My first new pattern of the year is a two color slouchy hat that ended up being named Luidia. Luidia is the genus of starfish in which you find the species Luidia ciliaris, the only starfish with seven arms. I thought that the top of this hat evoked thoughts of starfish or urchins, well you can judge for yourself:
Isn’t it cool? This hat was a collaboration between myself and the awesome Lindsay who is the owner/dyer of The Fiber Seed, a small yarn company based out of Tampa, FL. A really cool thing about them, other than the fact that they dye beautiful yarn, is that their yarns are all American. American wool spun in American mills dyed with American dyes with low environmental impact. How cool is that?
But truly, all of that is just icing on the cake because the colors are so fabulous and the yarn is all sproingy … I love sproingy yarn.
See, slouchy
I wanted to keep this piece on the simple side and ended up developing a fun new stitch. I started playing with the classic lifted stitch pattern called the Gull stitch, but of course I had to figure out a way to mash it up with slipped stitches. Poof, a new stitch. I decided to call it the Sandpiper stitch (LOL, Sandpiper = seabird = Gull, I crack myself up) because the slipped stitch looked like a little leg. I always love watching the little sandpipers standing on one leg on the beach. In total the hat used about half of each skein of yarn, so I have leftovers. I am considering designing a short pair of finger-less mitts to complement the hat. Anybody think that is a good idea?
The view from a different angle
The stitch is not hard, but it involves a maneuver that is non-standard (imagine that?) so I was able to use my new found video skillz to make a little tutorial on how to work the two slightly tricky elements of the stitch. I also learned from my last two videos and think we are well on on way to getting it under control. I improved the lighting set up with fancy new bulbs and changed the background from gray to white. Keep watching for a wee bit after the stitch demo is over, there is a little surprise with a swatch of a different color.
The next step in video land will be really nailing down the sound and then I think we will have it. I would love to hear any feedback you have on the videos. What might you like to see? Is there anything I am doing well or not so good? I have many ideas bubbling up and I think it is a really complementary form to help me communicate better about knitting. It really is such a visual thing and since I cannot come to each of y’alls house to show you stuff, I guess this is the next best thing.
Tumped Duck 