Last week I went on a trip with our two youngest sons to visit our daughter who is a teacher in Arizona. We had a great visit, and the little boys got to go on their first roller coaster!

One of my favorite things about knitting is that it means never being bored. While waiting at the airport, riding in a car, or waiting for the others to ride a ride I didn’t want to ride (say that three times fast), I just pulled out my knitting project and enjoyed the wait. I bet you do the same!

I decided to bring along a small project that has been on my list for a long time–the DaVinci Cowl by Mary-Ann Lammers. The idea is to take a block variegated colorway, figure out how many stitches it takes you to go all the way around one set of colors in the colorway, and knit that many stitches so the colors stack. You can certainly do the same thing with crochet.

That said, I was anxious to cast on and maybe didn’t take as much care as I should have to figure out the right number of stitches to keep the colors stacking. That’s okay, though, because I love how it turned out.

The designer recommends using 2 or 3 times the number of stitches that gets the stacked stitches. I used 2, but if I were to do it again I’d probably just use 1 times the number of stitches to get a cowl that’s smaller in diameter and taller. The pattern calls for fingering-weight yarn and US Size 6 needles, but I used most of a skein of Purple Iris on Buttery Soft DK and went up to Size 8 US needles.

For planned pooling, I would recommend any skein that has between 3 and 6 color blocks with at least a few inches per block of color.

If you’re interested in learning more about planned pooling, there’s a great book by Laura Bryant called Artful Color, Mindful Knits: The Definitive Guide to Working with Hand-Dyed Yarns. In it she talks about all sorts of different techniques for using block variegated colorways to get amazing effects. Marly Bird does the same for crochet in her book, Yarn Pooling Made Easy.

Have you made any planned pooling projects? If so, I’d love to see them and share them for our next Show and Tell newsletter.

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Upcoming Show and Tell

Speaking of Show and Tell, let’s do our next Show and Tell newsletter next week! If you have a WIP or FO you would like to share, please send me a photo or two along with any pattern info. I think everyone loves seeing what you all have made and being inspired by your projects.

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May Club Colorway

For May I’ll be using a painting by Giovanni Paolo Pannini called Gallery of Views of Ancient Rome. He painted it in 1758, and it’s in the Louvre.

I love the details with all the different ruins in and around Rome along with the painters copying them just as they do in museums to this very day. I know just how I want to dye the yarn colorway and make the art batts too! Remember that the deadline to join the art-inspired monthly yarn club or make any changes to your subscription is the last day of the month.

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Fresh from the Dye Pots

This week I dyed some Van Gogh’s Starry Night on Squoosh DK:

I also dyed Sapphire Dreams on Sock Perfection:

I dyed the three colorways for the Angel Wings Ponchette on Sock Perfection–Monet, Purple Delight, and Epiphany:

Last but not least, I dyed up the Vivaldi’s Four Seasons colorways on Sock Perfection:

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Planet Earth

As I write this, I have a new colorway inspired by NASA’s recent Artemis mission, though I’m actually using an older photo of our beautiful home:

I should have Planet Earth listed by early next week–in time for Earth Day.

I think that’s everything for this week. I hope you have a lovely weekend and find time to enjoy the fiber arts.