This week I took my Knitting by the Pool Ponchette pattern and dyed up some wonderful new colorways to go with it. Let me tell you a little bit about the pattern, and then I’ll show you the colorway options for the kit.

The Knitting by the Pool Ponchette is a fun and easy assigned-pooling pattern I came up with while I was quite literally sitting by the pool enjoying time with my kids while they swam and I knit.

It’s knit in the round from the top down. The first colorway is intended to be a semi-solid or splashed and speckled colorway, and then you switch to the assigned pooling colorway, finishing off by switching back to the first colorway with a mesh lace and a stretchy bind-off. The whole pattern is intended to be fun and easy to do while doing other things–whether that is sitting by the pool or watching a movie or visiting with friends or family. After you get started, there’s no counting until the very end. The assigned pooling section is made using double-elongated stitches whenever you get to the accent color.

The same kits will also work for Deborah Bowanko’s beautiful Pools of Color pattern. You can see Pools of Color right here:

If you decide to go with the Deborah’s Pools of Color pattern, be sure to choose one of the colorway combos on Sock Perfection because you’ll need all the yardage for her pattern. She’s offering a 20% discount on her pattern for my customers when you use the coupon code PurpleLamb between now and July 4th!

For the Knitting by the Pool Ponchette, any of the three yarn bases will work, and I’ll include the Knitting by the Pool Ponchette pattern when you buy the yarn.

Here are the colorway combinations you can choose from. You can see all the different options in the Kits and Sets section of my website here.

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Fresh from the Dye Pots

In addition to the colorways I dyed for the Knitting by the Pool Ponchette kits, I dyed a few others too. I especially want to point out Wisteria, a colorway I created this week. It just looks so perfectly summery, doesn’t it?

Here’s the colorway and its inspiration:

I also dyed Van Gogh’s Starry Night on several yarn bases in addition to the skeins in the kits. Here it is on Squoosh DK:

Last but certainly not least I dyed more Sunset at Sea to go with the new Caribbean Sunset. Here they are together on Stained Glass Sock:

Sunset at Sea is a splashed and speckled colorway while Caribbean Sunset is dyed in thirds with multiple colors in each third.

Here is Sunset at Sea with Caribbean Sunset and Blue and Green Music on Squoosh DK:

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July Club Colorway

I’ll be using a section of the Bayeux Tapestry as inspiration for the July club colorway. The subject of the Bayeux Tapestry is one of the most important and, in my opinion, one of the more tragic events in Medieval history. It commemorates the Battle of Hastings and William the Conqueror’s invasion of England. I say tragic because prior to that England was ruled by a king, yet the individual subjects had far more freedom than they would have for many hundreds of years after William’s invasion. If you are interested in the topic, I recommend the book 1066 by David Howarth.

As a work of art, the Bayeux Tapestry is amazingly detailed and tells the whole tale leading up to and including The Battle of Hastings. It was commissioned by a relative of William the Conqueror. The entire tapestry (and technically it’s embroidery and not a woven tapestry despite the name) is more than 70 yards long, so I’ll be using this one scene or section of the Bayeux Tapestry in which Duke Conan escapes from William and Harold:

I chose this particular scene for the combination of colors, but you can see the whole tapestry scene by scene here.

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Tour de Fleece

Tour de Fleece sneaked up on me this year. It starts on June 29th. It’s a spinning competition that takes place on Ravelry during the Tour de France each year. I am in the process of dyeing some top for it to go with the art batts you can always find in my shop. I’ll have the top listed early next week.

I think that’s everything this week. I hope you find some time to knit or crochet by a pool this summer!