kilter | PDXKnitterati

I love my new Stopover. It fits just like the blue one, except the sleeves are 3/4″ longer, which is perfect.

In the end, I chose pink for the color pops. I don’t usually like pink and red together, but I love this. I think it works because it’s just a little pink, an accent.

I was inspired by TrudyG’s Stopover on Instagram. I loved it when I first saw it last spring during the BangOutASweater KAL, and the colors have been in the back of my mind ever since. Thanks, Trudy, for letting me share your picture here. (Trudy’s Stopover on Ravelry, for more pictures and details.)

A lot of people loved the multicolored color pops, but that wasn’t the look I wanted. At least not on this one. But now I’m thinking: Wouldn’t a dark gray Stopover be awesome with the same white and mid-gray for contrast colors, and then a rainbow at the yoke? There are 12 “feathers”, so I could do a six color rainbow twice around. Would it be crazy to have three Stopovers? I love the way they fit, and can knit them mostly on auto-pilot. But it does take knitting time, and I have several design projects in the queue. Hmmmm.

Not that the design queue stopped me from buying this yarn yesterday. Malabrigo Rasta, in Zarzamora. It’s for a quick little brioche scarf project from the fine folks at Mason-Dixon Knitting. I’ve been meaning to explore brioche, and this is a quick entrée into that world. I’ll be taking a brioche class with JC Briar at Madrona, but couldn’t resist a little taste now.

Oh! Mom’s home from Antarctica, and she did get her Kilter hat in time for the trip. I’m happy to report that she loved both.

What’s on your needles for January? For me, the linen mini-skeins (I guess those Mason-Dixon gals are getting to me!) and the Rasta so far. The linen counts as design project and as knitting, so double duty there. You?

I’m taking a cue from Kay and Ann over at Mason-Dixon Knitting, and having a Lazy Sunday. (If you don’t read MDK, you should. They’re back in force after a hiatus, and have been blogging DAILY. Delightful.)

I’m sitting in bed knitting and reading, with cat, at 9:45 a.m. Or I was, until I felt the need to make this post. I’m closing in on the top of a worsted weight version of my Kilter Hat, and winning a game of yarn chicken.

It would have been a more exciting game if I hadn’t already finished once, and decided the hat was too short. I figured out via yarn scale and math that there was enough yarn to add one more section before the decreases. But I never trust the math until I’m really done.

Done! But I had started wih a short skein of Malabrigo Rios (93g instead of 100), so this hat ends with a knit center instead of purl. I’m not even sure 100g would have given me one more section; it’s too close to call and I’d hate for the knitter to run short. But I like the way it looks! I think it will be knitter’s choice.

Why do I want a worsted weight Kilter? I taught a Kilter class at Twisted recently, and it was fun. But a worsted version would make for a quicker knit/less homework between class meetings, and would also make it more likely for the student to have a completed project at the end of the second class (fewer rounds to decrease in class). Everybody wins! I have a couple things to work out, and then I’m planning to update the pattern to include both weights. (And before you ask, I think bulky weight would be too…bulky.)

How was your Sunday? Lazy? Not? I hope it was lovely, either way.