There is a book, pretty much a perfect book for Kidsilk Haze addicts like yours truly, called Silky Little Knits. It’s by Alison Crowther-Smith. In the UK, the book was called Little Luxury Knits, but the content is the same.

There are lots of yummy projects knitted with KSH in this book, but the most interesting thing to me is a technique Ms. C-S presents called colourwashing. What she does here is blend different colours of KSH to gradually change from one colour to the next. Sadly, I can’t find any pix of this out in the big wide world, but if you are on Ravelry (and you can be, because it’s free) you can see examples here in her Colourwash Mittens and Colourwash Cushion.

This book also has a pattern for bedsocks knit of KSH held double. I have fantasized about having socks knit of KSH since reading this pattern, and since I live in a cold place, I have the perfect justification for more socks. Recently, I had a rummage through my leftover bits of KSH, determined to knit bedsocks and to knit them in a colourwash kind of way.

I found a bit of KSH in Candygirl, a bit of KSH in Splendour (both leftover from these gloves), a nearly full ball of Elann Silken Kydd in Raspberry Wine (this is a copy of KSH, ordered for fingering purposes, and actually is only a teensy bit darker than KSH Splendour), a full ball of KSH in Blackcurrant (the “bad match” for the yarn crisis associated with the Lady’s Circular Cape) and a nearly full ball of Elann Silken Kydd in Sapphire.

I didn’t follow her sock recipe, just used my own. I’m lazy like that.

So, I cast on with two strands of Candy Girl held together, then worked 8 rows in stockinette. (Her bedsocks have a ruffle, which is adorable, but I decided to just let my cuffs roll instead.) Then I held one strand of Candy Girl together with one strand of Splendour, and knit 8 rows. Next I used two strands of Splendour together for 8 rows and somewhere in here, I started to knit ribbing – 3×3 simply because there were 18 stitches on each needle and that was easy math. Next, one strand of Splendour and one of Raspberry Wine – these colours are pretty close, so the effect is lost a bit. I knit four rows with two strands of Raspberry Wine, then turned the heel, then knit four rows more.

After that, 8 rows with a strand of Blackcurrant and a strand of Raspberry Wine, 8 rows with two strands of Blackcurrant, Blackcurrant with Sapphire, then Sapphire held double. Then I reversed the colour sequence, hoping it would work out well. I got all the way through the sequence again and had one little snippet of Candygirl which I used on the toe. (Even a meter of KSH is too much to waste.)

Here’s the first one!

The colours appear a bit more emphatic here – because of the flash – than they do in real life. That blend down the length of the foot is really just all a wonderful blue purple mush, and it is almost impossible IRL to see the distinction between the Splendour and the Raspberry Wine, which looks obvious in the shot.

I had been seriously tempted to dig into my non-scraps of KSH. There are three full balls of navy in my stash, which would have made for a nice transition between the Blackcurrant and the Sapphire, also two full balls of another medium blue (Hurricane) and I could have poached some turquoisey Trance from the Lace Jacket still on the needles. I decided to be tough, though, and am glad I was. The Blackcurrant and the Sapphire made navy music on their own when they danced a duet, and I like that the colour sequence went there and back again once.

These are divinely cushy, soft and warm. I can’t wait to get the second one off the needles and feel pampered!