Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Thoughts on colour.

I know what my problem is. I can knit.
Seriously, I can. I can knit fast...yes, even with small children in the house...I can knit a sweater in a couple days.

I love texture. Not that it's really challenging, just follow the instructions or chart, I love how it really looks like you have knit something.

I love knitting lace. Sometimes I don't have the patience, but I do enjoy it. It is more of a challenge to me, only because I occasionally need to tink back or recreate a section by dropping stitches.

I just don't feel challenged in my knitting lately. I think I am not ever going to knit a stocking stitch thing again...unless...I use multiple colours!
That is what I have been thinking about. Colourful knitting. You know, the things you will NEVER wear but are they are fabulous to knit. Only the things a knitter would love.
I shouldn't say that...have you seen these wonderful WEARABLE colourful items...

Purly's Laila's Socks from her Nancy Bush Master Study. I love them. So inspiring to knit fairisle socks. Tell me...how do you account for the stretch you need in a sock? Do you really loosely float the yarn? I am thinking of knitting some argyle socks...like the MEXX ones my SIL had on this weekend...fabulous.

Stephanie's Nordic Mittens over at Unwind. Gorgeous. A perfect item to practice fairisle on. Mittens.

What about over at Knitting Escapism...the biggest swatch I have ever seen! This Deep V Argyle Vest is just beautiful. Come on...I could wear that...well, a little larger though.

Colour. Yes, let's challenge ourselves when we knit. I am turning my nose up to the ribbed sweaters, the stocking stitch sweaters...the sweaters you can just go out and purchase. Colour is where this little blog is going.

Knitting Olympics Update:
Firstly notice my little addition in the sidebar. Doesn't that time ticking away just freak you out! Needless to say I am playing the Hare not the Tortoise. I have plenty of time. Back and fronts are complete and the sleeves have cuffs. SSSSSSllllllloooowwwwww dowwwwnnnn there speed knitter.
Other Olympic knitting events...an Odessa hat complete with beads was knit yesterday evening. A hat in an evening. Beads aren't even challenging me. I love it and will post photos when the second is complete and the twins are modeling them.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

You know what I have to say about challenging one's knitting - hell, yeah! Go, go, go! Knit harder!

Anna said...

Ohhh, I'm excited for what's brewing! Sounds like something fun is on its way!

winnie said...

i know exactly what you mean by being challenged. Unless there's some factor of the knitting that intrigues me and it's something i haven't done before, i won't knit it.

Tracy Batchelder said...

I'm interested in color knitting too. I'll be watching to see what you start with.

Jacqui said...

I love fairisle, although I haven't done any lately. There's two sweaters in my gallery - "Fairisle 1" and "Fairisle 2" - that I made quite a few years ago. They were a lot of fun; knit in the round and back and forth at the armholes. I'll try steeks if I make another one. {evil grin!}

At the rate you knit you'd probably whip up one of those in a week. ;)

Laura said...

Colorwork is lots of fun, and it goes quickly. Of course, you can knit most anything quickly. :)

Looking forward to seeing what you tackle!

Elemmaciltur said...

That'd be my next challenge...multi coloured knitting, Fair Isle, Intarsia....sounds exciting!

Elemmaciltur said...

Just want to answer your question on my blog: Yes, I've tried cables without cable needles last night after Brooklyn Tweed told me about it. No, I didn't drop any stitches, it worked quite well...but still I'm really scared about dropping the stitches with that technique. And as this is my Olympic project and the scarf's going to be a present, I don't want to muck it up....so I'm sticking to the cable needle for this one.