Color Play

Happy Friday, everyone! I hope this week (with its U.S. holiday) has allowed you to play with those fibers and colors you love most.

As for me, it's been about deadlines, current personal projects, and ... yes ... color, glorious color. After taking care of a project with a publishing deadline (oh, yeah - I am super thrilled about that project!), I have an update on my Cozy Chic cardi:

As you can see, I am making progress on the lower fabric of this bottom-up design. I am getting about ready to start the split for the armhole/sleeve sections. I am enjoying this yarn and colorway a lot. The crochet lace stitch pattern is also easily memorizable, so I have been able to take this project pretty much everywhere I go and work on it a little bit at a time, all the time. Definitely my kind of project.

At the same time, there is also a small challenge currently getting underway in the Ravelry Vogue Knitting Group, since this year VK will celebrate its 35th publishing anniversary (at least the modern version of the magazine). One of the group regulars decided she would celebrate such a publishing milestone by working a project from any issue published in 2017 ... as well as 2007, 1997, and 1987. Now that is some kind of way to celebrate. 

Since my own personal Vogue Knitting magazine library only dates back as far as 1991, I am a little behind the curve on 1987 (so to the public library I go). However, looking through my 1997 editions, I found a fair isle project that struck my fancy, and purchased the yarn pictured at the right for it. However, once I received it and mulled it over, I was not super thrilled with the light blue. As I have blogged about in the past, color and context are intricately linked. The blue lacks depth (and probably is a litttle too bland) for what I had in mind.

So, I went stash diving to find something to replace the blue (which will stay in my stash for use in some as-yet-known future project), and landed upon my always awesome skeins of Neighborhood Fiber Co. To the left, you will see what I eventually replaced the blue with: two skeins of NFC (one graffiti and one a color test) that, held together, will provide depth and a bridge between the dark blue and the solid green. 

You can, of course, also see the boxy fair isle pullover that this wonderfully colored yarn will become. I cannot believe how fresh the design still is today - remember, this was originally published in 1997. It is fun to see and hear participants not only talk about these designs from the Vogue Knitting archives, but to also see some of them in finished form pulled out and proudly displayed. 

Oh, the staying power of good design.