This week I was inspired by a customer named Judy who reached out to me. She had just bought the Angel Wings Ponchette pattern, and she emailed me for colorway suggestions to go with it. What she really wanted was to make it look like the original here with the gradient from dark to light:
However, when I first published the pattern, I had made a set of 8 mini skeins to go with it as a special kit. Mini skeins sets are something I offer occasionally but not all the time. Her question got me thinking: How could I offer the same idea with full-sized skeins of yarn for her and for all of you as well?
The top part was easy. That’s my Epiphany colorway. I hadn’t made it for quite awhile, but there’s no reason I couldn’t.
The bottom–or really about the third mini skein from the bottom–matched really well with my Monet colorway, so I decided to use that as well.
Epiphany and Monet have the same colors but in very different amounts. Just one skein of each of these two is enough for the Angel Wings Ponchette, which calls for 640 yards of a sock-weight colorway. If you wanted to, you could make the transition a little more gradual by fading from one skein into the other. Here is a tutorial from the lovely Barbara Benson on how to do just that.
If you want a still more gradual transition, I would recommend Purple Delight between Monet and Epiphany. Here that is on Sparkly Merino Sock:
I thought about making kits but decided it would be better to let you decide if you want two skeins or three. Here is everything all in one place though to make it easy:
Judy, if you happen to be reading this, thank you for the inspiration!
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Two New Colorways
Recently I went through my art-inspired club colorways and chose two to add to the shop. These colorways are always exclusive to the club for at least six months, but after that I occasionally add one to the shop.
For this first one, I have been chomping at the bit to share it with all of you ever since I first made it. It’s called The Great Black Bull, and it was January’s club colorway when I was going as far back in art history as I could. It was inspired by an enormous cave painting discovered in 1940 in Lascaux, France.
Here’s the cave painting:
I dyed the yarn on six different yarn bases. Here it is on Squoosh Worsted:
I do tend to have more “feminine” colorways in my shop, so it always makes me happy to bring you one that works great for the guys too. In fact, I’m thinking of making my husband a sweater in this colorway.
Here’s a little swatch I knit so you can get an idea of how it works up:
I also chose a colorway I used in March 2021 by Lois Jones. I love her work, and I’ve used several of her paintings in the club over the years. This one is called Les Vendeuses de Tissue, which means the fabric sellers:
I dyed this one on six different yarn bases too. Here it is on Sparkly Merino Sock:
…and here it is on Stained Glass Sock:
Here’s a swatch I knit:
I’m not sure yet if these will be permanent colorways or not. It was actually difficult to narrow down the yarn bases for each of these to just six!
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Advent Update
Last week I asked you to let me know if you would be interested in a crochet option for this year’s Advent calendar, and I had an enthusiastic response. In light of that, I found a gorgeous crocheted Advent pattern by Sandra Paul called Baubles and Berries that was a perfect match for the Cassiopeia-inspired colorways I have planned. I reached out to her last week to see if she would be willing to work together on this, and as of today, we’re all set! That means you’ll be able to choose between Sandra Paul’s Baubles and Berries Wrap and Helen Stewart’s Trifle Wrap. They are both beautiful options. If you knit and crochet, it might be hard to decide between them! I am planning to have the Advent calendars available for preorder next Friday.