Good morning and happy Friday! I hope you have had a great week. I have had such a fabulous time creating new colorways and playing with new ideas this week, and I’m excited to show you what I’ve been working on.
On the docket for today are a new Van Gogh colorway, individual mini skeins for sock sets and colorwork, some experiments with assigned pooling colorways, a call for test knitters for a gorgeous new pattern, and (most exciting of all) some new butterfly colorways.
Let’s just go in order, shall we?
Van Gogh’s “Still Life with Two Sunflowers”
Exactly a year ago, I used a beautiful and lesser-known painting by Van Gogh for the club colorway. It’s called “Still Life with Two Sunflowers,” and I really love the painting and the yarn as well. Here’s the painting:
What I love most about it is the variation in color within the sunflowers and within the blue background as well. This week I dyed up the colorway for the shop for the first time. I dyed it on a bunch of different yarn bases so you have your choice. Here is Van Gogh’s Still Life on Buttery Soft DK:
Here is a fun trio with this colorway too. These are all on Sock Perfection. From left to right they are Starlight, Van Gogh’s Starry Night, and Van Gogh’s Still Life with Two Sunflowers.
There are so many other colorway combo possibilities here, including Freedom Blue, Sunflower, Sage, and Blue Sky.
Mini Skeins
I also decided this week to dye up some more 20 gram mini skeins on Splendid Sock, which is made of 75% superwash merino and 25% nylon. It’s great for everything from shawls to heels and toes of socks. I think those heels and toes are about the toughest job any yarn has to do, and this yarn base is up to the job.
I had originally planned to create some new sock sets, but instead I decided to list the minis individually so you can create your own sock sets by pairing a mini skein with one of my variegated colorways.
I dyed up eight colorways that match so many of my variegated colorways, and I included a big list of colorways that would go with each one. You can find all the individual mini skeins right here along with the mini skein sets I dyed on Silken Sock, which is lovely for shawls and hats and cowls and more. Both mini skein bases would also be super for color work patterns of all sorts.
Assigned Pooling
Another thing I have been playing with this week is the idea of creating colorways for Assigned Pooling patterns. A few weeks ago, we talked about Planned Pooling, and I showed you a few argyle samples I had made. You can see a variety of colorways that would work well for Planned Pooling here on my website. It’s in a section of the menu on my site called Yarn – Shop by Colorway Type.
This week, I have been mesmerized creating new colorways for Assigned Pooling. These are two different ways of working with the idea of pooling. With Planned Pooling, the idea is to take a block variegated colorway and use it to create stacks of color or an argyle. With Assigned Pooling, on the other hand, the idea is to take a skein that is dyed with one color or combination of colors for three-quarters of the skein and a different color or color combination for the other quarter. The three-quarter section is the main color, and the one-quarter section is the accent color. Then, when you knit or crochet, you do one stitch type for the main color and something different for the accent color.
To the best of my knowledge, the designer who started this fascinating technique at least for knitting is Dawn Barker. I think the best known pattern is her Float pattern, but she now has 6 others as well, and there are a few other designers working with the same really awesome technique.
Here is an example of a colorway I created this week with Assigned Pooling in mind. This is The Lupine Lady, inspired by the delightful little children’s book called “Miss Rumphius.”
My Purple Iris colorway is another example of something that would also work well for Assigned Pooling. You just need to pick one of the colors that appears in the skein only once–so in the case of Purple Iris that would be either the Eggplant color at one end of the Irish Moss color at the other end. Here it is on Sock Perfection so you can see what I mean:
You see how the yellow and lilac each appear twice but the moss and eggplant each only appear once? The ones that appear just once would be great for the accent color, leaving the other three colors as the background.
I’m so excited about this technique and plan to create quite a few more colorways specifically for Assigned Pooling. As I create them, you’ll be able to find them in the new Assigned Pooling collection on my website.
Call for Test Knitters
I am working with Helaina of Chic and Regal Knits on a gorgeous pattern of hers that uses my Sparkly Merino Sock yarn, and she just announced today that she is ready for test knitters. It’s a one-skein pattern with gorgeous lace. She says it is easier than it looks. If you are interested, contact her on Instagram at @chicandregalknits. If you aren’t on Instagram, you contact her on Ravelry where her user name is Crafty Helaina. Here’s what it looks like using Starlight and Forest Floor.
I am offering a discount for test knitters who use my yarn, but I bet some of you have one of my colorways in your stash already that would be great for this too. I would recommend using an Ikat colorway, a Semi-Solid colorway, or a Splashed and Speckled colorway and maybe avoiding Block Variegated for this pattern. You can get all the info from Helaina. The deadline to have the test knits completed is July 15th.
Butterflies!
The last thing I want to talk to you about today is actually the one I am most excited about. When I first added Stained Glass Sock to my yarn bases, the first thing I thought was how great it would be to create a series of colorways based on butterflies. It is a 2-ply yarn, and half of one ply is black to begin with, so I thought that would make wonderful butterfly “veins.”
Life gets in the way sometimes, and it has taken me longer to get started than I had hoped, but the time has finally come! If you happen to follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you’ll know that I posted a collage of butterflies and asked everyone which one was your favorite. Here’s the collage:
By far the most votes came in for Blue Morpho, so I started there. I would love to hear what your favorite is to, so please email me and let me know.
I have dyed up five butterfly colorways so far including Monarch Butterfly, which I have actually had in the shop for awhile now. The thing I’m really excited about is the fact that these five together make a pretty awesome fade set. Here they are:
From left to right, the colorways are Indian Jezebel, Quino Checkerspot, Monarch, Periander Metalmark, and Blue Morpho. I couldn’t decide whether to list them individually or as a set, so I did a little of both and offered a small discount for the whole set together. You can find all the Butterfly colorways right here.
To return to the topic of assigned pooling, both Indian Jezebel and Periander Metalmark are colorways I dyed with assigned pooling in mind. Each one has about 1/4 of the orange section and 3/4 of the other section.
I did a little digging on Ravelry for patterns that would work well for all five together. Here are some possible knitting patterns:
- Fading Point by Joji Locatelli
- Saturate by Mara Catherine Bryner
- Mixology by Casapinka
- Fadient Destash Wrap by Xandy Peters
- Mothwings by Larissa Brown
- Inward Wrap by Marsha Healey
All of these patterns look fantastic. I find Mothwings especially intriguing because the shawl is shaped like a moth or butterfly too. I looked for crochet patterns that fit the bill but didn’t find any specifically made for five different skeins. However, I think just a simple stitch combination would work really well to let the colors shine.
I have a few more butterfly colorways “in the wings” that I’ll be making soon. In the meantime, though, if they happen to sell out before you get the colorway or colorways you wanted, just email me to let me know. I would be happy to set up a preorder to be sure that everyone who wants these can get them.
I hope you have a great weekend! See you next Friday.