My plan for today:

Lucy’s plan for today:

I am almost all the way through one repeat of the color changes in my rainbow colorway Kauni yarn.

At this point, the piece measures 21″. The skein of rainbow Kauni I am using weighed 264 grams before I started knitting, and as I wound it, I noted that it contained three complete repeats of the rainbow of colors. I weighted the skein at this point, and it weighs 180 grams. So I am right on target here. I have a third of the length of the piece done, I’ve used one of three colorway repeats, and have used almost a third of the yarn by weight.

I love it when things work out.

The foreground yarn, the black Kauni, is put up in 150-gram skeins. I know I’ll need two of them, and mot likely part of a third skein, since I am going to work the edge in black

Because this piece is a bit too large to easily carry to work I am going to wind up this yarn and start a smaller project.

Lucy can’t wait to find out what it is going to become!

Well, that might be an exaggeration.

Thanks for all the lovely comments about my Oregon accessories set. I can take no credit for choosing the colors, as it was a kit purchased from Virtual Yarns. I just followed the patterns.

Here’s something of my own design I’ve started:

In my last blog post I had a photo of some yarn: some rainbow-colorway Kauni, and some solid black Kauni. I had the idea to make a rainbow-colored wrap.

I sketched up a design and got to work. It’s going to be a rectangular shape. and to make the stranded knitting easier, I am knitting it in the round with a steek:

That strip of checkerboard is the steek: 10 stitches where I alternate colors. I am knitting the wrap as a circular piece and when done I’ll cut down the middle of the checkerboard lengthwise to open the piece up into a flat rectangle.

Because the Kauni yarn is a hairy shetland-type wool, it is perfect for steeking and will not unravel when cut. I’ll steam block it after cutting, and that will slightly felt the ends, making it even further unravelable.

I’ll then pick up and knit an edging all the way around the rectangle.

I do love stranded colorwork. It’s one of my favorite things to do in knitting. Here, just for fun, is a photo that shows the inside/wrong side of the knitting.

So this is my knitting future for a while. I have lots of yarn and plan to knit to 60″ long or so. I’m using a 3.25mm needle and getting 7 stitches and 8 rows to the inch, so it is fairly fine work.

In other news, I sucked it up and did my taxes and e-filed them today. Lucy finds this very stressful, so she is now resting!

I finished up the Oregon Hat last night.

So for now I am done with Oregon. I have a set.

Preview of coming attractions:

Lucy is resting up for it!

The project I showed in its early stages in Wednesday’s blog post is now complete: Alice Starmore’s Oregon Cowl.

The cowl is part of a kit from Virtual Yarns and it is available in Autumn or Spring colorways. (Mine is the Autumn colorway.) The kit includes yarn and instructions for a hat, cowl, fingerless mitts, and gloves.

The yarn is Alice Starmore Hebridean 2-ply and in stranded colorwork it knits up to a gauge of 28 stitches and 32 rows to 4 inches using a U.S. size 3 (3.25mm) needle, which is what I used for the cowl. There are 12 different colors in the cowl, and some of the color changes are extremely subtle.

I made Starmore’s Oregon Cardigan in the Spring colorway, using the original Jamieson & Smith yarns and colors — photos here. Almost exactly 10 years ago. Wow. Time flies.

This reminds me of how much I love to do colorwork. It’s not extremely portable, but it sure is fun.

Next up — the Oregon fingerless mitts. I figured I could use a new pair, particularly in light of the Powers That Be cutting back on the hours they will be providing us with heat at the office. (This is a sequestration cut-back.) I picture myself Bob Cratchit-like, swathed in shawls, working at my computer by the light of one 40-watt bulb. Heh.

I started the mitts on Friday, finished them late Saturday night.

This is a testament to how entertaining I find colorwork to be.

And this morning I just barely started the matching hat.

I don’t plan to knit the gloves because I find that I never wear knitted gloves. (I prefer leather gloves.) But the kit has plenty of yarn for a pair of gloves, so I may make them at some point in the future.

Now I have to go. Lucy wants to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD.