Whole lotta knitting going on....

The weather has been truly appalling this week so I've been indoors a lot planning and designing more than working on existing pieces. And although I could sit comfortably in the living room with a good film, I tend to find sitting at my computer with a decent space to put all my bits and bobs is more conducive to getting me in the creative ideas mindset. Kind of like a workstation where I focus on just work. It also helps that I can play music, browse Pinterest for new images and share them with you on my new facebook page - and probably check facebook and e-mails more than I really need to. But it's all part of the creative process, isn't it? :)

Also this weather reminds me that I can't really pretend there is anything left of summer :) and warmer, snuggly knitting is creeping back into my making list. This little project is just an experiment into the construction of armwarmers and the use of graduating colour, primarily using stripes. I love the contrasting colourways and how such a simple thing like changing proportions of colour can dramatically affect the whole look of the finished piece.

The three gloves above are all based on the same pattern using fingering weight sock yarns. The front two are Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball - colourway tropical fish, and the back pink/purpley striped yarn is Happy - capricorn colourway by Wendy. The wendy is a bamboo/nylon mix and it turned out much bigger and has no elasticity. Such a bad choice for gloves that should stay up your arm! But they look good so I'll keep them for myself. If anything they won't let me forget that lesson - probably every time they slip down, hehe.

But they are quite quick to knit up if you are using a pre-striped or graduating yarn. And no ends to sew in! The pattern is just a generic armwarmer/long glove pattern for 4ply/fingering yarns with regular decreases but what I'm really interested in is how I can take this form and manipulate it into something completely new construction-wise as well as playing with colour. And dyeing some graduated yarns specifically for this, of course:)

But the dyeing will have to wait a few days as all this rain has flooded the shed again so everything has to dry out before dyeing can recommence. Not a big worry though as everything is already up off the ground due to this happening at least twice a year, lol! But on the good side, I can stay nice and toasty inside and take advantage of the time to design some more. Who knows what will come out of it? I don't know either but it will be fun finding out;)

Back soon, elaine x