Going for a swim

I'm such a sucker for new ideas. I'll make something I'm bound not to use or even really enjoy looking at if it's got some snazzy new technique I've never encountered before (case in point: the perpetual hoarfrost moebius). I love beautifully dyed yarn with lots of purdy colors, but I'm shy about purchasing it. There's a couple reasons for this: I don't really wear patterned anything, ever, so making something that is, by necessity, multicolored, is a bit daunting; also I never know how to appropriately show off the color changes in an aesthetically appealing way.

Then I encountered planned pooling. Let's break that down a little. Pooling occurs when variegated yarn ends up with a whole bunch of stitches in the same color over an area exceeding a row or two. It's literally a blotch of color caused by hitting the repeat length based on how the yarn was dyed just right, and it's usually undesirable. But... what if you did it on purpose? I mean, yarn is usually dyed in a hank and so each color is close to the same length over the total yardage.

The very concept gives me the giggles. The yarn is a Christmas present from the etsy shop Yarntopia treasures, which is filled with gloriously dyed bits of pretty. I decided to work a complete circle for every row, which meant 116-ish stitches (ish... you have to fudge sometimes to make sure things are lining up appropriately)

The pattern is Japanese feather and fan, a lovely little 10 stitch repeat that drags the fabric back and forth in zig-zags which will need to be blocked into those stubborn garter edges (the whole rest of the fabric is making a wave, and yet the garter edge is straight as a rail... sigh...). I don't know if I'll actually use the finished product, but I am madly in love with knitting this thing, as evidenced by my 2+ feet of shawl over the past few days. This thing is addictive. and mindless. and gorgeous. Hopefully I'll have enough yarn for 6 feet of pretty.