This time of year, I am always searching for balance. It is well past the time when I can blame the chaos of my daily life on the holidays (although, I do milk it for all it's worth). The cold keeps me inside with the kiddos enough to make us all feel stir crazy. The flu usually hits us right around now (last week, in fact). And on and on...
While most people make resolutions in January, I take stock in February. This is when I start to think most about balance, and so, with that in mind, here is a peek at my latest design: Counterbalance.
After I graduated from college, I lived and taught in Asia for several years. There is a beautiful custom in South Korea of stacking rocks for good fortune: outside of Buddhist temples, on the tops of mountains, near schools. Almost anywhere there are stones, there are rock stacks. These towers of stone are a tribute to balance, guided by the human touch. I have always found little (and big) rock stacks enchanting.
This pattern was inspired by the simple beauty of those lovely rock towers. These mitts are knit from the bottom up in the round. A single, clean, stacked cable runs along the inner wrist, up the palm, to the base of the thumb. These mitts are not knit identically. Instead, the mitts are mirror images of one another, creating a harmonious pair.
Although I have assigned the mitts “Left” and “Right,” you will find that they cannot be worn “backwards.” The cable looks just as lovely on the back of the hand as it does on the palm. I recommend that you experiment and play.
Choosing yarn for this design was especially fun! Nothing brings me joy like finding the perfect yarn for a design. This design was a collaboration with Autumn and Indigo. Autumn and Indigo has a huge and beautiful palette of yarns. The yarn is squishy and the colors are vibrant. For this project I worked in DK, and I did something that I have never done before. I knit a cabled project in speckles. Speckles would ordinarily obscure the cables, but the light dusting of pink in the "Spirited" colorway paired perfectly with the large stacked cables. And, I will be honest, my camera and I could not get enough of those speckles.
For the fingerless mitt, I used "Flock." Although, I expected this color to be a solid, I was overjoyed to find a wonderful depth of color in this pink yarn.
I hope that you enjoy the pattern. May you avoid the flu, survive your children, knit something warm, and find some balance! Cheers!
