Hat day 2

The colours here are stronger. Onto a circular needle once 26 sts per "petal" are achieved (52 per needle) and the stitch marker goes to the beginning of the round.

The hat will need to be blocked to achieve its full circumference.

And to cap it all...

Yup still not a bag.

In advance of a visit to a very dear and absolutely lovely friend at the weekend, I decided to raid my stash and found thingummy riches in the sock yarn department. So in the interests of having a go at something else new, I plumped for a lovely Ravelry beret pattern called Wasabi Hat.

The pic above is of an hour's work, and while the pastel colours have washed out a bit, this helps to show the stitch definition and simply lovely floral motifs. I'm hoping to adapt the pattern for matching gloves and socks, but as a spring knit am not too fussed. Incidentally, given the lace pattern, the stitch marker indicates the first needle rather than the beginning of the round. I find this works fine for me.

Hey ho.

In other knews, Kerbaceous Kabbage the Krump (aka Kerbie) has arrived. Here is Kerbie at home, and fully loaded. Big big thanks to Great Chief White Hair for all his efforts in providing a secure home and kerbway for him/her. In fact that sums up a problem: Kerbie definitely is gender-free but also definitely not an it. Hmmm.

Putting the proverbial in it.

Clearly these are not a bag. These are socks. My latest little project thanks to Ravelry - a combination of Socks for Christy and Donyale. SfC are knitted toe-up - a first for me - and Donyale features a 4-row 5-stitch pattern that complements the lovely rainbow randoms of the Regia Bamboo sock yarn. Extremely comfy, and just a tad on the long side - I'll need to make them about 4 rows shorter for a perfect fit next time.

Incidentally the weird cuffs visible in the pic of the pair is simply because my sock forms (aka a cut-up pair of 60p mouse mats) are a little bit too short. The single pic gives a better idea of the finished sock as worn.

Too much!!

I know I know, two posts in a week!

I'm determined to inflict every stage of this project on the world at large (well my half dozen or so followers at any rate!)

So the next stage is choosing designs.

This wool struck me as being Kauni's big brother. It's softer than the Kauni, but seems to have a similar colour range, so I've spent an hour or so sifting through my bookmarks to find a few possible charts. I really want this bag to be a work of art.

I've looked at everything from hexagon piecework to entrelac to Scandinavian two-colour charts and so far here's a selection. For anyone who's not heard of Kauni before, I recommend googling "Kauni Damask" for photos of the striking vibrancy possible with these rainbow wools. I don't want to get into copyright bother but cutting and pasting pictures direct.

So anyway, here are a few colour chart possibles: first the damask chart looks like this: then there are other charts taken from my favourite Scandinavian resource, Jessica Tromp:
Rainbow yarns can give an absolutely stunning effect when one ball is started off at a different phase from another. Kauni Damask is a fabulous example of this, but there are other contrast patterns that work well too. The important thing is that the "pace" of the colour changes in the two balls being worked stays the same, and this in a way dictates the choice of chart to be worked. So ideally the pattern chart will have equal numbers of main and contrast stitches, and there won't be one row where one strand of yarn travels across umpteen stitches that are knitted from the other ball - quite aside from the tension problems this can create, there will be more yarn used in the knitted stitches than in the carried yarn, with the result that the colours will get out of step with each other.

But having said *all* that, it might not matter too much once I've worked out the final bag shape and dimensions, and decided which colour panel goes where. I intend to use two or three designs for contrast; the jury is still out though whether I am brave enough to attempt to sew in the zip, or even to attempt the felting.

I feel a tension square coming on.