Remember that picture of the yarns as seen through the Teleidoscope? You don’t?? Ok, to refresh your memory here it is:

Here are how the colors came together in the actual swatch:

The swatch is my launching point for making fingerless gloves from a book I’ll be reviewing later in the month.  The book walks the knitter through all aspects of planning and designing her own projects. Now that I have a color combination that I like and gauge from my swatch, I’ll follow the author’s simple worksheets to create fingerless gloves just the way I want them.  I can hardly wait to get started!

What do kaleidoscopes and knitting have to do with each other? I’ve come to find out that the beautiful patterns we all enjoyed as kids looking through kaleidoscopes and the yarn colors we use as knitters today come together through a nifty gizmo that KnitPicks calls a Teleidoscope.

The Teleidoscope is a simple cardboard tube.

The clear ball lens at one end distorts whatever you’re looking at – in this case yarn. You look through the other end, down through mirrors that crate a kaleidoscopic effect.

I’m embarking on another stranded knitting project. It will – I hope – help bust a bit of my stash. I knew I wanted to use a teal-ish blue I have on hand, plus a creamy white. But I needed some accent colors to jazz it up. How would they look all together? This is where the Teleidoscope came in. Here are the two main colors as seen through the the Teleidoscope:

As you look through the Teleidocsope you add and subtract yarns to see their effect on each other, including the proportions of one color to another. I tried a variety of accent colors, and here’s how a mustard looked added to the original:

I kind of like it. But the pattern I’m using calls for “bright, multi-colored ribbing.” Hmm…. it needs more. I threw in a bit of brown I have left over from a scarf. And then tossed in a coral from another project. Here are how the five balls of yarn looked through the Teleidscope: 

I’ll use all five of these colors in the ribbing for my new project – fingerless gloves. The colorful stripes will make a nice accent to the teal and white hand, and will maintain the pattern’s ethnic tradition. I can hardly wait to swatch!

It may seem strange to be obsessed with stitch markers, but I am. I love the shiny colors, I love coming across them as I knit. I love that they make life oh-so-much easier. I have a batch of new favorites, in red and green for Christmas.

The green markers are especially cute, with little flowers in the glass.

One of the things I appreciate about these markers are the solid ring. Unlike the split ring markers I’ve had in the past, these do not snag my yarn. If you like these, you might want to check out Lima Pop Shoppe on Etsty.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!