Flower Gloves using a solid and a variegated yarn.
Lynnette Meek's Eastern Medley ebook offers an interesting variety of colorwork sock techniques.
Galina Carroll's Mittens for Mother combine colorwork with embroidery for a striking mitten.
On Etsy I found these pretty lined Nor'easter Mittens.
Denise's Needleworks has Cynthia Wasner's Wild Blue Horses Cap pattern for sale to match the sweater.

KITS

Kathryn Alexander has a new DooDad scarf kit for sale that uses 32 colors.
It looks like you can buy kits for these Bohus sweaters from the Bohuslan Museum if you email them.


HOLIDAY

Here's a quickie free Christmas Wreath pattern that can work as an ornament or gift topper.
Savannah Cottage offers an O Hannukah! dog sweater pattern for sale with menorahs and dreidels.
For only $4.95 on Etsy you can purchase a pattern for ten of these adorable Jolly Tots Dolls - any of these dolls would be a wonderful stocking stuffer.

EYE CANDY

Here's Pantone's 2010 Fall Color Forecast. I'm not that thrilled with them this year though.
Check out MuzzerZ's Christmas Tree Skirt knit in Cascade 220.
I've talked about Janine's Parcheesi log cabin afghan pattern before but I just  had to show you this version done in sock yarn scraps by Knitorious. Gorgeous!!
Another incredible colorful scrap blanket is debbruskin's Mola Blanket.
Coolest Christmas Stockings ever! Spindleknitter's Patrick's Stocking.
I love Libbyuk's Foolish Virgins Scarf.

I wish it looked like this here today but it is still pretty warm, in the 50's and sunny. Poor Santa is going to keel over from heat exhaustion!

Thick Blue Cabled Socks

I'm working on a big list of Christmas knitting links. I hope to post them by the end of the week because I found some possibilities for last minute holiday knitting.

Here's a quick FO in my continuing efforts to knit more of the free Drops patterns for thick socks. These socks were a nice mindless knit but cables at that weight were a bit tough on the hands. The pattern specifies bulky yarn but I used two strands of Wool of the Andes and size 8 (US) dpns. I originally intended these for DH but he thought they were too girly?? It was for the best since I only had four skeins (two of each color blue) and I would have run out of yarn if I was trying to make them for him.

Christmas Knitting

I am not doing much in the way of holiday knitting this year but I did make a few items for DH. I'm planning a backpacking themed Christmas stocking for him this year. I bought a little firestarter, a tiny battery-operated reading light, and a fleece neck gaiter.  I'm going to make him some homemade trail mix and energy bars. Above you can see the knitted items I'm adding to the stocking. I did some worsted weight socks (Valley Yarns Northampton) with the requested 10 inches of ribbing (snore) and also made some fingerless mitts. They look strange but he has a pretty wide thumb angle so I think they'll fit him well. Actually it turns out I have a bit of yarn left so I might add a quick ribbed headband in the same yarn.

Bubbles would like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! As usual she's starving and hopes her Thanksgiving feast starts as soon as possible.

Color Fun

2 new colorways! One breezy, the other dramatic...

And the Winner is....

Thank you so much for your comments, and suggestions. Thank you for all the lovely names. I have the really hard task of picking one now. I expect the pattern will be ready by this Saturday.

Now for the winner of the giveaway...

corycoakley said...
I left this open all day because I couldn't think of the flower this reminded me of...columbine was the one! of course, a few others beat me to the punch. But columbine, totally.

Congratulations corycoakley! Use the contact me button on the right side of the page and send me your full name and your address. I will send you the supplies by mail, and will email you a copy of the pdf pattern by Saturday!

Now it's off to homeschooling for me!

New Furry Baby!

Every Monday, the boys and I host an animation group for teens at our house. Yesterday, one of the mothers brought 2 little rescue kittens with her, wondering if someone wanted one of them.
My motherly instinct kicked in right away, and so within minutes "Mittens" became our baby.

Welcome home Mittens!

Doll Play

A little doll fun for today.
Meet Wednesday, Betsy McCall's dark, spirited twin sister!

A Pixie Hat Story, and a Giveaway!

When I went to Little Miss SockPixie's girlscout meeting on Thursday, I packed a ball of Ella Rae Classic wool in a lovely lavender color with the idea of knitting a hat.

As I sat in a corner of the room, I sketched a hat. Maybe it was because of the laughter of the girls, and their little screams of excitement as they buzzed around the room... I felt like pixies were everywhere. I  envisioned a pointed hat, warm, soft, felted wool, and flowers, all in cheerful colors.

After a few calculations, I started the hat. By Friday it was finished. I stood impatiently next to the washing machine as I was felting it. I anxiously pulled it out. It was love at first sight! It was just the hat I had dreamed.

I knit the body of the hat with the lavender ball of Ella Rae Classic, and added a simple edge of mauve grey to frame the face and give the hat a well defined edge. I knit the strap of the same grey.

For the flowers and leaves, I picked through all my little left over "yarn walnuts". I needed less than 7 yards of each color!

I placed little aqua flower buttons at the center of the tiny blue buds for contrast and texture.

Who knew a hat could make someone so happy!

I will be offering the pattern as a pdf later this week. But there is one little thing I need your help with: a name for my little hat. "Pixie Hat" just does not seem enough for it.

Leave a comment in this post with your suggestion of a name by Tuesday November 16, 10 p.m. Eastern Time, and I will pick one comment at random using a random number generator. The lucky comment will receive all the necessary supplies to make the hat as well as a copy of the pattern!

November Color Knitting Links

An FO from years ago - Turkish socks from the Zilboorg book

November Color Knitting Links

Bea Ellis Knitwear, one of my favorite sources for Norwegian patterns and yarns, seems to be gone for good now; previously there was just a message on the web site that they'd return Oct 2010.

Two Swans Yarns is now offering color cards for Jamieson's Shetland yarns. 

Jamieson & Smith, the other purveyors of Shetland wool, have an interesting blog. Check out the winners of the Shetland sheep photo contest.

I like to have a simple colorwork project going at all times, one that is easily memorized, to balance out the more complicated stuff. This Sandnes unisex pullover looks like it would fit the bill without a lot of solid color knitting.

I was alerted to the fun Night of the Lepus socks in my comments - you have to join the Google Super Sock Scarefest to get the free pattern - but they are a good project for those of us who are owned by bunnies.

Anne Carroll Gilmour, who wrote the Happy Trails sock book, offers a free pattern for Ring-Toss Stash Busting Scrap Socks that look like a lot of fun. If I can hunt down enough colors, I plan to make these for the December Stashbuster Sockdown challenge in Ravelry's Sock Knitter's Anonymous group. Also, I am thrilled to find out she has the pattern for her incredible cabled Teampall Breachain hat available on Ravelry. I think I'll tackle the hat after the holidays.

I just started the La Joie du Printemps mittens in alpaca when I also fell in love with Heather Desserud's Moulin Rouge mittens. She's such a talented designer!

Drops is offering a Christmas workshop by putting all their free holiday patterns in one place. Most of the patterns look like nice quick knits for last-minute holiday knitting.

I may have linked to this before but I love the free pattern for the children's Starry Nights sweater so much it is worth mentioning twice. There's an informal KAL for it HERE.

With the much-awaited re-release of Poetry in Stitches, Nordic Fiber Arts is offering yarn packs for each of the sweaters in the book.

I just discovered the Just Batty Knee Socks - the bat design would work for Halloween or if, like me, you just like bats.

My favorite recent Ravelry project is ableramm's Adult Charms and Amulet Jacket - an interpretation of Debbie New's Tam Jacket in a zillion colors. Beautiful!!

It looks like there are some upcoming books I can look forward to - Favorite Sock Patterns from Around the World featuring patterns by Nancy Bush and Anna Zilboorg to name a few and Kathleen Taylor's Fearless Fair Isle Knitting.

Book Review: Mastering Color Knitting by Melissa Leapman

Mastering Color Knitting: Simple Instructions for Stranded, Intarsia, and Double Knitting by Melissa Leapman (available 11/09, Potter Craft)

Previously I've purchased all the books I've reviewed on my blog but I specifically asked for a review copy of this one. I'm thrilled there are more books available to help knitters learn the joy of knitting with more than one color.
 

One thing I keep learning from Ravelry's Stranded forum is that color knitters have about a million different ways to arrive at the same end result. I've linked before to Ixtab's unique method of knitting 2 or 3 strands inside out with the yarns tensioned around her neck. One of the Stranded forum's moderators, an advanced traditional Fair Isle knitter, prefers to (gasp!) knot her yarn ends. And I've heard from dozens of knitters who insist the traditional yarn dominance rules do not apply to them. (I talked about this previously HERE.)

If you are new to color knitting learning all the different methods can be overwhelming and most knitters will prefer to just learn one way to do things at first to get their feet wet. The section on stranding in Mastering Color Knitting is geared for beginners with simple instructions and includes many graphs and diagrams that are clear and easy to read.

The methods Melissa Leapman teaches in the book and in her knitting workshops involve weaving all floats over 1" long, securing her yarn ends as she knits, and avoiding using three colors per row. Personally I try to avoid weaving floats, I secure my yarn ends during finishing using reverse duplicate stitch, and I occasionally use 3 and 4 color rows (they're usually in Dale of Norway designs) but her advice is very helpful for beginners. The book has a nice reassuring tone for those who find color knitting daunting. She shows several different ways to hold the yarns and talks a lot about reading charts. She even includes a two-page section on designing stranded patterns.

Hat Pattern from the Stranded Section

My personal favorite parts of the book are her discussions on intarsia in the round (she offers three methods) and the section on various types of steeks. Mastering Color Knitting includes 12 projects along with the technique info.

Beautiful Intarsia Coat

I think this book shines in the third section on reversible two-color double knitting as frankly I haven't seen that many other books in print that discuss this fun technique other than the M'Lou Baber book which focuses on jackets and coats.

 

Double Knit Two-Color Hat

I especially recommend this book for beginners in any of the techniques as she does manage to keep the instructions simple as stated in the title. I was originally going to give the book away to a knitting student but I am keeping it so I can try some more two-color double knitting.

While I'm at it, I thought I'd list some other color knitting books I recommend.

Color by Kristin by Kristin Nicholas - I never reviewed this one but it is one of my faves. I think of her designs as exuberant and her passion for the subject is incredible. Plus she shows a new-to-me way of dealing with floats!

Elizabeth Lovick's Fair Isle Workbook - I love how she frequently emphasizes that there are no right or wrong ways to do Fair Isle knitting. Plus it is the only technique book I've ever seen that shows how to fix mistakes in stranding!. My review of this excellent ebook is HERE.

Alice Starmore's Fair Isle Knitting - I don't even do traditional Fair Isle knitting but I think this book is spectacular, especially the section where she takes nature photos and interprets them with her knitting. It has recently been reprinted so you have no excuse not to buy it.

Intarsia: A Workshop for Hand and Machine Knitting by Sherry and Keely Stuever - Rich in technique (and diagrams and photos), this self-published book (available at Elann I think) is a must-have if you're doing intarsia. Their method of dealing with the yarn ends to achieve beautiful stitches on the end of each block of color is pure genius. (I showed this method in the intarsia sock  photo on my blog post HERE.)

Sheila McGregor's Traditional Fair Isle Knitting and Traditional Scandinavian Knitting. These two Dover reprints have hands-down my favorite color design charts, all helpfully divided by stitch count/multiples.

New Yarns

I worked in my studio yesterday, and created some new colorways. I let myself create freely, just playing with colors, and techniques as well as materials.
My inpsirations ranged from  flowers to Madame Bovary to seashells, the matericals from Merino, to Tencel blends, to cahmere.

I have added these skeins to my Etsy store! I hope you will enjoy them.

Three Pairs of Socks

I finished these socks during the World Series. I am trying to find more patterns for thicker socks and I'm hoping to make more of the lovely free Drops patterns 

The first pair are 116-42 Socks with a Pattern in Karisma and some Elann Highland Peruvian sport weight. I did an afterthought heel and added some corrugated ribbing.

The second pair are 0-566 Socks with Christmas Pattern. The original pattern used just the red and white colors and I wish I hadn't added the green. Oh well. I did my usual heel and an abbreviated toe.

For these socks I was trying to see if I could get away with just two balls of Elann's Peruvian Highland Wool (worsted) for some hiking socks for DH. Apparently not as he said he prefers 10 inches of ribbing. Also, looking at this photo I realized I need to make the heel flap longer for his socks next time. I used size 4 dpns and 48 sts and went from there.

How about a Little Knitting: Sashiko Mittens

I am an eclectic crafter. I love knitting but also so many other crafts. I love crochet. I love spinning, I love needlepoint and I love embroidery. I am particularly fond of Sashiko Embroidery. I have delighted in the embroidery of the organic, peaceful geometric shapes with oatmeal thread on indigo grounds.

I was so inspired by Sashiko, that I wanted to translate and reinterpret it into knitting. With winter coming, Sashiko mittens seemed like the perfect choice.

I chose 2 worsted weight yarns from my stash. One with a lovely indigo tone, the other a soft oatmeal.

I first knit a little swatch to decide on tension and fairisle pattern. I wanted the oatmeal design to be present but not crowd the mitten. This was my first sample, interlocking circular shapes on size 5 needles.

I loved the contrast of the colors, but decided the gauge should be tighter. The circular shapes appealed to me, but the interlocking made the pattern overwhelming. I switched to size 3, and after drafting a simplified pattern evocative of honeycombs, I started on the mittens.

I am really excited about these Sashiko mittens. These test ones will be for me. I am writing the pattern and will be offering it as a pdf as soon as the pattern is written, tested and edited. I should leave you now, and go work on them...

Hello World!

Hi everyone! I am so happy to be back. I want to thank all of you for your well wishes for Little Miss SockPixie. These last few weeks have been difficult for her and of course for the whole family. I think we are finally on the right track.

I thought it would only be appropriate to start my first post in more than a month with Little Miss SockPixie.

A few weeks ago, we gave her a vintage SmithCorona typewriter as a gift. She had been dreaming of owning one for a long time. We told her a computer was in many ways more practical to use for writing but I guess she had already imagined herself writing novels on a typewriter like the great writers of the past, like the heroes of her favorite movies, like Hubbel Gardner in the Way we Were!(Odd movie I know for a nine year old!)

Little Miss SockPixie, her typewriter and her stories have been inseparable ever since. I could not resist taking pictures of her today. It was so wonderful  to see her expressions as she wrote. I had to capture them.

Pensive at times...

Looking for inspiration or for that perfect word ...

Bursting with frustration with every typo...

Furiously typing away...

And most of all enjoying every minute of it...

Thanks Little Miss SockPixie. You and your stories made my day!

Lots of New Project Ideas

I apologize for not promptly answering some questions in the comments but I've been battling the flu. Snoopy asked about the perfect first project for colorwork and I suggested a hat knit in the round. Here is a thread on Ravelry's Stranded forum with some pattern suggestions.

Good Pattern for a Beginner?

Also, my free pattern for the Ankara Headband is a good choice for your first project and it only takes a few hours to knit.

Needledancer asked about sport weight cotton/wool yarn blends that come in a lot of colors to knit a lighter weight Dale Norwegian sweater. I don't know of any - if any of you have any suggestions, please let me know in the comments. If I've forgotten any questions, please ask me again. Thanks!

Here is the new yarn. I'm very fond of the Valley Yarn Northampton worsted wool from Webs. It really is soft and lovely and will be perfect for thick socks. I'm definitely buying more even if it is no longer at the sale price.

 

The Cascade 220 sport is the usual beautiful rich saturated colors but is much more textured than the worsted Cascade 220. I'm not sure if I will like it for colorwork or not. I'll try using it for something soon and see what I think.

 

Because I already have quite enough yarn (and boy do I ever!!!) to make myself feel less quilty I chose a specific project for the new yarns I purchased.

The red Northampton yarn is for Susan Pierce Lawrence's Quickie Socks from the Joy of Sox.

The periwinkle Northampton is for the Cyber Flirt cabled socks from the Joy of Sox.

The heathered green Northampton is for some really long ribbed socks for DH (he usually insists on at least 10" of straight K2P2 rib... sigh)

The Cascade 220 sport is for the Convertible A Go-Go socks in Think Outside the Sox. I can't decide between making them in the green (the cables will be much more noticeable) or the purple (more my style). I think I'll add the buttons if I can find any the right size. Whatever is leftover I'll use for colorwork.

I have three FOs to show you as soon as I can get them photographed and also a review of a brand new book on color knitting.

Stash Enhancement Alert

I am always searching for wool yarns in the DK and sport weight so I can knit my Dale of Norway patterns. By the way, I finally managed to catalog all of my 31 Dale pattern booklets in my Ravelry library HERE along with some others.

I like Heilo but I want brighter colors and I admit I wouldn't mind a lower price. I bought enough of the now-discontinued Elann Highland sport weight to make the Dale Whistler sweater but my row gauge was off significantly. Most of the Dale colorwork patterns are in DK weight but previous to the Highland Sport disaster I've had success making lighter weight sweaters using Nature Spun sport weight (which is becoming harder to find).

Here are some old photos of the Bullwinkle sweater (aka Dale #10006) I made years ago in Nature Spun sport weight. It was such a lucky accident because I actually had enough random yarn in my stash to make an entire colorwork sweater. (Also probably a sign my stash was too big!!)


I was just looking at Webs and they are now offering a Cascade 220 sport weight in about 30 lovely colors. The price is $3.75 per 164 yd. skein and the yarn is discountable. I'm going to get a few skeins to sample. Also, they do currently have a sale on their Valley Northampton 100% wool worsted weight for $3.69 for a large 247 yd. skein and they offer over 40 colors. It is on sale so it isn't discountable but I'm buying a few of the heathers to see what I think. I want to knit more thick worsted weight socks for padding around the house so this might just be the ticket.

Carlisle Hat & Cowl

First off, you have to go see this knitted skeleton! It is just amazing! The teeth!!

Here's the hat and cowl pattern I mentioned previously. The Carlisle Hat pattern is available HERE at Knit Picks and is knit in 4 colors of Wool of the Andes. There's no shaping so it can also be made as a cowl as seen below.

To make it into a hat, just sew together the top edges and attach each corner together as seen below.

I hope to have some completed socks to show you soon!

Colorwork Book Review: Around the World in Knitted Socks

Around the World in Knitted Socks by German knitwear designer Stephanie Van Der Linden isn't exclusively colorwork but the book has enough colorwork designs (16 out of 26 total patterns ) that it is still worth buying just for the stranded patterns. And the non-stranded designs are beautiful as well.

This book has actually been out a while but silly me pre-ordered it from Amazon which took longer than just ordering it the minute it was available. The book includes sock designs from the usual places like Norway and Scotland famous for their knitting designs but also more unusual places like Italy and Switzerland. I think Stephanie has a distinctive design style though and it shows through even in her more traditional designs.

The patterns in the book include several different heels and some fun techniques like argyle socks done in short rows instead of intarsia, travelling stitches, embroidery, sideways construction, braids and beading. I think most of the socks are knit cuff down. In the end of the book she briefly discusses two color knitting and even has a photo that shows what too short floats will look like while knitting. Really though the book is all about the designs and you should buy it if like me you love the designs - you can go HERE to see all the socks in the book.

If I had a quibble I'd say I wish there were some socks knit in a thicker weight than fingering weight but that is just me. I prefer thicker socks when padding around this house with the cold  brick floors. Still I adore this book and am absolutely thrilled to see a new book out that is full of great stranded designs. I think I'm going to start with her Colors of the Andes socks.

ETA: Oops - it looks like at least one of the sock patterns is knit toe up (the first socks in this blog post) so I'll change it to most of the socks are knit cuff down.