yarn

Choosing Colours for Stranded Knitting Using the Colour Wheel

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Hello! As I told you last week, I’m going to knit Helma, a stranded colourwork cardigan designed by Kristin Wiola Ødegård (picture above). I think it’s gorgeous – a beautiful all-over pattern on body and sleeves, a stunning yoke and an uplifting and harmonious choice of colours. The only thing is, the colours are not ‘me’. That’s not usually a problem; I substitute colours all the time. Only this time the pattern uses 9 different colours, and that’s a lot trickier than substituting 2 or 3.

Usually, I choose colours instinctively. For me, the easy way out in this case would be taking a neutral (like dark navy or charcoal, combined with off-white or light grey) as the main colour and throw lots of pinks and purples at it. In colour-wheel terms pinks and purples are analogous colours, i.e. from colour groups next to each other on the wheel.

That would work, but the effect would be totally different from the original. How could I stay closer to the sample using colours I like? To find the answer, I dusted off my rarely used colour wheel in order to analyse the designer’s colour palette. The main colour is easy to recognize – it belongs in the red-orange group on the wheel.

From the same group, there is also a dark reddish brown and a very light kind of beige. But what about the rest? There seems to be some greenish blue, some purple, a yellowish olive. What kind of colour scheme is that?

Looking at the centre of the colour wheel (picture below), colour palettes can be for instance analogous (the pinks and purples above). Complementary, combining colours from two groups opposite each other on the wheel like, say, red and green, or blue and orange. Or triadic, with colours from three different colour groups evenly distributed over the wheel (indicated by the corners of the grey triangle).

Studying Helma’s colours for a while, I discovered that the designer chose a tetradic colour palette, using colours from four different colour groups – the ones the corners of the red square in the picture below point at (I’ve added blue arrows from the corners outward to the colour-group names):

The original Helma has 3 red-oranges, 3 violets, 2 blue-greens, and one yellow. The colours are vivid, and there are 2 dark ones, 2 light ones and 5 of a medium value. All in all quite a complicated colour palette. Would I be able to recreate it in colours I like? I was thinking of using Rauma’s ‘Finull’ yarn and had the shade cards at home.

The best approach seemed to me to start with the main colour. Because the Finull yarn was just short pieces glued to the cards, I used embroidery floss bobbins in similar colours to get an idea of the effect. What if I chose blue as the main colour and followed the original Helma’s principles? I’d get something like this:

3 blues, 3 yellow-greens, 2 oranges and 1 red-violet; 2 dark, 2 light, 5 medium. Quite nice actually, but do I want 2 oranges in my cardigan? Not really.

How about starting with blue-green, another of my favourite colours? Following the same principles, this would be my colour palette:

3 blue-greens, 3 yellows, 2 red-oranges, 1 violet. A really interesting colour palette, but do I want a cardigan in it? Nope. And then I asked myself the (for me) hardest question anyone can ask me: WHAT DO YOU WANT?

The answer I arrived at was: What I would really like for my cardigan is a soft look, with a blue-green as the main colour, a different blue-green (or white?) as the main contrast colour, and a yoke with pinks, blue-greens and white (+ a little orange-yellow?) The colour palette I came up with turned out to be triadic (using 3 different colour groups), and I made a list of Finull colours that would qualify. Only… the Finull colours were not really soft, but quite bright. So I made another list next to it with similar colours in a different yarn – Filcolana’s ‘Pernilla’.

At the yarn shop, I decided to go for Pernilla, a slightly heathered yarn in softer shades. Seeing the yarns in real life, I partly adhered to my list and also swapped a few colours for different ones. This is my final colour palette:

Well, that was an interesting exercise. Without the colour wheel, I would never ever have chosen the yellow and the brown, but I am really, really happy with them. Used in small quantities in the yoke, I think they will make the overall effect far more interesting and lively than if I’d just picked my usual ‘safe’ colours. As soon as the rest of my main colour arrives (there weren’t enough skeins in stock), I’ll start swatching and knitting. Can’t wait!

If you’ve never used a colour wheel and would like to give it a try – colour wheels are available from artist’s supply shops, and also from most bookshops nowadays. I even saw some at our nearest small book/stationery/giftshop-cum-post office, next to the adult colouring books. I hope this is helpful and all makes sense. If I haven’t explained things clearly or you have any other questions, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment and I’ll try to answer as best as I can.

A Green Yarn

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Hello! There is a green knitting project on my needles that I don’t think I’ve mentioned before. It’s a cardigan for our daughter – Be Mine, from Swedish designer Matilda Kruse. It’s a fairly long cardigan knit on smallish needles (3.5 mm/US 4), with an intricate stitch pattern on the back. The pattern is well-written but complicated, and I’m using all kinds of aids so as not to lose the way.

  • A row counter to remind me when to knit in button holes.
  • A sticky note for keeping track of where I am in the stitch-pattern diagram.
  • Another sticky note with the number of pattern repeats I need to knit written out, so that I can cross them off once I’ve knit them.

The yarn I’m using is ‘Cheeky Merino Joy’ from Rosy Green Wool in a greyish green shade called Reed.

It’s a sport-weight 100% merino yarn – a finer version of the yarn I’ve used for my OXOX XL shawl. Cheeky Merino Joy is very soft and gives great stitch definition. Plus it’s organic. And that brings me to my second subject for today.

The organic farm that delivers groceries to our door every other week held an Open Day, together with 3 other organic farms within walking distance.

We buy organic because we think it’s better for our own health and that of the planet, but I’m not rigid in that. Often organic options just aren’t available or affordable. Not everything we eat is organic, I don’t wear organic lingerie and most of the yarns I knit with are not organic. Speaking with Kermit, ‘It’s not easy being green’.

I do think it’s a good direction to go in, though, and aside from the saving-the-earth aspects, it can also be very enjoyable. The green yarn I’m using is utterly lovely to knit with. It’s very nice to know the people who grow our vegetables…

…and make our cheese.

And it’s great to see the cows producing the milk for the cheese grazing on pasture land with all kinds of herbs among the grass.

Many of them are the well-known black-and-white Friesian Holsteins, but not all of them.

Two of the farms along our route are dairy farms. “Our” farm is mixed, with cattle, chickens, a few pigs, vegetables, herbs and a shop. And the fourth is a vegetable grower. At this one, I got to try my hand at harvesting white asparagus, cutting it below the soil with a special pronged cutting tool – not as easy as it looks!

At the end of our walk along all four of the farms, we stopped at the farm shop to buy some tea, biscuits and chocolates for friends we were going to visit.

It’s more convenient to have groceries delivered and I don’t visit the shop often, but it’s nice to see everything they have in person from time to time. And sometimes you find something unexpected – like organic cotton yarn.

I didn’t buy any because I rarely knit with cotton, but it felt very nice. I’m keeping it in mind for a summery knit sometime.

Today’s organic-farm-walk was in the polder, land reclaimed from a former sea. A landscape as flat as a pancake with big open skies.

I always feel it’s rather special to be walking on the seabed, 3 metres below sea level. I hope you’ve enjoyed this short walk, too, and hope to see you again next week. Till then, keep well.

Soaking up Colours at Stiel

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Hello! One of my best friends and I have been on a fun day out. We drove to Bornerbroek in the east of the country, about 30 miles from the German border, to visit a yarn shop called Stiel Wolwerkplaats. (Stiel Wool Studio – the word stiel meaning craft or metier). I thought you might like soaking up the colours at Stiel, too. Just gazing at a wall of yarn in all the colours of the rainbow makes me so happy. Does it do that for you, too?

One of the things that distinguish Stiel from other yarn shops is that they also stock spinning fibres. It is the only shop I know of that does so. Their wall of spinning fibres is a joy to gaze at, too. And what I really appreciate is that next to the fibres, they have a bunch of mini-skeins to show what they look like when spun up. For instance in the photo below, the orange-pink mini-skein in the centre is the fibre top left. It’s very nice to be able to see how the colours blend together.

To the left of the big wall of yarn is a corner with BC Garn’s Bio Balance, a GOTS certified wool-and-cotton blend that I’d love to make something from. And next to that, beautiful embroidery wool-silk from Fyberspates.

In the windowsill several recently published knitting books.

I can’t possibly describe all of the yarns at Stiel – I’ll just pick out two more. First up: Balayage from German firm Pascuali, a blend of 80% baby alpaca and 20% extra fine organic merino wool.

It’s like meeting a friend I haven’t seen for a while. In 2020, at a time when we were all forced to stay at home a lot, I used 4 skeins of Balayage for my Thús 2 scarf with its rows of lacy houses.

I have given the original scarf away, and the shop where I originally bought the yarn has closed its doors, so I was tempted to buy some Balayage for another scarf like it. But I didn’t, as there were other things on my shopping list.

The second yarn that caught my eye was Kashmir Lux (95% geelong lambswool; 5% cashmere). Its colours are so very beautiful and subtle.

With 1000 metres on a 50 gram cone, it is an extremely fine yarn. I think it’s stunning, but what would I knit with such a fine yarn? For now, I left that on the shelves too.

Ah, so many impressions. Time for a cup of tea with a little something – apple pie for my friend, carrot cake for me.

We had tea at 100-year-old Theehuis Dennenoord. They have dozens of teas to choose from and serve huge slices of cake. It is a 30-minute drive from Stiel, but we had all day and wanted to make the most of it.

I’ve mentioned several things that didn’t come home with me, but what did? First of all, some spinning fibre in blues and greens. It is John Arbon’s Harvest Hues top in shade Juniper (zwartbles, bluefaced Leicester and merino). I’ve stored it away for autumn, because I have other spinning projects I want to finish first.

Next, Rowan Magazine 71. It is an older issue, from spring 2022, and just like the Balayage yarn it is a reminder of the difficult pandemic years. Most of the photographs were taken indoors, instead of in the usual beautiful scenery, probably because of restrictions. There is also more variation in the photo models in this magazine, compared to the usual skinny ones. This is one of my favourite designs in the Magazine – the Free cardigan designed by Vibe Ulrik Sondergaard (the cardigan is called Free, the pattern isn’t free).

It seems to me that the pandemic had a positive effect on the Rowan team, not just in their choice of models, but also in their more creative approach to presenting the designs. The theme of the magazine is Joy, and the designers were asked where they found joy. Here is how two of my favourite designers depicted that on a kind of scrapbook page. Kaffe Fasset finds joy in colour (where else?).

And Erika Knight shows how making gives her joy.

Finally, several skeins of a soft cotton-and-cashmere yarn came home with me. They are meant for a wee garment for our second grandchild, expected later this summer. So exciting! Our daughter is doing well, the baby is growing healthily, and my knitting needles are working overtime. I can’t tell you about those projects yet, but I’m sure I’ll be able to find something else to write about next time. See you then!

Does It Itch?

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The weather has been a mixed bag here lately – something in between autumn and winter, with quite a bit of rain and wind, but some sunnier days as well. On a chilly day with rain showers interspersed with sunny spells we went for a walk in the nearby wetland area.

It’s quiet at this time of year, and the colours are subtly beautiful.

I never really noticed before that water lily leaves have autumn colours, too, just like the leaves on trees.

Small metal windmills are used for managing the water levels. The land needs to be wet enough for reed and other plants to grow, but not too wet for reed mowing and haymaking.

During these walks the exercise keeps me warm. But at home, working at my computer, I often get chilled to the bone. In other words, I could do with a warmer sweater than the ones I usually knit, like Sundborn – the cardigan on the front cover of the Swedish cardigan book I brought home from the Handwerkbeurs:

It is knit from Léttlopi, just like several other cardigans in the book. Léttlopi is an Aran-weight Icelandic yarn I’ve had my eye on for ages. It is warm, affordable and comes in a large range of beautiful colours. But it feels so rough and scratchy on the skein that I thought I’d never be able to wear it.

I’m very sensitive to itchy yarn. Clothing labels can drive me crazy, synthetic fibres bring out patches of eczema, and I’ve had to part with several hand-knit sweaters because they itched so much I just couldn’t wear them.

I’ve heard good stories about Léttlopi, though, and oh, those gorgeous heathered colours! So, I prudently bought one skein and knit a few swatches to get to know it better.

The swatches felt a little softer after a Eucalan bath, but still pretty rustic (can you see the hairs?). I decided to ‘wear’ one of them for a day and first pinned it to the inside neck of my red cardigan.

No itching in my neck or between my shoulder blades after an entire morning. Then I wore it on the inside of my elbow (a very sensitive spot), between my cardi and my shirt sleeve for several hours. Still no itching. Finally I wore it inside my shirt sleeve, on my bare(!) skin, for several more hours. And strangely it didn’t itch at all! Yay! Now, what colours to choose? Subtle ones, like those of our countryside in autumn and winter? Or brighter ones reminiscent of summer skies and flowers?

I’d also love to make a cardigan from Maja Karlsson’s cardigan book for my daughter, knit from the same yarn – this one:

I’ve given her a Léttlopi swatch, so that she can try it out and for herself answer the ultimate question about knitting yarn – does it itch?

Slow August – Yarn

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Hello! Today it’s all about yarn – a subject that I’m fairly sure will speak to all of you knitters out there.

“Yarn is essential to us as paint is to the artist, flour to the baker, soil to the gardener. We can improvise on most of the tools, tying string into a stitch marker, sanding down a bamboo chopstick in a pinch. But without yarn, our hands are idle.”
– Clara Parkes in A Stash of One’s Own: Knitters on Loving, Living with, and Letting Go of Yarn (New York: Abrams, 2017, p.7)

I am slowly sifting through my yarns, petting and organizing them. Here are some of them. Organic everyday yarn on my needles…

Traditional Norwegian yarn with a plan…

Yarn dyed by a dyer living nearby, purchased recently without a plan (something I rarely do anymore)…

Merino singles yarn in four shades of blue for which a plan is beginning to form – a gift from one of my best friends dyed by herself…

Ordinary sock yarn for two pairs of everyday socks for my beloved everyday companion…

Luxurious cashmere yarn, very affordable if you buy mill ends (leftovers), that has lived under our roof for over a decade and I hope to knit up into a luscious lace shawl someday…

Golden brown sock yarn made with a very humble fibre…

Yarn worth its weight in gold if you count the hours it’s taken me to make it – mohair from a local goat breeder that I washed, combed and carded, blended on my drum carder together with some merino and silk someone didn’t want anymore, and then spun and plied. To dye or not to dye, that is the question…

I do have (considerably) more yarn than this, but maybe not quite as much as Kay Gardiner, who calls herself a minimalist and writes about her yarn: “Yarn to the rafters. Yarn in my closet. Yarn in everyone else’s closet. Yarn in the enamel-over-steel covered roasting pan that only gets used at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Shopping bags of yarn that I have to step over every night to draw the blinds in my bedroom.”
– Kay Gardiner, “The Minimalist Speaks”, p. 57 in the same book as above.

The essays in A Stash of one’s Own are fun and often thought-provoking. Here is one last quote: “… I’ve learned that not all collections are created equal. There are acceptable things to collect and those that are less so. […] It’s been my experience that a bountiful yarn stash is perceived as a distinct indication you are slightly nutty and lack restraint.” Anna Maltz, “Morning Yarn / Portable Stories”, p. 81.

Nutty or not, I treasure my yarn collection. To me, it is beautiful, comforting and inspiring in and of itself.

Mitts and Mishaps

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Hello!

First of all, thank you for last week’s comments on creativity. They have really given me food for thought. One thing they’ve brought me is that maybe my idea of creativity is too exalted, as if only highly original conceptual art is creative. It would be a good thing for me to value small acts of creativity more, like choosing colours and materials, or changing a few details when following a knitting or sewing pattern. The yin-and-yang view of creativity is new to me and I need some time to digest that. I have a feeling that it could be very valuable.

I’ve just finished a pair of fingerless mitts from a pattern that I’ve knit several times before. This time I’ve made the welts on the cuff multi-coloured (a tiny act of creativity) using yarn left over from the colourwork hats I knit earlier.

I didn’t have enough red yarn left from the hats, but happened to have some of that left over from a cardigan I knit a couple of years back. There is something to be said for using the same yarn again and again – it’s easy to combine and use up the remnants.

Sadly there’s been a mishap with this cardigan knit from Rowan’s Felted Tweed and it’s now a felted Felted Tweed cardigan. I’ve always washed knits from this yarn on wool wash in the washing machine and have never had problems before, but this time I saw there was a problem as soon as I opened the door. Uh-oh! I’d like to blame the washing machine, but perhaps I pushed the wrong button? It hasn’t exactly become child-sized, but too small and stiff for me to wear anymore.

I love Felted Tweed and on the whole am happy with other Rowan yarns, too. But last year I knit a cardigan from their Alpaca Soft DK that looked like this after I’d only worn it a few days.

Really awful pilling that can’t be removed no matter what I try. I’ve even bought a special pill remover, but no luck. I was so disappointed that I put it away for a while, but I’ve pulled it out of the naughty corner and it can be my gardening cardigan from now on.

Back to the fingerless mitts. Their thumb gussets are nicely defined by purl stitches and the fit is great. The pattern can be found here on Ravelry, and there is also a matching welted cowl.

The snowdrops I’ve photographed them with are small ones in our own garden. I saw some very big ones on the corner of someone else’s garden path. They almost looked like plastic, but no, they were real.

Spring bulbs, trees and shrubs are flowering a month earlier here now than they did 50 years ago, according to Nature Today. That’s very unsettling and I almost feel as if I oughtn’t to enjoy them anymore. I still do, though. The crocuses in our garden are doing very well and seeding themselves out in many places.

Maybe someday we’ll have a display like this next to the church in the village of Norg.

These harbingers of spring are telling me that I need to get a move on with the woolly Norwegian sweater for our grandson. I hope to have it finished next week. Hope to see you again then! Xxx

17 Kilos of Blue Yarn

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Hello! Would you like to visit a cemetery with me? That would be killing if I were asking you out on a first date, I know. As it is, I’m quite sure you’ll like it because we’ve been invited to come and collect yarn!

There are 17 kilos of it on an old-fashioned wooden drying rack in the funeral building that we’re transforming into a more comforting space with wool.

Seventeen kilos of hand-spun local wool, hand-dyed with local woad. Isn’t it gorgeous? All of the hanks are the same shade, in tones ranging from barely-there to intense blue. Somewhere on that rack are the hanks I spun, but I have no idea which ones they are.

First, someone from the organisation updates us briefly on the Aula-in-Blauw project progress. The carpet turns out to be one of the most time-consuming elements. She tells us that someone worked out how many ends of yarn need to be hooked onto the canvas: a staggering 113,100! The carpet travels from town to town, so that different groups can work on it.

Then she invites us knitters and crocheters to come over to the drying rack and choose yarn for the cushion covers we’re going to make. That’s what all of the 17 kilos of yarn are for.

While everyone is rushing forward, I get talking to the artist making the felted wall panels and admiring her samples.

I particularly like this sample, that’s like a pale blue sky with little puffs of cirrocumulus clouds:

Then, shuffling forward, I pass the three sample cushions on the front bench – one crocheted and two knit. They’ll make sitting here for a while much more comfortable. Weavers are going to make long cushions for the back supports.

While I’m chatting with some of the others choosing yarn, I’m not paying enough attention and end up with 3 very different hanks – one an Aran weight, one more like a DK and one with a thick-and-thin effect. It’ll be a challenge to make nice and even squares from them.

But it’s a kind of challenge I like, and it’s lovely to be part of this friendly community of knitters, crocheters, weavers, dyers, rug-hookers and felt-makers. A friend has already finished her cushion cover. On her blog, she writes that all in all it took her about 8 hours. With so many people contributing a little of their time a lot can get done.

Well, I’m going to sign off now and hope to see you again soon.

Oh, the Places Knitters Go!

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Hello! It’s good to be back here. Maybe you haven’t even noticed I’ve been away, but we’ve been on a late summer holiday to Germany. We spent the first half in the Mosel region, and the second half in the Eifel. Above a photo of the view on the river Mosel from our balcony, and below our first holiday home from the outside:

In my dreams, that is. In real life this is Reichsburg Cochem. And in real life we stayed in a far humbler (but lovely) abode. In real life, this was what I looked out on when I sat knitting outside our cottage.

I didn’t knit all that much during our holiday, though. Partly because we were out walking and visiting places most of the time, and partly because it was so hot that the yarn almost felted in my hands. A few rows on a scarf here and there, and half a sock was all I knit.

Halfway through the holiday, I celebrated my birthday. We had some of the famous and delicious German Kuchen, of course. (The Germans are so much better at baking cakes than we Dutch are.) And I also got to decide what we were going to do the rest of the day. I chose a visit to another castle and… a yarn shop (what else?). This is Schloss Bürresheim.

The castle is entered through a kind of tunnel that leads to a courtyard with an outdoor summer kitchen. It’s very special, like being in a film.

Actually it is in a film. In an edited form, it is the castle where Indiana Jones’ father is held captive in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Now, let’s drive on to the yarn shop. It’s Die Kleine Wollfabrik in Kaisersesch. My guess is that tourists are a rarity in this town. It’s 30 ˚ C/86 ˚ F, with glaring sunlight and noise and dust from building activities in a colourless street. Oh, the places we knitters go! For a moment I wonder ‘what on earth am I doing here?’, and then step inside a world of colour.

There is yarn everywhere. In overflowing baskets…

… in cubbyholes, on shelves, on the floor…

… on top of storage units and in front of the windows. These skeins were dyed by the shop owner herself:

And there is also quite a bit of spinning fibre.

So, is this yarn shop worth a detour? If you’re looking for yarn for a sweater – frankly no. There is very little of that kind of yarn here. But if you’d like some yarn for socks or a shawl – absolutely. Be prepared for a kind of yarn jungle expedition, though. You’d be wise to have some kind of idea of what you’re looking for beforehand.

From all of the very colourful yarns, I chose several rather quiet ones for three pairs of socks to give away, and a variegated yarn for a pair for me. All of them yarns I haven’t knit with before – I’ll tell you more about them when I get round to knitting them up.

After all of the beautiful places we’ve been to, it’s good to be back home. In a sense, I’m a cow. Not the nicest thing to say of oneself perhaps, but what I mean is: I need time to chew things over. After ingesting lots of grass/impressions, both cows and I need some quiet time to digest everything. Sifting through my photographs and writing about my experiences helps me do that.

Thank you for reading. I hope to digest/write about a visit to another textiles-related place next week before getting back to my ordinary knitting chat. Hope to see you then!

Simple Sock Scrap Slip Stitch Scarf

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Hello!

Remember that I was looking for something simple to knit alongside more challenging projects? Simple stocking stitch socks are my usual mindless knitting projects, but variety being the spice of life, I want something different from time to time. Looking for inspiration and materials for a simple scarf, shawl or wrap in a yarn shop, I couldn’t find anything that spoke to me. And then it occurred to me that I already had most of the ingredients at home!

Through the years I’ve knit many, many pairs of simple socks for family members, friends and myself. From every pair of socks there is always a small quantity of yarn left over. I’ve used some of these to make Soothing Sachets, Gift Leaves and an earrings-and-pendant set. These small projects didn’t even make a dent in my sock yarn remnant stash, though, and I’ve still got more than enough for several larger projects.

I’d already been knitting some slip-stitch swatches and knit some more using sock yarns, using the simplest of slip stitch patterns combined with garter and stocking stitch. I experimented with many different edge stitches, too.

Something colourful would be fun, but it should also be wearable, so I decided to use a dark neutral as a backdrop for the remnants. Here is my final swatch, using a solid navy yarn combined with some yarn left over from the socks beside it – garter stitch stripes alternated with slip stitch rows:

My guess is that many of you also have a considerable quantity of leftover sock or other fingering weight yarn. Or perhaps you’ve taken out a mini-skein subscription or treated yourself to a mini-skein Advent Calendar and still have some of those lovely little skeins left? In case you’d like to use them for a scarf like mine I’ll describe how I’m going about it.

I’m going to knit a rectangular scarf measuring approximately 45 cm/18” wide by 1.80 m/71” long. Based on my swatches, this should take about 440 grams of sock yarn in total: 220 grams of the solid background colour and 220 grams of sock yarn remnants. I’m using five 50-gram skeins of Isager Sock Yarn in navy blue for my background colour.

Other dark neutrals that would make good background colours are black, charcoal, deep purple or dark brown. A light neutral, like cream, pale grey or light beige, would work well, too.

For the contrast colours, I chose 22 different sock yarn remnants of at least 10 g each (+ a few extra). I left the dark colours out (not enough contrast), and the very light ones as well (too much contrast). So they’re all in a medium shade range.

The remnants could be grabbed at random, eyes closed, but being an orderly sort of person I decided to arrange them into a sort of colour wash, from greens through blues, purples, pinks and finally oranges (read from right to left).

You could use a colour wheel, but I just followed my intuition, personal sense of colour, taste or whatever it’s called.

The colour I’m starting with, next to the navy blue, is a shocking acid green. It came with a mini-skein subscription years ago, and was dyed by Amanda Perkins of The Natural Dye Studio who stopped dyeing years ago. It isn’t a colour that I’d think I’d ever use. Confession: I did knit a scarf in neon green acrylic when I was ten. Since then my taste in colours has changed quite a bit, but I think/hope it will look fun in this scarf.

It’s the same colour as the Euphorbias flowering in our front garden now, that look so great with the blue of the grape hyacinths.

Some of the Euphorbias are entirely in this strange yellowish green colour,

while others have very dark aubergine, almost black centres.

I will give you the recipe for how to knit this scarf in my next blogpost. For the time being I’m calling it my Simple Sock Scrap Stripe and Slip Stitch Scarf, but it really needs a simpler name. Any suggestions are welcome!

If You Keep Taking the Same Walk…

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Hello!

Our local beautician has a blackboard outside, along the street. On some days it says, ‘Hello beauty, you’re looking good today!’ On other days there is something on it like, ‘Why not treat yourself to one of our relaxing facials?’ (Am I not looking good today?) And sometimes she gives us food for thought.

This time it says, ‘If you keep taking the same walk, you’ll stop seeing new things.’

Hmm, well, yes, no, I don’t know. Is taking the same walk over and over again a bad thing? On the whole, I’m fine with the same old, same old. Not having to think about which route to take on a walk (or in life) frees up loads of mental space. And if you really look, there is always something new to see, even on the same old walk, even if it is just a bit of fresh graffiti on someone’s shed.

But then again, taking a different route can be enjoyable and bring some spice to life as well. For me, it’s all about finding the right balance. Take my knitting, for instance (it’s strange, how everything always comes back to knitting 😉).

A couple of years ago, a dear knitting friend came home from a trip to Germany with 2 beautiful skeins of sock yarn for me. I deliberated about what to make with them for a long time. Socks or shawl? Shawl or socks? The socks won. With one skein, I’ve gone the same old route I’ve been taking for ages – simple stocking stitch knit from the cuff down.

There was something new in them, though – a small percentage of yak down, making them very soft and warm. The yarn is Lana Grossa ‘About Berlin – Yak Relax’ (60% Wool, 25% Polyamide, 10% Yak; 100 g/420 m). It isn’t one of those yarns that automatically make a perfect pair, though. You need to look closely at the stripe sequence if you want the socks to be the same.

With the second skein, I’m taking a new route. My map for this route is in the book 52 Weeks of Socks that I got as a Sinterklaas present in December.

This is the beautiful linen bound hardback edition. A less expensive paperback version is also available now, and the book has also been translated into Dutch and German. And 52 Weeks of Socks II will be out soon.

Maybe you remember the Garia socks I knit before I owned the book (blogged about here). In case you just want to knit one pair, the patterns are also available through Ravelry separately. The next pair I’m making are the Linea socks, designed by Minna Sorvala.

These are knit from the toe up, a route I’ve taken before but not very often. What’s entirely new is that I’ve never knit a pair of socks with an all-over cable pattern.

There is a special Ravelry group called 52 Weeks Months of Socks. Joining this group doesn’t mean that you need to knit all 52 pairs of socks in the book, or I would never have joined. The idea is just to knit socks from the book together and help, encourage and inspire each other. A KAL (knit-along) for 2 pairs of socks is started every other month, with prizes and points to win. (I have yet to discover what the point of the points is.)

To win a prize or points for the Linea KAL, I should have posted a picture of my completed socks before February 28th. Too late. Well, never mind, the socks will be my prize. Here is the start of my Linea socks – not too difficult, but interesting and enjoyable so far.

That’s all for today. Hope to be here again next week with something new to talk about. See you then!