At exactly the wrong time (mail delivery restrictions) before Christmas I discovered Amy King's pattern Less is More in the current issue of Knittyspin. It is accompanied by a wonderful article on blending colours and after reading it I knew I REALLY wanted to play with this.
The pattern concept is to use different plaits of fibre that one has fallen in love with and bought randomly over time and blend them together, when knitting them, to make up a cardigan.
So I went stash diving and found an array of fibre that I could 'make do' with in the spirit of the pattern. None of them are perfect together but they are interesting with similar colours.
I spun up this Polworth fibre - Spin a Rainbow from - YummyYarns UK first.
Next on the wheel was superwash Merino from Juno Fibre Arts.
I spun up this mixed merino / bfl fibre from Limegreenjelly.
And as I have mentioned before, I like to knit with 3 ply yarn and so I added a single of Mandacrafts Avocado green Falkand to each of the above.
I cast on a couple of weeks ago and as this has been my 'travel' knitting it has grown quite slowly as I have not been out and about much.
I modified the pattern as I had enough yarn in the 3 colourways that I had spun up so did not spin a 4th. I did this by knitting 5 and a half inches before beginning the integration of the next colour and added a couple of rows in the integration process too. Here is the first colour integration
and this is the second
I have now finished the body and am on the sleeves. This project is so much fun to spin for and to knit.
In other exciting news, at the end of January, a man delivered a BIG box to me and inside it was a beautiful Lendrum wheel which I absolutely love. I am still in love Grace, my Ashford traditional and my daughter has claimed my Kiwi, Kismet.
The Lendrun, yet to be named, spins like a dream and I am enjoying beautiful fibre Katie from Hilltopcloud dyed up for me for a cardigan. More about that another time. The fibre in the photo is yet more Falkland from Mandacrafts which I spun up as a trial run.
Beautiful x
ReplyDeleteThe fibre, the yarn, the cardigan and the wheel.
It's a pattern I've admired too - you've achieved a lovely look with the colours - it's the colour combining I'm a little unsure of my abilities to do well but one day I shall give this a go. There is another similar pattern/project I faved too.
Dawn, I had exactly the same concerns and did not believe that the colours would work but decided I would give it a go and frog it if I did not like. My second colour is way off the other two and it works which really surprised me. My advice is - just do it - it works magically in a way that is surprising. Amy king is genius in my book!
DeleteThat greeny brown cardigan above is spot-on, well done and it is really interesting to see how it 'grew'. It's a bit above my head at the moment so will need quite a bit of practice to get to that level of designer yarn. I've just done a sample with two-ply hand-spun so it's interesting to think of a three-ply now after seeing this beauty.
ReplyDeleteThanks:) I can encourage the 3 ply. The yarn just lies so beautifully when one knits it up! I am quite sure you could manage the cardi too - it is easier than it looks. Sometimes I find I just have to leap off the cliff and give it a go!
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