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Sunday 29 December 2013

Leftovers can be hiding a potential winner: Studies in modular colour-coordination

I have tons of cheap acrylic leftover yarn. From numerous projects. Much as I agree that most of the times acrylic is no match for wool and cotton, there are a couple of things for which acrylic yarn is really really good. Top of the list: baby blankets and baby clothes, and also throws and afghans over the sofa for really really rough everyday use. The only condition, of course, is that the acrylic needs to be soft and good quality. Simply because they can go into the washing machine multiple times, with babies (or us) free to be as messy as can happily be, and the objects in question being used and washed and used and washed and really used, till they simply wear out.

So, from various projects, I have tons of cheap acrylic leftovers. And therefore, a couple of months ago, I started on this modular blanket. I set myself the following rules: 

  1. I will design with colour and colour families in mind; i.e., I will not use any colours just to finish off scrap yarn. 
  2. If I need to buy tiny amounts of new yarn to follow Rule 1, I will do so. This, of course, is not a problem, because a single ball of acrylic yarn is quite cheap. 
  3. I will work on this patiently, and not set any deadlines to finish, so it can actually grow over a number of years. Thereby, gradually using up any extra leftover yarn from current and future projects, and keeping the stash manageable.
Obviously, its growing really slowly, but that's okI am using a particular visual pattern idea from the excellent book called Modular Knits. Design rules for colour planning and structure design are as follows: 
  1. The whole blanket is going to be composed of large garter stitch squares, with each large square made out of 16 small squares. This gives me ample opportunity to potentially include many colours, some of which, in leftover terms, may be in very very small amounts. 
  2. Each square can have single or multiple, dark and light colors, but the dark and light colors have to symmetrically organise in some visually pleasing way to the chosen visual pattern (in my case, the flower like figure defined by the dark yarn and the light background; of course, including permissible inversions of figure-ground).
  3. Here is my design for knitting the little squares. Each little square is made by starting with 3 stitches, and increasing 1 stitch on every row, till I get to 30 stitches, then knit 1 row, then change colour and knit one row, then decrease one stitch every row till I get to 3 stitches, then knit 3 together. I am doing this with the standard 8 ply yarn, using 4.00 mm needles. 
Here are the modest beginnings of one complete square and the other three-fourths: 
Ravelry link for project

Thursday 26 December 2013

Moderne

I have always wanted to do this one: the Moderne log cabin blanket. So, christmas and new year present this year from hubby and son was all this yummy cotton yarn. The blankie will be for our new couch, in our new home! And because we celebrate a summer Christmas and New Year in the land down under, the yarn of choice right now is cotton. Our new lounge is going to be a dark brown with some mustardy yellow kind of mixed in it, so the greens and yellow seemed good.

Ravelry link to project

The yarn is from Bendigo Woollen Mills. I think it is the only place in Australia you can buy good stuff at reasonable prices. The yarn goodie shops in Sydney that I know of are all so so so expensive, you would not dream of doing something as large as a blanket with them, unless of course in a moment of madness you go completely decadent and spoil yourself. There is course, Lincraft and Spotlight, but surprisingly, this yarn is so much yummier than anything I've ever bought from these stores.

One thing about new yarn and me is: I have to cast on right away. This is independent of how many other projects I have on my needles at a given moment. So, here is the modest beginning from last afternoon's start.
I love the texture of the good old garter stitch. My grandmother taught me how to knit when I was about 5 or 6, and millions of garter stitches down the road, I still love the way it comes out, and I still have these moments of anticipation pondering about how a particular colour and yarn is going to lend itself to the stitch.

By the way, I started this yesterday in the afternoon, and after some really feverish TV-time mindless knitting in the night, the piece is now considerably bigger than what is seen above. A word on log cabin knitting: I love the almost meditative silence in which this blanket is growing. The exciting part will come when I start to add in the second colour, then the third, then the fourth...

Hello world!

On any normal day, the title of this blog is one of the most heard sentences in our house. My husband and son have moved from getting mildly irritated to now smiling and saying it before I say it these days. The main reason for starting this blog, however, is that I keep designing, knitting, and crocheting, gifting, wearing, wearing out, and never ever document the ideas. And I thought I should, even if purely for the purpose of self-learning and reflection, and to share with other woolly friends. Here are some woolly yarny thoughts to share about knitting and crocheting. I am "soms" on Ravelry.

In my "other" life, I teach design and computation at the Design Lab, University of Sydney, research complex systems and, play with complex networks. I have never placed any emphasis over distinctions between science, mathematics, design, and art: in my world, they flow seamlessly into each other. It is therefore likely that odd bits of research thoughts and ideas may flow into this blog, please bear with me.