Subtle Mosaic

The book: Mosaic Knitting by Barbara Walker. A stitch dictionary of charted designs for mosaic knitting. I have only used this technique in small projects such as little bags to carry things inside another bag, ipod cases, glasses cases, etc. You could knit a variety of squares and sew them together.

The yarn: Berocco Seduce. 4% Rayon, 25% Linen, 17% Silk, 11% Nylon. A stiff and shiny yarn with no memory. I looked at it for months before biuying 2 skeins to try it out. It's kind of like knitting with a stiff flax.

The needles: 2mm / zero US. Warning: knitting stiff yarn with small needles can result in a headache, but otherwise, the result is good. There must be some yoga exercise for this.

I was warned that this yarn could be frustrating because it doesn't wind well and won't stay in a ball. I don't remember where I saw this in practice, but it came to mind that capturing the balls of yarn immediately after winding in footlets would work and did it ever! It's perfect. When you want more yarn you just pick up the thread and shake it out of the footlet. Can you read "no nonsense" on the toes?

After knitting a 4 inch by 12 inch piece, I cast off and put it overnight in a bath of Soak. I'm curious to see what that will do to it, remembering an article (New Yorker?) about some conservators who gave a bath to some medieval tapestries. They did time lapse photography so they could watch how the fibres moved and turned as it soaked. Or am I making this up?

So what's so subtle? Well, the darker yarn is variegated. You have to double click on a photo of the knitting to embiggen it to get an idea of what I'm talking about here. The variegation in the colour makes the hash mark motif in the pattern less visible, but it's still there. It's just subtler. I like that.

Hope to have better pictures tomorrow.