I’ve enjoyed thinking about how DOTS can inspire us creatively for the last few posts on here… however, of course the *best* dots are the ones knitted by you. The POLKAMANIA! is a fairly big knitting commitment – it’s a lot of dots, and a lot of stranded colourwork. There are a few still in progress (cheer for those buddies!) but these are the cowls completed for the KAL deadline of 28th February.

01: Bev

Easy pattern to remember and lots of stonking colour. YAAAS! Just what I need right now!

Find Bev’s POLKAMANIA! project page here.

02: Mary Jo

This was a wonderful project – maybe not wonderful in its usefulness since I live in a climate which is almost always too warm to wear a cowl! – but so much fun. It was just a pleasure to sit down and work on it. There were revelations about how the color of the background affected the color of the dots – for instance on a warm red background the gray looks like blue. Definitely something to think about when planning Fair Isle projects.

Find Mary Jo’s POLKAMANIA! project page here.

03: Maylin

Need a happy project to get me through the winter months so this will certainly fit the bill. I may add a second darker background colour half-way, but for now, I’m just letting the Crazy Zauberball do its thing and having fun watching the dots change colours.

Find Maylin’s POLKAMANIA! project page here.

04: Muriel

Colours: aquamarine, geranium, Venetian,carmine, jasper, sugarsnap, poppy, iced, navy heather, vintage heather, robins egg and marlin.

Find Muriel’s POLKAMANIA! project page here.

05: Takako

Looking at the knitted fabric from a distance, the background color may appear to float.
The relationship between color combination and eye illusion is interesting.

Find Takako’s POLKAMANIA! project page here.

06: Vivienne

Colours from stash, inspired by the fabulous skies in Flash Gordon.

Find Vivienne’s POLKAMANIA! project page here.

These projects are all so beautiful. From the luminous tones of Takako’s cowl (which she PERFECTLY GRAFTED IN PATTERN) to the radiant, Flash-Gordon inspired palettes of Vivienne’s… to the spring-like petals of Muriel’s cowl to the mellow gradients of Maylin’s cowl… to the subtle colour play of hot and cold reds with different shades grey in Mary Jo’s cowl… to the bold, confident joy of Bev’s cowl… they’re all just brilliant: bright, playful and DOTTY.

Thank you SO MUCH for joining in with this adventure in dots, comrades!

Asking this random number-generator to pick numbers from these six completed projects has thrown up the following numbers: 02, 04, 01. If prizes are awarded in the same sequence as I wrote about them then CONGRATULATIONS – IN DOT SPACE will soon be on its way to Mary Jo; REACH FOR THE STARS will soon be on its way to Muriel; and THE CALMNESS OF DOTS will soon be on its way to Bev.