Yes, could it be? It is knitting. Way, long overdue FO's that I have yet to show off to the blogosphere. These FOs were destined to be shown off in a post titled "The first knits in the new year" as B and I wore them on NYE as we attempted to watch the fireworks from the lookout point off the Arguello gate in the Presidio (unfortunately the eucalyptus trees blocked 99.1% of our view). They proved worthy however, keeping us nice and toasty for celebrating the ringing in of 2007.

Pattern: Bea Ellis Nordic Hat Kit
Started: December 2006
Finished: December 2006

If you recall, my first colorwork experience was with the Candy Cane hat from Handknit Holidays. This was a great follow-up project. If I had read up on color dominance earlier, made the green dominant for the main motif (more on that to come). But aside from that, the hat has been well loved and worn pretty regularly. That's one of the only things you can ask for right? Oh, the gratuitous guts shot? Here you go.

Pattern: Endpaper Mitts, Eunny Jang
Yarn: Knitpicks Palette
Started: December 20, 2006
Finished: December 29, 2006

First let me start by saying, the Italian tubular cast-on is my new best friend! There is no way I will be using waste yarn to do 1x1 tubular cast-on any longer! Too bad I can't say the same for 2x2 tubular cast-on. I tried figuring out a technique, but it didn't work. But if any of you have insight on how to figure it out, please let me know.

This was my third colorwork project and I used this not only to practice, but also as an experiment in color dominance to see how much difference it makes when knitting. I held blue on the left in on one mitt and grey on the left in the other. You can barely notice a difference in the photo above, but when you look at them side by side, you can definitely the colors playing themselves out.

Left: Blue dominant, Right: Grey dominant

Whichever color is dominant will pop or stand out more. You can really see the effects on the wrong side of the knitting. How do you determine which color should be dominant? (The following answer is based on my amateur experience in colorwork so please correct me if I'm wrong) In the case of the hat, you would want the motif to stand out and the background color to fall behind. So the green would be dominant. With the mitts, you would have to make a judgement on which design element you want to stand out. Do you want the diamonds to pop (blue dominant), or do you want the diagonal lines to be the focus (grey dominant)? Once you determine which color you'd like to be dominant, make sure this stays in your left hand. I knit colorwork with both hands. I learned the English method and then switched over to Continental about a year later. So the transition to two handed knitting for colorwork wasn't too bad (I just had to remind my right hand what to do). Veronique has a great explaination of color dominance as well as explaining her method of holding yarn for color dominance for English knitting. And of course, here is Nona's explanation of color dominance.