I'm sure that, in between pondering what to cook for dinner yet again and hoovering up crumbly leaves and sand and whatever else the preschooler/dog/cat has stormed in with, you've wondered: what does a crochet speckle look like? Yes yes, me too, it's an important question. So here you are:
Did you spot it? That little dash of burgundy red? Lovely, isn't it.
But it's also made me wonder, why aren't there more crochet speckles about? Why do speckled yarns seem to be mostly a knitterly thing, so much so that I've even heard mutterings of solid colours being "refreshing" in a "world of speckles and fades".
As a new-ish knitter, I'm new-ish to speckles. I've decided I like speckles. I didn't really come to them entirely of my own accord; It was Petra, the indie dyer I'm collaborating with on a merino version of the Sea Glass Shawl who suggested it with such an air of "well why wouldn't you", that I thought, "well why not?" And now, I like them.
Perhaps the reason you don't see so many crochet speckles is because they tend to feature on socks or fingering weight yarns (the very thin, light ones), and my impression is that crocheters prefer DK and above. Speckles are also a bit subtle - you need tiny stitches to show them off. Are we crocheters just a bit too impatient, a bit too used to our projects growing quickly, to really appreciate speckles?
I hope not. Because I want to re-release the pattern for this shawl soon and more speckly ideas are forming in my head. So at some point (providing the baby ever learns to go without mama milk for more than two hours at a time, but that's a story for another day) there will be more crochet speckle. Just a little bit. It's just too pretty not to, isn't it?