My first foray into stranding

I love knitting with multi colors.  LOVE IT.  I have done some cable sweaters in the past, and for some reason I have made like 4 red cable knit hats... (again another story for another day) but my true passion is to play with color.  I love them all and it really keeps me knitting.

My first few attempts at intarsia and fair-isle type knitting were a huge fail, and not to ever be discussed. 

 (I think we all have the plastic bin full of "experiments"  Generally mine stay there until I need a good laugh.)

My first success at stranding was a wrap.  It's called Nordic Lights and it's in the book Wrap Style.  It's the cover actually!  It was so irresistible that I went out and bought Cascade 220 and knit it right up.    

I thought it came out so awesome, and I have this cream tight fitting sweater that it looks so good over! With a pair of jeans, I thought I looked sharp.  There was one problem.  You cannot raise your arms, at all. So my job, which involves basically typing all day, was hard to do, I had to keep pulling the sweater down, forget driving, or wearing it under a coat.  So it's beautiful if you just stand there, hands in pockets... Nevertheless it was a BLAST to knit and I recommend it to anyone.

Super close up!  The color choices took some time.

I have since discovered Dale of Norway patterns.  (Incidentally how do you pronounce "Dale" is it like the name.. or is it more like "Dah-ley"?)  At this time I have attempted five of them.  I have completed one,  and the remaining require a smidge of finishing.   My problem is that I enjoy the knitting and hate the finishing, so once the knitting is done, I quickly move to the next thing :)  Oh well.

I really want to try doing something where one of the yarn is variegated or striping or something, I think that looks so cool.  I have some Kauni Wool 8/2 Effetgarn in the rainbow color arriving soon, and want to make that pretty double knit rainbow scarf.   Talk about color...