I have a bad habit.  I knit a lot of swatches (that’s not the bad habit part, that’s the good habit part).  And I take photos of them to share them with you (also not the bad habit part).  But then I forget to show them to you (that’s the bad habit part).  So every now and then I clear out my camera’s memory card and stumble across all sorts of stuff, most of which I have no memory of.

Like this…all I can tell you is it’s from Shibui’s fluffy yarn, I have no idea of the colors (the yarn is back in the stash and I am not cool enough to go dig it out for you).  It’s lovely, but I don’t’ have the fortitude necessary to knit a hat on cobwebs right now.

Or this, which I know is two colors of something by Malabrigo, and I still feel like they SHOULD go together (because there are bits of that green in with the pink).

But they super don’t.  Not even if I hold them out at arm’s length and squint real yard.

The green almost (almost) goes with white.

And you’d think everything would go with white, but wow does that pink super super not (I think I need to make the pink the background and make something like a dark navy the foreground, it needs someone to keep it firmly in line.

And, while we’re at it, pink is currently apparently just generally trying to mess with me.  Because while this is a lovely stitch, that color is too bright against plain old white.

But it IS an awfully good stitch (especially since it’s pretty on both sides), so I’m going to play more with it.  Just in something less…eye searing.

All of which is my very long, very rambly way of saying swatch. Swatch all the time. Learn things from your swatches. You can rip them out when you’re done, it’s not a waste of yarn.  And realizing ‘ack, no, bad yarn pairing’ after a swatch is much faster than realizing it two inches into a hat, so it’s not a waste of time either.

Though you’re on your own when it comes to cleaning out your camera card…that’s apparently not my strong suit.