Continuing the drive to use up the Stylecraft budget yarn, most of which is 'not a lot' left, so some craftiness required to make any meaningful item. First, a simple stranded colourwork beanie, which I was very happy with and has already been gifted to a young man for his birthday...
The next one also had to use two yarns to ensure completion... and I got all experimental in my stitching. Having enjoyed the woven stitch did on the lime/aqua item I shared here last week, I wondered how I might incorporate something of the weaving yarn in colourwork - that is to say, much tighter than standard floats, deliberately tensioned to create a texture on the front of the work. The effect is lush to the touch and resembles seersucker material.
The yarns were twisted around each other every second (occasionally third) stitch, making a netting effect on the back of the work. It was intriguing to do, and the textural feel to the hand is rather lovely. However, I am glad I wasn't doing anything more than a simple beanie, because it was quite hard on the hands, working at a tension much tighter than my usual. There was a notion that this could be a nice detail for a yoke on a sweater or smock, but I would need to keep practising to find a rhythm and tension point that works more easily than I gave myself in this first attempt.
That all said, the beanie came out quite nicely. If there was one thing I'd change in this design, it might be to add a marker line, either a couple of rows of purl stitches or a couple of plain rows in the contrast colour, to better define the simple stocking stitch band from the textured stitching. As it is, some might be tempted to think it was just very untidy knitting!
It really isn't, though. I did achieve something of what I had wanted with this textural attempt, but it is entirely possible that some decent deep dive into stitch libraries may well offer me something similar with easier practice... but I'm not in a hurry to do it again right now.
Just mentioning the weaving technique I used on the earlier beanie... F did ask how it was done, so I will put a little video together demonstrating what I did. That was again an experiment, and it definitely made a nice detail... so keep watching!
