I haven’t posted much in the way of a NaKniSweMo update recently, because there’s not been much to see. Acres of stocking stitch is pretty boring and the light isn’t great for taking pictures at this time of year.
But this weekend I finally hit the colourwork yoke on my Epistrophy.
I’m using a plain white yarn as the contrast here, in exactly the same base.
The sharp eyed among you will notice that I’ve inverted the colourwork compared to the original. This was entirely accidental – I only spotted it after about two rounds. I put it down for about half an hour and went to put the washing out and do a few other jobs while I worked out what to do next. I decided that I didn’t much fancy unpicking around 500 stitches of colourwork to do it again, and squinting at the chart I struggled to reverse the colours in my mind. So mine will be different. But it’s a geometric design, so it shouldn’t much matter, and I do like the way the white diamonds are working up in this version. I’m nervous about running out of the purple yarn, so doing it this way will eke out the purple a bit longer too, as there are more white stitches this way.
Before I started the colourwork section I did pause a moment to think about colour dominance. I habitually carry the contrast colour in my left hand (I do a mix of picking and throwing when I’m knitting colourwork, as I’ve found it’s most comfortable to work with a colour in each hand). That makes the contrast colour the stronger of the two. I wondered about switching it to make the white recede a bit more into the background, but I think I like the strong white diamonds in this version.
I’m a bit anxious about how this yarn will steek. It’s very smooth and not at all sticky. If I don’t get the steek reinforcement right I could well end up with a handful of string to show for a month’s knitting effort. I think this is one where I’ll definitely have to tape the raw edge rather than just rely on the crochet reinforcement.