This is not knitting

Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while may remember this throw that I found last Fall right after we found out we were moving. (It was the Spice Multi colorway that really grabbed me.) I tried to ignore it. I kept thinking about the throw. I tried to sleep it off. I kept thinking about the throw. I moved for Heaven's sake! The throw stuck in my head anyway. So I picked up a couple of crochet books and piddled around with it some.

While I haven't really done much with the throw (or the making of my own throw), it's still stirring around in my head. Periodically I wander through the crochet section of Ravelry. At some point, I found this project. It's a scarf (not a throw), but it's made in Noro's Silk Garden sock yarn. I love the way the colors shift on each motif and there would only be two ends on each motif to deal with later because of the way the yarn does the color work for you. I realized that I could get a similar yarn, pick a motif and do a similar project in a large scarf/small wrap size. This way I could get a feel for crochet on an actual project before committing myself to a large throw.

Here's what I have so far:

This is Jojoland Melody Superwash (from The Loopy Ewe) in colorway MS26. It's a fingering weight yarn. I'm using a C hook (2.75mm) and I'm using Motif #49 from Beyond the Square Crochet Motifs. Like the Noro, the Jojoland shifts slowly from one color to the next along it's length. Unlike the Noro (which is a single), the Jojoland is a three ply and the colors shift within the plies. I've done 12 little star flower shapes so far and I don't have any that are identical. It's fascinating to watch the colors change ever so subtly and despite the fact that the colors are all over the spectrum in this yarn, because they blend so slowly, all the little shapes work together. It's totally reminding me of the Autumn leaves we had up in Virginia every Fall. I'm really enjoying working on it and the crochet is using my hand muscles differently than knitting does, which is always a good thing. Since I knit Continental style, I find that my left hand does more when I knit, but when I crochet (and I'm not saying I'm an expert or even that I'm doing it right, but I'm getting little star things which resemble the motif in the book pretty closely, so I must be doing OK) I find that my right hand does most of the work.