HACK : stripe it up!

Stripes are one of our favourite ways to hack a pattern.

When Alexa designed The World’s Simplest Mitten, my first thought was to stripe it up! I found these beautiful multi-coloured yarns at the JOMA booth at Knit City, and almost immediately I cast on and these little toddler size mittens flew right off the needles.

At first, I tried single-round stripes, because I love the way they blend colours. However, as I was combining these two variegated colourways, the result was too muddy, not as distinct as I was hoping for. So I ripped back and knit using 2-round stripes instead, and I was pretty pleased with the result!

Project details:

Pattern: The World’s Simplest Mittens (a free pattern) is available in sizes to fit toddler to adult L, in 4 gauges.

For this pair, I knit the toddler size using the DK weight pattern.

Yarn: I used JOMA Marshmallow Rino in ‘ray gun’ and ‘cake for breakfast’. If you are striping two semi-solid or variegated colourways, it’s best to choose a pair that contrast quite strongly, or the stripes can get lost.

Needles: I used US #3 / 3.25 and US #5 / 3.75mm

JOMA yarn : lovely semi solids and hand paints

I was so taken by the lovely speckles when I spotted them at the JOMA booth. We are big fans of a hand dye here at TCK and our current obsession is definitely speckles. They are just so fun to knit! The colours change with almost every stitch, keeping the knitting interesting and fun. It was a fun booth to visit and I spent quite a bit of time oohing and aahing over the possibilities!

using variegated & speckle yarns

The tricky thing about speckles is how to pair them, with patterns or other yarns, to both let the speckle shine and avoid a wardrobe of infinite wildness. Sometimes the most delicious yarns, so fascinating in the skein, can be very difficult to use. We suggest using a simple pattern and/or striping it with a semi solid or solid to tone it down about one notch.

hackathon

A round of applause to all who are participating in our #TCKhackathon this holiday season! We’re loving watching your projects come up on Instagram, Facebook, and Ravelry. There is still lots of time to participate, whip out a last minute gift, and enter to win our superfantastic prize!

Other Simple TCK patterns to hack: