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Readalong and Knit this Amazing Mountain Throw

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intarsia mountain knitalong readalongIt must be the season for knitalongs, because here’s another great one coming up soon.

Heidi from Hands Occupied is hosting her fall Read Along Knit Along with the book The Snow Child by Eowin Ivey and Instarsia Mountain, a lovely, rainbow-colored mountain worked mostly in Garter Stitch using the intarsia method.

I want in just for the blanket, honestly, though the book sounds really good, too (it was a finalist for a Pulitzer in 2013).

The knitalong officially starts Sept. 1, and parts of the pattern will be released through the end of October. There are portions of the book to be read for each clue. In addition she’ll be hosting in-person knit night events for Chicago-area knitters, with broadcasts on social media from the events. There will also be discussions on Ravelry and prizes throughout the event and at the end, too, just for fun.

The model was knit with Paintbox Wool Mix Aran yarn, and Love Knitting is working on bundles in vibrant and neutral colors to go with the project. Check back with Heidi’s page for more details on those.

This looks like so much fun and combines my two favorite pastimes; what could be better?

[Photo: Hands Occupied.]

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Tips for Picking the Right Color Yarn for Your Project

I have never been all that picky about the colors I use in knitting projects. When choosing colors for projects to go in my books, I try to pick colors that go together in individual projects and also to use a variety of colors among the projects in the book, so while I love blue and green I make sure to throw in orange and yellow as well, for example.

When knitting projects for myself I’m usually using stash so whatever I have is good enough. Or if I do happen to be buying yarn for a project, it’s usually more about the texture or fiber content of the yarn first, then choosing a color I like, rather than having a color in mind then finding a yarn with that in its line.

Marie at Olive Knits was looking for the perfect green yarn to replace a store bought sweater, and she found that picking out exactly the right shade was trickier than she expected.

She wrote a blog post full of tips for finding the right yarn when you’re looking for a particular color.

I think the hardest part of this these days is that we tend to do so much online shopping for yarn, either because we don’t have a local yarn store, we can’t get what we want locally or we want to support independent makers who live elsewhere. And if you’ve ever received yarn that isn’t quite the color you were expecting you know what I’m talking about.

One of her tips, then, is to look at a color swatch for the yarn you’re thinking about buying on every monitor or device you have available because it probably will look different on different screens (and maybe different still in person, and under different lighting conditions, or if you use it in a project with other colors…).

Check out her post for more tips on finding the right color for your project.

[Photo: Olive Knits.]

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