Knit Play Colour love at Yarndale!

Wow.

No, really. That’s the word that comes to mind to describe an amazing, woolly time in Skipton at Yarndale last weekend. Now that I’ve had time to catch my breath, not only from the long drive back but also from launching the book yesterday, it’s been lovely to look back at the photos and re-live the weekend all over again.

No, I’m not really knitting on the motorway! We were stopped for an hour due to an accident. The engine was OFF!

It was a very early start from Twickenham on the Friday morning and we were making good time until we came to a closure due to an accident. Is it only us knitters who welcome the opportunity to come to a full stop on the motorway? The rest of the weekend was so busy, this is probably the most knitting I accomplished over three days!

My traveling companion, Alli, and I made good time to Yarndale once we were moving again, and even managed to beat Victoria and the Eden Cottage Yarns team to the venue for set up! Pretty soon though, we were lugging boxes and boxes of yarn into the ginormous quadruple stand and making it ready for Saturday’s opening:

This is just a small portion of the stand filled with Victoria’s yummy yarns!

Victoria was launching her collection at Yarndale – Drift (more on that in another post as it deserves it’s own!) – but was kind enough to offer me a little corner of her stand where I set up for the launch of Knit Play Colour. Victoria has also arranged for samples from the book to be knit in her own yarns, and they were wonderful! It was hard not to get carried away showing them off and helping people choose yarns and colours to make their own projects.

My own little corner of the Eden Cottage Yarns stand

Aren’t those little yarnlings delicious? Perfect for a stripe-y version of Yarn Tamer or Resonate…

And look how AMAZING the Shadowlines wrap came out in Eden Cottage Yarns’ Whitfell Chunky! This is what happens when you play:

You’ll need 8-10 skeins of ECY Whitfell Chunky to knit this indulgent wrap

The rest of Yarndale was a bit of a blur, to be honest! I spent so much time chatting with many of you and I can’t tell you overwhelming it is to finally have the book out there in the world and see your response to it. Thank you to everyone who stopped by, tried on the garments, picked up a book and gave me good wishes. Thank you!

One of the few things I managed to get a picture of – these gorgeous yarn bowls!

And for those of you who thought it might be torture being on a stand all weekend with all that lovely yarn? Well, you were right. There was no way I could resist this:

My Yarndale splurge – time for something for ME! It’s such a “Louise colour” isn’t it?

I figure after knitting all of those accessories that surely I can take a break with knitting a garment? I’m looking forward to the kids’ half-term, when I’ll be knitting this.

If you were there, I hope you enjoyed Yarndale as much as I did. Look out for more yarnie confessions on Instagram, as I get myself organised again!

PS if you pre-ordered Knit Play Colour, all the pre-orders have now been shipped. Yay!

Knit Play Colour: Shadowlines & Umbra

Shadowlines

I am so excited to share these beautiful cables with you at last.

There is a tantalizing glimpse of Shadowlines on the cover of Knit Play Colour. This was our favourite at the shoot, and I hope you will love this snuggly wrap as much as we do!

(If you’re after a smaller project for cowl season and gift knitting, there’s Umbra – more of that in a minute).

Knit Play Colour: Flight of Colour

This shallow triangle scarf is designed to be easy to personalize. The simple structure of Flight of Colour allows you to play with stripes and yarn colours.

I have seen knitters daunted by choosing 3 colours to put together. Not everyone finds it so easy to recolour a pattern. So I designed this to be as simple as possible to recolour.

Choose a favourite colour for your contrast. Choose a dark neutral and a pale neutral to set off your contrast colour.

Knit Play Colour: Warm Hearted

Cosy in MillaMia Aran in Latte

(Sorry, I’m having blog issues after adding a new page about the book. Posts are getting converted to pages when I hit publish. Fixing this one – again.)

When I designed Song of the Sea, I got frequent questions about converting this cowl into a scarf or shawl. I designed Siren Song in response to those questions.

This time, I’ve pre-empted the questions by designing Warm Hearted as the flat companion to Heart Deco. Truth be told, the blanket came first this time.

Knit Play Colour: Resonate

If there was a prize for most-petted sample from Knit Play Colour, this cowl would win already. Resonate draws the eye with it’s lines of colour, and then when you touch it you just can’t let go.

I love this yarn because finally I get to have halo without mohair; Fyberspates Cumulus is an alpaca/silk blend. OK, it’s actually a baby Suri alpaca/Mulberry silk blend. It couldn’t be softer and fuzzier. I can only apologise if you can’t do alpaca; I’ll stop waxing lyrical about it now.

Leaving aside my preferred yarn (which is difficult), when it came to testing, this design had the most love. Hands down.

Knit Play Colour: The Yarn Tamer

Yarn Tamer in Countess Ablaze Persephone Sock, Nemesis & This Ain’t a Scene

You know that yarn you possibly shouldn’t have bought, but you really love the colours? Too bright? Too wishy-washy? Not your usual palette?

We’ve all got this wild yarn, often purchased at a show. The skein is totally gorgeous, but somehow it’s a bit too… much. We need to bring the colours closer to our usual palette, without losing the magic.

Enter the Yarn Tamer.

Knit Play Colour: Heart Deco

I thought it was time I designed a new lace cowl, especially for Knit Play Colour.

Introducing a cowl with Art Deco hearts that catch the light: Heart Deco.

Knit Play Colour: a Trailblazer of a scarf

I love scarf patterns that show off that one beautiful skein of hand-painted yarns. So I just had to design a new one for the book.

Trailblazer is the smaller, scarf version of the Colour Trail shawl.

Colour Trail: first pattern to share from Knit Play Colour

Join us on the Colour Trail

I am so excited to share with you the first pattern in my book! This is Colour Trail.

I love finding textures to show off hand-dyed yarn, so it makes sense to start with this pattern. Here, arcing lines of slipped stitches create long trails of colour. The garter stitch blends shades together, and dashes of colour flash in the simple lace border.

The shawl makes a gentle crescent shape, so it sits beautifully around the shoulders. It’s lovely to wear, and pretty easy to knit – it’s an intermediate project with no difficult stitches.

The patterns in Knit Play Colour are structured so that there is a basic pattern first. You can follow these instructions to make a beautiful project. The shawl shown here is made with 3 skeins of Madelinetosh Tosh Merino DK, knit at a loose gauge of just 18 sts per 10cm/4” on 5mm/US 8 needles. You can see how well it drapes and how open the lace mesh border looks.

Want to do something different? At the end of each pattern are instructions on how to “play” with the design.

For this pattern, the first thing I played with was gauge and colour choice. At a firm 22 sts per 10cm/4” on 4mm/US 6 needles, but in a similar yarn, this is a snug, cosy, textural project. With the lace unblocked, it creates dense dashes of vibrant colour in this variegated EasyKnits ZipLight in Banshee.

Same pattern – but at a different gauge and in a bold yarn.

The pattern is designed to work from laceweight through to aran/heavy worsted yarns. If you want to adjust the width of the lace border, to allow for different yarns and gauges, instructions are given on how you can do this. Yarn quantities for these different weights are on the Ravelry pattern page, and in the book. The aim of this post is to show you more about the “play” ideas, rather than get too technical.

To give you an idea of how the design looks in lighter yarns and different levels of variegation, this is it in Ginger’s Hand Dyed Splendor 4ply (50% Merino, 50% silk, 400m/437yds per 100g skein) in Hocus Pocus. You could use 2 skeins to make a smaller size shawl, or 3 skeins for a generously proportioned version. I like this yarn at 22 sts per 10cm/4” over Garter Stitch using 3.75mm/US 5 needles, as shown. It was wet blocked gently to open out the lace. The gentle variegations show beautifully.

Gently flecked, in 4ply/fingering.

I currently have on my needles a version in Fyberspates Gleem Lace (55% Bluefaced Leicester, 45% silk, 800m/875yds per 100g skein). I’m using 1 skein of Lundy Island at 24 sts per 10cm/4” over Garter Stitch using 3.5mm/US 4 needles. With 1 skein, I’ll work to the smallest measurements given in the pattern. With 2 skeins, you could work to largest measurements. The swatch has been wet blocked hard. I want this as a summer shawlette; light and simple. I’m also thinking I’ll wear it scrunched up and wound round my neck in autumn. It is so subtly semi-solid that it’s hard to see the colour changes, so it really shows off the textures in the design.

A quiet, subtle project – still using the same pattern.

It’s often a trade-off between showing off colours in the yarn or showing off textures in the knitting. Sometimes it’s possible to create a balance, in a design that uses different textures to show the colours in the yarn. I tried to achieve that here.

I’m also hoping that I’ve shown you how the ten patterns in the book will make hundreds of possibilities for your next project! These are flexible patterns, with ideas to inspire you and all the help you need.

This is the first pattern being shared from Knit Play Colour. The book is available to pre-order now as an ebook on Ravelry, or as a printed book (including a download code for a free copy of the ebook). Patterns are being shared during September, with the book released on the 29^th.

Which yarns do you want to take with you on a Colour Trail?

All images © Jesse Wild 2015