Mosaic knitting Revisited

It seems an entire lifetime ago, but one of my earliest posts was about how enamored I had become of the "Mosaic Knitting" technique as elaborated in Barbara G. Walker's book of the same name.

(those posts are in the June and July archives; I can't make a link work this morning.)

Part of why I loved the principle so much was because I had considerable experience with two-color slipped garter stitch. I finally unearthed the reason why:



This square (destined to be a pillow top) is how I finally decided to work up my first (probably only) attempt at naturally hand-dyed yarn. The center squares are four-color slipped garter stitch and the twelve around the edges are all the two-color combinations.



This was very mathematically pleasing. The technique looks more complicated than it is and the mood completely changes with the background color.



Here's a closeup of an edge...the purple-green square very close to the green-purple square for comparison. Also a nice bit of contrast between the brown and the undyed wool. I liked that tan so well I might make more someday.


Oh but "make more" reminds me: the tan is just a whole bunch of teabags. The pink is acidic red cabbage and the green is basic red cabbage (hey, chemistry really works!)


As I was noodling around with the colors for those squares I realized that one COULD make more elaborate designs if one thought about it in advance. I didn't play with the idea but I'm very glad Barbara Walker did. I have plans to get back to that book someday!