Challenge knitting complicated patterns

Another challenge for me was to dig into new, rounded patchwork knitting à la Horst Schulz - I had tried to understand one of his more intriguing patterns - 'An African Adventure' (here's the free pattern pdF - in English) - a couple of years before, but had failed - and now I gave it a new try - and suddenly it came all clear!

I also found this new book by of on his 'scholars', showing further variations on this adventurous knitting technique: ('Patchworkstricken' by Liane Schommertz - in German).

A funny thing about these patterns is that you only have to deal with one or at the most two colours at the same time, and that you (except for the borders) only hold very few stitches on your needles for every patch, which are even decreased constantly while working.

It's also a splendid opportunity to use up lots of yarns from your stash, awakening the pattern to life without the feeling of producing a 'patchy' look.

So I started two new projects, the first one maybe turning out to become an afghan in the end, with 5 mm needles -



- the second project with 4 mm needles and double 4-ply sockyarn, aimed to result in a sleeveless vest some day (although at the moment, it looks more like a frog to me :-) -



At Ravelry, there is even a 'Horst Schulz Fan Group' where you can find more information on the patterns.

(German summary: Meine neue Herausforderung sind die gerundeten Patchworkformen à la Horst Schulz - so langsam begreife ich endlich das Prinzip und erfreue mich an dieser witzigen Stricktechnik!)