the reveal

late this past winter,

string theory yarn company

asked if i would design with dream in color’s ‘canyon’ for a mystery kal.

i jumped at the chance. what fun!

i knew that i wanted to

design a hat, but how to keep it a mystery?

i mean once you start knitting in the round on size 16″ circulars…

a hat is everyone’s first guess, right?

but earlier this winter

i had knit up a super warm, oversized braided hat

(the ‘nomadic nights slouch’ by holly priestley)

her construction was such that you knit the brim flat

and then joined in the round.

that might be enough of a novelty

to throw people off track in guessing ‘hat’,

and ‘tohutohu‘ was born.

the mystery kal has just ended, so now:

tohutohu hat collagei chose really mildly contrasting colors,

but some of the other knitters picked things that really pop!

i’ll collect some of their pretty photos soon

to make a collage for you to ooh and ahh over.

i love seeing what color combos

other knitters knit.

don’t you?

‘thrown’ taken from 6:30 of matthew.

turn around

when i took a step back

and looked honestly at the progress of my nomadic nights slouch

i could see it was a  good idea gone sideways.

the three very differently textured yarns

that i had chosen so they would

pop individually,

blended together until the personality of each fiber was lost.

ugh. time for plan b.

i lovingly rewound the original skeins for another day,IMG_8829crop

and began again

with three

muted shades of

julie asselin’s ankara.

this is big, squishy

bulky at its

best.

still enjoying holly‘s pattern and now i’m so liking

the finished hat as well.IMG_8810crop

i guess that since

the snow

refuses to hear

my pitiful cries and stop,

that i might get quite a bit of

wear out of my new

slouch.

[love]

‘finished’ taken from 5:4 of luke.

combos

when i am cold

i feel the most motivated

to knit something for myself.

the other night, feeling quite chilly,

i ran into holly priestley‘s ‘nomadic night’s slouch’.

ooh, i love how much personality this hat has

and how much room it gives

each of us individual

knitters to

express ourselves in color and yarn combinations.

in true antiestablishmentarian style,nomad yarns collagei chose three different yarns altogether.

it’s a big ol’ hat, so matching up exact gauge is optional, right?

i almost never would think that,

but in this case

i did and it’s working.

holly’s version is much more colorful than mine,

which in a different mood i might have wanted,IMG_8710upbut right now, all the neutrals and mixed textures sing to me

of varied experiences and how they’ve

shaped me, made me

who i am.

i have worked through the corrugated rib,

and found the colorwork chart to be fabulously simple.

nothing like clarity to make a project feel like it’s flying off the needles!

if i juggle things right today (ie: get the necessary stuff done),

i could have my ‘nomad’ ready

before the storm hits

tomorrow afternoon.

that’s my goal.  we’ll see if i hit it.

‘nomads’ taken from 13:20 of isaiah.

yarns in top photo: (left) hudson valley fiber farm ‘farmstead’ from a local market,

(center) malabrigo ‘twist’ in terron, and (right) classic elite yarns ‘blackthorn’ in alabaster.