kimley knits

Here in sunny Southern California, that doesn’t happen all that often and frankly I rather like the somewhat monotonous continued sunshine. But the nice thing about a bit of precipitation and temps below 70 degrees (yeah, we’re wimps here!) is that I can finally don all the lovely wool items I’ve been knitting up the last several months.

This Arcadia scarf is one of my favorite things that I’ve ever knit…

A nice blocking close-up that really showcases the pattern…

This is a gorgeous pattern designed by Janel Laidman and one of the many lovely patterns in the first issue of The Sock Report.

I had been admiring this pattern for a while and was a bit intimidated by what looked like some complicated lace but I was very pleasantly surprised at how easy and quick this was to knit up. Certainly not a beginning lace pattern but if you have knit a few easy lace patterns then this is an easy next step up.

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

And coming soon… I finished my Nanook sweater and can’t wait to reveal it in all its wooly glory although I still need to find a nice button for it. It’s a fantastic pattern. Unfortunately all the rain we’ve been having has left my sweater wet from blocking for over 3 days now. But it’s just a tiny bit damp at this point and I think it will be dry by tomorrow.

I rarely manage to actually finish knitting an entire sweater so to celebrate I immediately cast on for 3 new projects. Ha!

The pattern is a lacy, graphic scarf called Zigzag Wanderer knit in super yummy Malabrigo sock.

I’m so thrilled to be part of the launch of such a beautiful new publication. The editor, Janel Laidman, and her spectacular team have done a fantastic job of not only presenting such a great collection of patterns but the photography and styling are stunning as well. Magical!

So if you like socks and/or sock yarn then get your yarny self over to The Sock Report and check out the glory of all that is sock yarn related!

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