Code Breaker Cowl

I have been sitting on my hands. Not literally, but with regards to what I am about to show you.

In the Atlanta area we have this awesome thing called Shop Hop. Nine of the metro area yarn shops get together and put on a whole week of awesome yarn-y happenings. One of the best bonuses of shop hop is that, if you spend at least $10 in a shop, you get a free pattern. This year one of the shops asked me to collaborate with them to create their pattern. Together we perused the shop and picked out some awesome yarn and then I got to commune with the skeins and find out what they wanted to become.

There were some parameters and frankly I work great with parameters. When I can make “oh, whatever” I can become paralyzed with how many options that are available to me. But with this one I/we laid down some rules and it helped me find my way. The pattern needed to be: a) relatively easy and appealing to a range of skills and b) short (only two pages).

If you know me at all you will know that both simplicity and brevity are not things I am known for. So a challenge it was!

dit, dit, dit, dot, dot, dot

I think it came out great if I do say so myself. I played with a lot of different ideas, there were chevrons and wavies and all kinds of stuff but in the end this won. And the yarn held up through so many froggings of swatches it is amazing.

The yarn? To be honest I did not expect to love it as much as I did. It is Prism Merino Mia and it was a dream to work with. It is a sproingey and squooshy sport weight yarn with beautiful stitch definition and colors. Blocked awesomely and holds up to all of the cramming into bags and carrying around that happened during the photo shoots.

So distinguished.

Yep, I said photo shoots. While I haven’t really done it on purpose, I have managed to create another piece that is well and truly unisex. The colors I selected are Steel and Sagebrush and they worked exactly as I had hoped. I hadn’t really realized how flexible the color scheme was until I decided to take some shots on my husband. And he looked so handsome. Another thing that was fun and not particularly deliberate is how he is wearing the cowl.

When I started with the pictures he was skeptical about the idea of wearing a cowl, but willing to take one for the team. And throughout the shoot he maintained a wary attitude until I held the cowl flat and pulled it through itself. Then it magically turned into something that he would wear. He actually got excited about it and started talking about how it kept his neck warm and that he could tuck it inside his coat and keep his chest warm … really, I am lucky I got it back.

Worn as a long loop

One final picture so you can see the full length.

Now, if you live in the Atlanta area you can go to Lovin’ Knit Yarn Shop & Studio during shop hop (until October 6) and get this as a free bonus with your purchase. For all y’all who don’t live in Atlanta I have put it up on Ravelry in my design shop (not free).

I cannot wait to hear what y’all think of this one. Please feel free to let me know in the comments!

 

Color Love, Chevzam

You may have noticed that I tend to favor accessories. It is what I like to knit so it is what I tend to design. I like projects where I can use and enjoy some beautiful yarn but have a chance of actually getting finished within a couple of months (weeks preferably). It is the way I avoid cast-on-itis. The new is always alluring and if a project takes too long I find myself pining for something different and exciting.

Which means that I have a lot of accessory projects favorite-ed. Consequently my “Pattern Highlights” section of Ravelry – you know, the part where they suggest things you might like based on the stuff you have made and favorite-ed – is chock full of tempting accessories.

And boy did a doozy pop up yesterday.

Look at that Cowl!

Chevzam is from the always fun Alexandra Tinsley. If you want to know what I mean by fun you should check out her blog Dull Roar and if you walk a little on the wild side you might want to check out her slightly less safe for work blog. These pictures are obviously hers, but I got permission to use them here.

Why?

Because as soon as I saw this piece my brain went into color overdrive. Her color palate for this cowl is flawless and I adore the use of colors that are so close in both hue and shade that the overlapping areas are boldly subtle. The clean lines of the pattern allow this subtly to work in an awesome way. To me, this presented a challenge. Could I pick out a color palate that would work this well. Now, I am not going to bust out a couple of new cowls to test it out. But I have the technology to fake it.

I started with Apricot.

First thing I did was pull up the Malabrigo page for their worsted weight yarn and start perusing. I admit, I initially thought I might have to look at another yarn manufacturer to come up with variants; but I obviously had no idea the sheer depth of their color offerings. (As an aside, I got this page from googling Malabrigo Worsted, this morning when I went to make a second palate I went to their site and found that I was working from an outdated page – here is the current one).

For this first try I was drawn to orange/apricot colors. I adore the yellows in Alex’s original but those colors make me look like the undead. I need more warmth to balance out my skin tone. For the contrast color the spring water seemed to be a scaled back teal that balanced well with the peach/apricots. The final color was the toughest and I ended up choosing one of Malabrigo’s subtle variegated colors. Apple has tones of peach and green in it and I think it could bring something really interesting to the party. note: Alex who is know-er of all things Malabrigo pointed out to me that this is Apple Cinnamon, oops.

Lets go crazy

This morning I got up and decided that to make this subject blog post worthy I would need a second set of choices. This is when I discovered, as mentioned above, that I was looking at an older list of Malabrigo colors. After going to the Malabrigo site and pulling up the Worsted page I was all “Where is the Apricot I was looking at?” Gone. But luckily, should I really want to do the first cowl, if you google for Malabrigo Apricot you can totally get your hands on it.

Back to the second set of colors. Purple. If you know me you had to see it coming. I love purple. Initially I had Periwinkle and Orchid, but they were too close in color, so I went with the darker Curazo. Honestly, either might work; this is a situation where I would need to have the skeins of yarn in my hands to compare. For the lightest color I thought that the Pink Frost would be fun, but the final color stumped me.

I considered another in the purple or pink range to keep it monochromatic but in the end the barely yellow won out as a nod towards the original color combo. I think the pop of the yellow running down the middle would be awesome.

I cannot decide which of these I would like better. Possibly the purple, but I am loving apricot right now. Who knows? Regardless it is a fun mental exercise with the end result of me wanting to buy lots of Malabrigo. Not that that is anything new.

So, what do you think of my choices? What colors would you use?

No Mr. Bond

While it is a stereotype that “men” do not particularly care about fashion, the popularity of certain celebrity/fictional dapper dressers belie this belief. Of all of these icons of both masculinity and fashion one is my favorite.

Bond, James Bond.

He is also a favorite of my husband, so I decided to make a scarf in his honor. Long enough to secure beneath your bullet-proof overcoat so that you do not loose it when you have to jump out of a diving plane, it is knit in a luxurious silk and baby llama blend that will gently cushion the cheek of a beautiful lady as you comfort her in her distress.

For the on the go, yet stylish man.

Imagine this scarf whipping behind you when you leap from the steps of the Russian opera house onto a conveniently located snowmobile in high speed hot pursuit of a dastardly villain. Yet it will be appropriate for when it is necessary to escort the Queen to high matters of estate.

Now, I know that not every man can pull off such a bold statement, so for when it is necessary to be undercover it is possible to work this piece using more subtle choices. I worked up a swatch in a more textured yarn with a subdued color palate and it worked out beautifully too.

Rowan Lima – alpaca is awesome.

So if you need something for you or your date to wear to the upcoming Oscars, this might just be the ticket.

“Do you expect me to talk?”
“No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.”

Small does not necessarily mean Easy

I’ve been thinking. I know it is a dangerous pass-time, but danger is my middle name. Actually it isn’t, but I do have a pet rabbit that my son named Danger. He is pretty awesome (both the bunny & my son). But back to thinking.

When looking at what people like to knit, I think that there is a significant chunk of knitters that really don’t want to knit anything out of more than a couple of skeins of yarn. They want projects that they can carry around unobtrusively and knit on when they have the time. And really, who wants to sit in a coffee shop and bust out an afghan?

This is not to say that there aren’t a bazillion knitters out there making sweaters and blankets and coats and car cozies … but just that there is a significant demand for smaller projects. Another consideration driving this demand might be the desire to knit with very high end yarn, but a certain dearth in the budget to purchase enough to knit an entire sweater out of that same yarn.

My mother calls this “Champagne taste on a beer budget.”

I am sure plenty of other people say that, but for me it is my mom.

In among this thinking another idea started rising to the top. The idea that the assumption is often made that a small project is, by nature of it’s smallness, also easy. Small = easy. I have had another knitter chastise me for knitting only accessories. She all but asked me “When are you going to grow up and be a real knitter and make a sweater? Do something challenging?”

It took me aback and made me think (there I go again) and I realized that my answer is:

“I don’t wanna.”

I like knitting accessories as opposed to garments. And you know what, some of them are freaking hard. They have challenging techniques and elements. And working with really small yarn can be a nightmare for me. Just because some thing is small doesn’t mean it is easy. And I think that there is plenty of knitters out there who have been knitting a long time and want some challenges – but who don’t want to have to knit a sweater’s worth of yarn to get to the challenge.

Small but not simple.

So I think that is something I might need to work on. Patterns that only use between one and a few skeins of yarn, but that have really interesting and challenging methods and techniques. It seems to be something I have been working on already, but codifying it in my thoughts allows me to define where I am going.

And as you can see, I have a new pattern. I have decided to call it the Fairweather Hat  (if you can figure out why you will totally get major bonus points). For those who might have found the color work lace in Golden Lion Throne a bit intimidating, here is a smaller (but not crazy easy) project to get your feet wet. Worked in two colors of Malabrigo’s new yarn Rastita, it takes about 100 yards in each color of Sport weight yarn. And you will have *plenty* left over for another project.

Decreases can be so much fun.

With my left overs I am considering designing a matching accessory, but what to design? Fingerless mitts? A cowl? A scarf? What do you think? I would also be interested in hearing any thoughts you might have on smaller but challenging pieces. Good idea or not?

A Rainbow of Possiblities

Lets talk color.

Specifically, choosing color for color work knitting projects. Obviously I have one specific project in mind. 😉 Hint Golden Lion Throne Hint

But seriously, I was lucky enough to work with the talented dyer Shannon Shaw at Hermione Jean Creations to develop precisely the colors I desired for the original. If you are in love with my color combination I am certain she would be happy to enable your re-creation. But I am also aware that a large part of the fun of doing color-work is making the piece your own by picking out your own colors.

So I thought I might give you some things to think about. First off is the idea of contrast. Contrast can be provided by having things be having at different levels of lightness, ie: lighter and darker shades. This can be done within the same color for a monochromatic effect, or across color boundaries for truly stark contrast.

This is not the kind of contrast I chose for this shawl (which is not to say that that kind of contrast wouldn’t work, judging from the swatches I am seeing in the Ravelry group it works very nicely indeed). Instead I wanted to provide contrast by using two colors that were the same level of lightness but with contrasting hues, meaning drastically different colors. You can see what I mean by looking at this photo of the shawl that has all of the color removed.

Oooh, mood lighting.

You wouldn’t even know there were two yarns going on here, would you? Interestingly enough – other details leap out that were previously hidden. I totally did not expect the texture of the large spade shaped motifs to have those chevrons running in the opposing direction of the colors. I think it looks pretty cool and it makes me want to knit it without the color changes, just to see what a solid colored version would look like.

But I digress.

In the pattern Color A is the Zircon (blue) and Color B is the Roasted Turmeric (bronze). The shawl starts off with a solid band of A and ends with a solid band of B. When choosing your own combination of colors it is important to keep this in mind. Which of your colors do you want where?

For my process I considered A to be my “background” color and B to be my “highlight” color. Swapping out these emphasis will make the shawl different, but I am not really sure how much. I cannot wait to see one where a knitter has swapped the emphasis. I am pretty sure it will still be awesome.

One thing I do know, it totally isn’t going to work with two highly variegated yarns. That would be a mess. Even one highly variegated yarn might make it a little hard to see the pattern. My suggestion, for best results, is a solid/semi-solid with a tonal. The tonal in the highlight position provides a movement and depth that will not be there with two solids. You just have to be careful about moving out of tonal into variegated.

But then, one of my testers threw out the idea of doing a solid and a long color change gradient. Which got my wheels to spinning … that I would like to see …

Do you have any thoughts on colors?

 

Golden Lion Throne

I have been planning this post for some time, but life has conspired against me. You see, I decided that it was best to not write a blog post while under the influence of serious pain medication. While that might have been terribly amusing for y’all, it also could be terribly embarrassing pour moi. So I had to wait until I was well on the road to recovery. To avoid providing waaaay too much information, lets just say I had major abdominal surgery.

Moving on…

Sometimes it is about beauty, not warmth.

There are some amazingly talented independent dyers out there and for this project I was lucky enough to work with one of them. I had this idea for this shawl, but I couldn’t find the precise colors that I wanted to work with – enter Hermione Jean Creations. Shannon is the brainchild behind the operation and she was able to take my inspiration photo and develop the colors I needed for this crazy project.

Color-work lace.

Yep, completely lost it I have.

Actually, it isn’t that bad. Instead of trying to do stranded work, I chose to use mosaic color-work techniques. With mosaic, you are only working with one strand of yarn at any given time – opposing color patterning is created by strategically slipping stitches. This causes the slipped stitches to pull across the line of color and creates patterns. If you can knit stripes & work lace, you can knit this shawl.

Not that I am claiming that it is “easy”, it just isn’t as hard as it looks.

The pattern is not quite ready yet but I decided to have some fun during the month of August – because it is my one year Anniversary of designing! For the month of August Golden Lion Throne is available to pre-order on Ravelry for 25% off the full price. On September 1st the price will be $6. While you will not be able to download the full pattern right now – you will have access to a gauge swatch pattern.

Why, you might ask? Well, there really isn’t any stockinette in the pattern so a stockinette gauge would be utterly useless. To solve this problem I wrote an “in pattern” swatch for y’all. It is a way to test your gauge and practice the not-as-hard-as-it-looks technique at the same time and test out your color choices. Talk about a win/win situation! To add a little sugar to the pot, if you participate in the August Swatch-a-long in my Ravelry “fan” group then you can also get an additional discount for posting a picture of a finished swatch. I’m going crazy I tell you.

It’s an all fancy shot.

There are a few other fun things going on in August in my group. A stitch marker swatch and a Project Progress Party where you can be entered into weekly drawings for a prize. So if you feel like participating, come on over.

If  anyone has any questions about the shawl or the mosaic lace technique – feel free to ask in the comments. I will be happy to answer. What do you think of the idea?

Can I get away with one more picture?