Ewetopia

Is not a new dystopian young-adult novel about knitters ruling the world, but a new yarn from Frog Tree.  I was delighted when they asked me to design something using it.  Ewetopia is merino wool, spun with half superwash merino, half fine merino, so it takes the color differently in each fiber, ending up a sort of ragg/marled color.  I don’t know anything about spinning, but it has a nice, sproingy feel.  Coming soon to a yarn shop near you.

The color contrast in the twist made a design challenging, though, because stitch patterns got lost.  I tried cables and traveling stitches among other ideas, then gave up.  (I really should keep photos of my failures.)  I went back to basics, and used garter rib to make a pattern with several variations on the basics. A hat that can be a beanie or slouchy.  You make it slouchy by widening and narrowing the ribs.  Then, mittens that can shortened into fingerless mitts, sizes toddler to adult.  Something for everyone.  (All this variety carefully tech edited by the wonderful Ellen.)

The toddler photo shoot was fun.  It had just snowed for the only time in March (a whole half inch!) providing that wintery effect.  I wanted to get the hat and the mitten in the same shot, so I asked our model to put his hand on his nose.

Then he took it away.

Here’s the slouchy hat and fingerless mitts:

I think it would make a lovely, cozy sweater, too.  I wanted to make a child’s sweater, but I am always reluctant to do that in non-superwash wool.  Do you make things for children that have to be hand washed?