In The Studio: Net Working

I'm working on a fun new pattern using a fabric that's made of i-cords.

I've made a full sample so far out of Knit Collage yarn left over from a class that I did with them. I love their funky, chunky art yarns, but struggled for years to figure out an accessory design that works with them.

The issue with using really thick yarn is yardage. Any stitch that you do is going to eat up a ton of yarn. With luxury yarns like knit collage, my goal is always to design projects that really optimize the yardage available.

The second sample I'm working on uses a bunch of koigu yarn that I stashed from a goodie bag that was given out at the Vogue Knitting Live cocktail party a few years ago. They gave out 25 random colors of 10m mini-skeins. A while ago, I wound them onto bobbins for an intarsia project - you may have seen it on here - but the fade was so subtle that you couldn't see the color work.

Each bobbin is a single row of the mesh. I decided to start at the gray solid color, it'll provide a nice stable edge with a whole lot of color in the middle.

I hope this project looks good with the fading colors, there are a few rough spots in the gradient that I hope stand out in a good way, as a contrast against the multicolor tones. The color isn't completely smooth and I think that's going to add some interesting properties to the mesh.

Obviously this stitch is something that you could work with a whole bunch of different yarn weights. I'm interested in sharing this project with a few preview knitters who would like to use different weights of yarn and record the yardage needed for each stripe. If you're interested in participating, you should join my discord.