Icterine Curls

I made one of Hunter Hammersen’s Curls to see what this little discovery of hers was all about. I am always intrigued by clever construction, so I was very taken with these when she brought the idea to our writing retreat.

I chose to make Icterine Curls. I liked the intense texture and felt it would be well suited to a yarn sitting in my stash.

Because I’m a knitting geek and wanted to know how this worked, I first did a swatch of Infuscate to see how the construction played out.

My Thoughts on Icterine Curls

I found Icterine Curls to be a good and satisfying knitting project. I liked that I just plucked a yarn from my stash and worked until it seemed I needed  to stop to have enough yarn left for the bind off, but not too much. This is a challenge I like–and I think makes me work faster. Soon I was facing a growing number of stitches and not much to do except the massive cable crosses and watching as new repeats were added in by the increases. I ended up with about 3 yards left after sewing on my button!

I always need knitting projects that I can work on without a lot of thought but that unfold in a satisfying way (and if you look closely, you can see where my row counts may not always have been entirely accurate) so although it didn’t challenge me for very long, it was just what I needed to have going at the time.

Hunter’s charts are nicely presented and understandable, but were a little challenging for me–and perhaps only me. I did not use the Stitch Maps chart, because I didn’t think of it.

• I have trouble with the whole knit on RS/purl on WS symbology (read this)
• The colors differentiating segments were not always clear as I knit in less than ideal light
• The RS rows went from left to right. I usually avoid that if possible and it made it less intuitive for me to work the charts (this is probably just me)
• There are no written words for the stitch pattern. I would have liked there to be words at least for the basic stitch pattern repeat (because of this)

I am a big fan of starting big and reducing stitches so that my stitch count dwindles to match my enthusiasm for any project. Because I was working the other way, and the cables created a kind of unblocked lump, the entire time I was knitting I was anxious to see what it would look like when I blocked it. Plus, every Curl will have a different curl to it, so there is plenty of reason to keep going. I considered this a huge plus in any knitting project!

I completely recommend Curls projects for using limited quantities of yarn and to explore stitch patterns. Hunter has cleverly given us many types of patterns to work. Curls are perfect for gifts and perfect to fill in the holes in your knitting schedule. Each Curl reveals itself in some way in the blocking stage, which makes them very satisfying right through to the end.