kimley knits

I’ve been starting too many projects lately. I just can’t seem to help myself. Evidence to my growing affliction…

I’ve been admiring Heidi Kirrmaier’s patterns for a while now over on Ravelry. I love her clean easy style and there’s always something a little different that makes all her patterns special. So I’ve finally cast on her Nanook sweater pattern and am really enjoying it. It’s fun and so far it’s knitting up pretty quickly. I’m notorious for not finishing sweaters but I think (hoping I don’t jinx myself) I just might finish this one.

I’m using some scrumptious MadelineTosh DK in the thyme colorway that I got for Xmas two years ago. It’s about time! Quite a treat.

[button link=”http://www.ravelry.com/projects/Kimley/nanook” color=”#c2ebb1″ text=”dark” window=”yes”]My Project Details on Ravelry[/button]

As a graphic designer, one of my favorite parts of the job is playing around with color and seeing how different colors interact with one another. It can be quite shocking at times just how different colors will look against a variety of other colors. A very intense color theory class that I took in college taught me all the ins and outs of this while doing all those crazy Joseph Albers exercises. Fun!

So now it’s great to see this working up in my knitting. No doubt, Joseph’s wife Anni Albers, a textile artist enjoyed this kind of fiber excitement too! I don’t normally do a lot of color work so I don’t really get to play with color combos that much when it comes to my knitting but I’m having a ton of fun with my Spectra Scarf watching how the Noro is working up next to this dark reddish brown color (the Kale colorway in Madelinetosh Merino Light) versus how it looked in the ripple scarf I crocheted a while back. The photo above shows the two photographed together and there is a very noticeable difference in how the Noro colors look. They seem so much more saturated surrounded by the darker color than on their own. Love it!

It was my father’s birthday the other day and after having to look at his pathetic excuse for a scarf for some time now, I decided it was my knitterly obligation to improve his sartorial flair. As many knitters know, it’s never easy knitting for men. They don’t want anything too fancy and us knitters don’t want to knit anything too boring. I concocted this pattern so that it was simple but had just a little bit of zing to make it both interesting for me to knit and hopefully interesting to look at as well. Knit three rows, purl one and a four stitch cable along one side. Knit in beautiful MadelineTosh Merino Light in the Boxwood colorway. My dad said he loved it. Now if only it hadn’t been 80 degrees on his birthday…

>>> Details on Ravelry

I’ve been wanting to try my hand at some intarsia for a while now but having muddled at my short-lived attempt at stranded color work (too fiddly) I wasn’t sure I’d enjoy it. But I’ve had several Stephen West designs in my Ravelry queue for a while now and I just conveniently happened to have 226 yards of leftover Noro Sock yarn in my stash which is only 4 yards short of the 230 yards required for the Spectra Scarf pattern so I think it was meant to be.

I took my Noro to my LYS and found a good matching skein of the Madeline Tosh Merino Light (currently my favorite yarn!) and can happily say that so far my first attempt at intarsia is quite enjoyable. Although this is probably about as easy as intarsia can get since you only have to wrap your two colors of yarn on one end due to short rows on the other. Even though this is a simple-looking pattern, it’s very cleverly written. No doubt I’ll be knitting up a few other Stephen West designs in the not-too-distant future.