Friday, May 30, 2014

A new knit for the weekend

This week I cast on something new: new project, new design, old yarn.  Or rather, leftover yarn.


I know, I know, it's more Vesper sock, and this looks like a lot like a sock, doesn't it?  But it's not.  What it is, is a lot of ribbing stitch.  We've established I how I feel about knitting ribbing (ew) but in this case, it's both essential and kind of nice, in that it reminds me constantly how much this is not in fact a sock.  It's hoping to be a fingerless glove, made up of scrap ends of different Vesper sock yarns, chosen for maximum stripe-friendliness.


As you can see, there are a lot of choices.


A whole lot.  Because (newsflash!) I have knit a lot of Vesper socks.  Some of the yarns have the same individual colour stripes as others - there are blues you might find on several different colourways, for example, and red, or kelly green - and that made it easier to think of how to match up the tail ends of these yarn cakes.  I want lots of colours, but it's good to have one or two that repeat across the different bits, so that it looks deliberate and not completely thrown together.

Though there is always room for Thrown Together, if you're talking about scraps of stripes.  


What I'm doing here is knitting all the stripes in a given colourway, then switching to another scrap ball for all the stripes in its colourway.  And for a while, I'm knitting the piece flat, so as to make space for the thumb I'll pick up later.


And this is my weekend: finishing the first one, and hoping my idea for the thumb works out.  Because that's basically all this little experiment is.  In much the way that bread is essentially a consumption vehicle for butter, this project is a vehicle for my thumb idea.


After all if you're going to experiment, it's good to do it with lots of lively colour.  That way if it ends up being a disaster, you've still got the Pretty!

I'm so happy to be doing this project at last - it's been on my wish list for months.  With luck the enthusiasm will translate into brilliant success, especially after the series of disasters that were my giant garter stripe hat.  (must get back to that at some point, too!)

Hope you have a fun and colourful weekend yourself and I'll see you back here at Hugs on Monday.

2 comments:

Leslie said...

I have considered doing this with socks (knitting all the stripes in one colorway and going to the next) but have never gotten around to it. I LOVE how the Vesper worked up in my mitered square blanket, but one has to be careful about how long the initial sides are...can't wait to see your finished mitts!

Mary Keenan said...

So much yes, Leslie: it would be amazing to super stripe a pair of socks. I've been thinking of it too and then I noticed how much faster the project would be if I did fingerless mitts instead, heh