Cosmicsouza

Nothing screams of a passionate pairing more than a mash up of names. It worked for Brangelina and Bennifer - it works for my latest project too. For me, the design is usually the artistic feature of a project with the yarn playing a supporting role. Now that I'm making Roam out of Lisa Souza Baby Alpaca Silk, it's a magical mixture of a great design paired with artisan handpainted yarn.

I felt this colourway would be close to the Big Sea Silk used in the original design as it appeared in the pictures on Knitty. When I ordered it, I told Lisa what I was making. She e mailed me to confirm that my skeins were "extra chocolaty". The colours move from cognac to smoke and deep chocolate. There are smudges of cobalt highlights that really make the yarn unique. The seed stitch is perfect for this type of handpainted yarn to move the colour around a bit more and avoid any pooling...of course, that's not an issue with Lisa's yarn. This is a perfect sub for Roam since it's bang on gauge and the alpaca and silk drape beautifully. The shaping is nicely built into the ridge of slip stitches which will become the icord embellishment.

I do knit continental but still purled english style so I decided to learn how to purl continental as well. I found some great videos on youtube that were very helpful. I highly recommend this method to anyone wanting to try seed stitch.

I'm especially excited to be taking a dyeing class at Lettuce Knit tomorrow with Laura Chau who designed Roam. I'll get to see Roam in person since the sample will be at the store.

There's a new Norah Gaughan design I'm smitten with too in the new Knitter's Book of Yarn. It's called the Cable Swing Cardi. This one may be even better suited to my Malabrigo than the Tilted Duster. Those lovely cables and seed stitch will add a bit more texture to the Malabrigo handpaints.

I'm going to have to find more knitting techniques designed to speed up my knitting! Or - I could just spend less time on Ravelry!

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