Knot Knecessarily Known Knitting

Sometimes part of the fun of writing a knitting pattern is coming up with unique instructions. For awhile, I've wanted to write a pattern that ends with, "Tie yarn securely to the roof of your car. Drive around for a couple weeks. Untie. Attach yarn 'feathers' to project." Unfortunately, I have discovered this works only for very specific yarns. Those of you who have seen my car in person may know that I typically have a little streamer "poof" coming off the radio antenna. This is made from several strands of Filatura Di Crosa Timo in color 13. Sadly, this yarn has been discontinued. I only change out the streamer about once a year, so I figure my one skein (60 meters) should last the life of the car. I purchased this particular yarn because I was looking for a ribbon yarn in a colorway that would look good with my very red little car. What I did not realize was how the yarn would change when tied to the roof. The ends start out plain.  But aft...

In early summer I was knitting projects quickly. It seem that knitting is much faster than pattern-writing, photography, videography, and all the other elements that go into self-publishing a pattern. For the Mach Wave cowl, I decided to use some stash yarn. I had purchased Wool2dye4 Tweed Worsted in a "learn to dye with Kool-Aid" kit at The Whole Nine Yarns. This yarn has three plies, two of which are wool and the third is superwash wool. The third ply takes dye differently from the other two, creating the tweedy effect. I did quite a bit of outdoor dyeing back in June. That first burst of scorching summer weather triggered the impulse to execute the dye projects that had languished through the cooler months. Although I have a big pile of Kool-Aid packets in my dyestuff stash, for this project I used Jaquard acid dyes. Before applying the dye, I decided I wanted the skein to become a center-out möbius. I divided the yarn into 11 lengths, placing a pin at each division. (...