Valfreya, sitting up straight.

Last Thursday, I posted about my good friend Bonnie Kate's and the Kickstarter campaign she launched to raise funds for her final major project at school, which was knitting an enormous map of the world. Because she's fancy like that.

Well, another truly excellent backer reward showed up in my inbox a few weeks ago!

Bonnie Kate's Valfreya Slouch pattern proved to be a joy to knit. For my iteration, I chose some purple yarn of unknown material that I had overdyed with blue food coloring. The pattern looks great in it, but it doesn't really allow this hat to fulfill its slouchy potential, as you can see by comparing my version with the pictures on the pattern page.

But the ribbing! The basketweave! The squishy cables surrounded by seed stitch! And the reverse stockinette stripes! What more could you ask for?

And I love the silhouette! I've never knit a hat with this shape before, but it might be a new favorite. It's very no-nonsense about covering the ears, and with the brim flipped up, the lack of slouch in my slouch is no problem at all.

The tremendous Bonnie Kate.

Tremendous. Adjective. Very great in amount, scale, or intensity.

Last spring, I had the honor of supporting my dear friend Bonnie Kate, (who I have a feeling I am going to talk about a lot on this blog, given that two of my first four posts concern her) in her final major project at the London College of Communication.

She decided to literally knit the world, because doing reasonable things just isn't really within the realm of possibility for her. Here is proof - if it's on a Ravelry project page, it must be true, right?

I can't lie, though - backing her project on Kickstarter wasn't exactly a selfless decision. There was something in it for me.

© Bonnie Kate Wolf

These babies were hand-knitted just for me as a backer reward by Bonnie herself. I've been watching her obsession with luscious handwarmers develop since she knit her first stitches, and even helped her decipher the pattern for her second ever pair, so there's no way I was about to pass these up. I can't wait for it to get cooler so I can wear these all the time and feel like my hands are made of raspberries!

© Bonnie Kate Wolf

Noro Kureyon, also known as the most fun ever.

I recently had the thoroughly delightful experience of attending a half-off sidewalk sale at Knitterly in Petaluma, CA, one of my favorite local yarn shops.

I was particularly thrilled to find two matching skeins of Noro Kureyon, in a colorway that immediately made me think of this awesome girl:

© Bonnie Kate Wolf

This is Bonnie Kate, or thesunshinechild on Ravelry. Fortunately, she's a knitter too, so she understood that while this yarn was ultimately going to end up with her, I absolutely could not let her knit with it. I just couldn't be that selfless.

I've knit with Noro before, but it was Cash Iroha, which is all solid colors. Kureyon is a totally different ballgame. I have never had this much fun with yarn, trying to anticipate the next color change, only to be surprised by a ply of yellow in the blue or brown in the peach.

I cast on 180 stitches, joined in the round, and alternated rows of garter stitch starting at the same end of each skein. I had to fudge it a little at the beginning, since one skein had a length of yellow where the other had only blue, but once the color changes were more or less lined up I stopped making decisions and just knitted!

The result was quite an excellent cowl!

© Bonnie Kate Wolf

I'd love to do more variations on this - with three skeins, or in a shorter cowl. The color changes would look so different every time!

What's your favorite way to use Noro?