Tag Archives: assigned pooling

Name this cowl hat!

Posted on January 20, 2023 | 12 comments

Remember this yarn?

It’s now a cowl.

Or a hat. It’s both! I’ve designed this for my assigned/planned pooling class at Red Alder Fiber Arts Retreat next month. There are a couple spots left in class. Yarn is included in the materials fee. It’s A Wondrous Worsted from Yarn Snob, in the Times Square colorway. I’m in LOVE. Better pictures on a human soon; it’s finally stopped raining here.

In the meantime, please help me name this cowl/hat! I’ve been calling it Bossy Cowl Hat, in a nod to the yarn telling you when it’s time to do the exciting stitch, and the idea of Bossy the Cow(l). Ha! But it doesn’t sound very inviting, or very pretty. What should I call it?

If I pick the name you suggest, you’ll get a free copy of the pattern, which should work with any worsted weight color pooling yarn. Fire away!

Have you tried planned pooling or assigned pooling? What did you think of it?

Unrelated PS: The Nautical Knitting cruise on the schooner Zodiac is sold out! But if you’re interested, sign up for the waiting list; there can be changes between now and the end of July. Ahoy!

12 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design, yarn

Tagged A Wondrous Worsted, assigned pooling, Red Alder Fiber Arts, Yarn Snob

Color pooling yarn

Posted on January 6, 2023 | 2 comments

Calvin was very interested in this box, even before I opened it. Did it smell like freshly dyed yarn? Or did it smell like Teddy, Keith Leonard’s orange tabby cat? (Keith AKA Yarn Snob)

Inside the box: 16 skeins of A Wondrous Worsted in the Times Square colorway. Keith usually dyes his pooling colors on fingering weight, but I like worsted for teaching. The knitting goes more quickly, so we can cover more in class. I find this worsted to be a little lighter in weight than the worsteds I usually knit with, more like a DK, which is great.

This yarn is meant to pool! I bought it for my Jump Into the Pool! Planned and Assigned Pooling class at Red Alder Fiber Arts Retreat next month. All students will begin a skein of this yarn, so we can have a successful pooling experience together. I’m about to knit up a sample cowl using assigned pooling, and then write up a pattern that will work with any color pooling yarn.

I had Keith dye Cabana Boy with a longer center color for my Knit Maine class last September. I wrote up instructions specifically for this hat and headband and this yarn, but I want to write more general instructions for a central colorburst of varying lengths.

There are a few spots left in my class. Red Alder Fiber Arts Retreat is in Tacoma, Washington February 16-19, and this class is on Friday afternoon. Come knit with me!

2 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design, yarn

Tagged A Wondrous Worsted, assigned pooling, planned pooling, Yarn Snob

More assigned pooling

Posted on July 26, 2022 | 4 comments

I guess I’m not done with assigned pooling yet! I had this monster skein of Blue Moon Fiber Arts Plushy left from teaching a previous planned pooling class. I was stack pooling it, but I put it aside when class was over.

For planned pooling to stack, I need to keep my eye on my knitting, adjusting my tension as needed to make the colors stack or move slightly to the left or right. But I don’t usually look at my knitting; I’m usually reading blogs or my Kindle. So planned pooling means I have to be more mindful. Right now I want to be more mindless!

This is why I’m really enjoying the assigned pooling. It just takes an occasional glance to see when it’s time to work the pooling stitches. That’s much more relaxing for me because I don’t have to control the tension. So I’m knitting a cowl, approximately 34 inches in circumference (making a wild guess based on the piece that was previously on the US 10 needles). I’m using the sunburst stitch whenever the deep red-purple appears.

Plushy is an Aran weight yarn (Ravelry says worsted and I disagree), 3.5 to 4 sts per inch, 330 yards/270g. I think this color is Let Your Love Light Shine. It’s spectacularly cheery!

Still occasionally knitting the white linen too, while my mind chews on how I want to arrange these three skeins of Knit Picks Hawthorne Fingering. I have an idea…but it’s going to take a lot of mental gymnastics before I get there.

4 Comments

Posted in Knit, yarn

Tagged assigned pooling, blue moon fiber arts plushy, Knit Picks Hawthorne

Bossy hat!

Posted on July 23, 2022 | 5 comments

I finished the hat with the criss-cross stitches, and the earband with the sunbursts. I love them both. I think the name for them is Bossy, because the yarn tells you what to do.

You may remember that I frogged a perfectly good sunburst hat to knit the criss-cross version. After all of that, I think I like the sunbursts better after all!

But I’m not going to frog it and knit it again. That would be silly.

These, along with my Shall We Dance cowl, show the ideas we’ll address in my Planned and Assigned Pooling class at Knit Maine in September. Students can choose which project they’d like to make; the class yarn (Yarn Snob Wonderful Worsted in Cabana Boy) can do any of these things. I’ve written up the class notes; do you want it to be a pattern, too?