Monday, August 06, 2007

Color Stranded Hat




There is such an art form called Color Stranding either in Crochet or Knitting. Getting good tension while color-stranding takes practice. Elizabeth Zimmerman says it in "Knitting Without Tears" and I quote "You can never strand too loosely". I say you need to work your strands, sometimes you have to be more tight depending on how the material is wrapping around.



This hat is made with Aurora 8 , Karabella yarn, a Merino Wool blend. As you can see in this picture below I am carrying both yarns at the same time, sometimes I allow one yarn to rest during one round if I am doing just one color.



Here you are able to see as I am starting a new row with every other single crochet in a different color, you have the two loops of the single crochet that you are making and draw the other color to close it. By doing this you will have the correct, I rather say the same color . There is no right or wrong way of doing this color stranding, but there is one rule in my book. What is that rule?




The Rule is consistency! As long as you repeat the same pattern of what you did around in all your stitches , you will have a somewhat design that evolves with the work. I never plan what the design will look like. What I do is that I use math to see what kind of pattern can I make with this amount of stitches. What is it divisible by. Math , geometry is my nature. On the picture below you can see the single crochet was close with the gray heather yarn, and it continues until you decide to change the pattern or like I like to say the pattern speaks to you that it needs to do something different. Sometimes I make the same hats, so far only twice. I guess I have been lucky and the creative juices have been flowing like crazy.



Here you see the beautiful pattern that the yarn is getting to express through the turns of the rounds and with my assistance. Making crochet hats is a pure joy.




This is the Hat Inside out, I think it looks as nice, but it gives you two views. I wanted to share with you the view from the inside to show you how the two strands look inside. The picture after shows the right side. This is the WRONG SIDE!

This is the RIGHT SIDE, There where three rows of back loop single crochets and as you can see there are three horizontal single crochet rows. Two in maroon and one in grey. This pictures shows you the hat after being blocked and made flat. This is hat is not heavy at all, is very light and since it is merino wool is very flexible and not itchy at all.



I have lots more projects going on and will have more to share this week. Some crochet and some Knit. By the end of the week I will have my Irish Hiking Cabled Hat done. I have to move the Irish Hiking Scarf to next week as I had to finish this project first. I also have in the ethers the plan for a cover for my computer chair, a purse for my niece, about 4 scarves, and another Hat with the Alpaca Yarn. Well enough for tonight. Thanks for stopping by.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow Andy, I love the hat!!! I love the color Combo and precision and the details and the tidiness and everything in between, awesome job!!!

Heidi said...

very nice colors... did you make up the pattern yourself?

Crafty Andy said...

Yes Heidi: I make the pattern as I go, it is just as the say as the spirit moves me. It does have a mathematical perspective to it. I decide the size of the pattern to begin, sometimes the pattern changes as I go . It has to be divisible and or a multiple of the number of stitches +-1-2 stitches.



Andy

minky996 said...

WOW!!!! Andy you are so talented! The hat turned out great!

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