Tag Archives: dyed cotton

and now you know the rest of the story.

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(can’t you just hear the npr voice in your head?

although the name of the man who made the byline famous escapes me…)

‘merciful‘ was released

by knit picks

yesterday.

i love this bag.

i carry the original

rendition of it

with me often.

*

my youngest daughter came earlier than expected.

so much earlier in fact that, although i knew i wanted to knit something special for her,

something all her own,

i still had no idea

what that would be

when we brought her home.

after a while i decided on a babette blanket as i’m a huge fan of graphics for babies.

i replaced all the edges with ‘circus peanut’ orange to make the middles really pop.

she spent many, many hours playing on this blanket

learning to both roll over

and to crawl on it.

such memories.

as i am want to do

i originally misjudged

just how much

blue sky alpaca dyed cotton

i would need to finish it.

but, i have learned that i am bad at this.

now i always buy more than i think i need

so as not to get caught short.

in this case i went overboard with my estimates

and wound up with almost 2 full skeins (of 6 different colors) leftover.

‘merciful’ was the result of figuring out just what to do with all that gorgeous yarn.

it’s knit in the round

all in one piece

(except for the i-cord straps)

including an inner knit lining,

this bag is much easier to make

than it looks like it might be.

what seems to be colorwork

is really just two strands

of two different solid colored yarns

(wool of the andes worsted)

mixing and mingling to it’s heart’s content.

happy yarn is always a good thing in my book.  smile.

knit picks was generous,

as they tend to be,

so they sent me the extra yarn

to make up three

different color combinations.

choosing 6 colors

to knit up into 12 color combinations

can get a little tricky,

i was really thankful to be able

to work these out ahead of time.

(my guy just walked by and knew the answer to the question – as he always does,

“who said this at the end of his every broadcast?”.

“paul harvey”.)

‘generous’ taken from 11:25 in proverbs.

the fourth skein

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it seems like once the pattern idea is born,

picking a yarn to knit it in shouldn’t be that hard, right?

i mean i knit a lot,

at least a few minutes of every day if the truth be told,

and after all this time i should know what will work.

shouldn’t i?

but, no.

when the squall of my latest brainstorm had passed,

i assembled the usual suspects and the swatching began.

first up was plymouth yarn company’s

trabajos del peru

this is a semi-solid thick and thin yarn

(semi-solid colors and thick & thinness are two of my favorite things in a yarn)

but the stitches i wanted to use were blurred by the yarn’s strong personality.

malabrigo worsted

(which is actually aran weight, go figure)

was up next.

i bought this solely because the color tugged at me.

the tones in the velvet grape are very rich and deep and …

the stitches were now lost

in the variation of color in this skein.

i actually spent time trying to rework the pattern

determined to make this the perfect project

for just this yarn,

but it wasn’t.

this little ball

of brightly colored cotton would surely work

it isn’t thick and thin.

it’s all one shade (blue sky alpaca’s dyed cotton in ‘cumin’ to be exact).

but alas, the cotton had no elasticity to it leaving the cables flat and the ribbing dull.

down to my last contestant, i cast on turquoise retro by noro.

hopeful and a bit unsure,

much to my surprise it knit along absolutely the way i wanted.

the cables popped,

the ribbing held it’s own,

the smile spread across my face.

there is some color variation in this yarn, but it’s not really different shades.

more like the worn to perfection fade

that your favorite things acquire once they’ve been yours for long enough.

i’m headed back now to the retro and the needles and

the pattern that this combo is working up to be.

knit happy! and be safe this weekend.

‘the fourth’ taken from 1:19 in genesis.