It’s been good to have a slightly less manic week as I have been able to do some knitting and planning future ideas.
The yarn I ordered for the adult version of Caramel Slice arrived, but the colours were not quite what I had expected. The Copper was lighter and the Carrot was really really bright.
Still, I swatched to see how it would all look together and, as I anticipated, I didn’t like the result.
I was happy enough with the Copper as a background colour (I needed to be as I had bought 12 x 50g balls of it!) and the Vanilla Fudge worked well, so I ordered a couple of options for the second contrast colour that were darker that the Copper – Bottle Green and Dark Chocolate. I knitted a couple of small swatches with each of these and laid them on top of the original swatch to get a sense of how they would work. My hand on the right of the pics is covered up the orange underneath.
At this point I am a little bit stuck, as I’m not sure which I prefer. I think I prefer the green, but the chocolate brown works well too. What do you think? I’m planning on calling this cardigan Gingerbread if that’s any help! And the sample is going to be knit in my size so the colours need to suit me.
While I was thinking about this I finished knitting the short Leaf & Vine and grafted the neck together for the two front pieces. It now just needs blocking and seaming!
I knitted this using two skeins of a gorgeous yarn from Second City Yarns which is a blend of British Bluefaced Leicester and British Masham wool.
I also cast on for Sue’s Gwen using a darker shade of blue than in the original sample that I made for Knitting Magazine.
I know they actually look the same colour here, but they’re really not (different lighting makes a huge difference!). The yarn in the mag is Topaz and the one I’m knitting at the moment is Lapis. The yarn is CoopKnits Socks Yeah! and it’s a light 4-ply/sock weight yarn. You can see the proper contrast between them by looking at photos taken with the same lighting – these pics are from Find Me Knitting‘s website where I bought the Lapis colour way for Sue’s top.
Alongside all this I haven’t forgotten my promise to share some pics of the Autumn Dahlia Shawl knit-along that was published in The Knitter last Thursday. I haven’t had my subscriber copy of the magazine yet, but this was their Instagram post about it a few days ago:
Yarn kits (which do not include the pattern) of the Naturalis yarn from Lang Yarns in the original colour way are available from McIntosh who also has a good offer on subscriptions from The Knitter if you don’t already get it. If you don’t like the original colour way, you can of course simply buy the yarn in colours of your own choosing (you need 7 balls of the main colour and 2 of the contrast colour).
This is what the shawl looked like when it was blocking (back in June!):
I’m looking forward to travelling to Mid-Wales on Saturday to teach brioche knitting to members of the Montgomeryshire Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers. It’ll be quite a big group of 13-14 people! Then the weekend after that is Stafford Wool Gathering at Stafford County Showground where I am also teaching a sold out brioche knitting workshop!
I’ll let you know how the workshop went next week and if I’ve made any decision on whether to go with the green or the brown for my cardigan – please do share any thoughts on this in the comments! Take care and I hope you get a chance to do something you enjoy this week. K x