Expanding the Skill Set

I've decided it's time to get a bit more disciplined about my knitting/crochet skills. After Lyra, I feel I'm able to tick lace off the list for now. Although I'll always love my lace, and there is always more to learn (and there will absolutely be more Nieblings in my future!), it's probably the area of knitting that I feel most at ease with. So, although I am currently designing a sweater that is all about the lace - watch this space for that - I'm going to focus my non-design based knitting on expanding my skill set. First up, colourwork!

I've been wanting knit the Bowland Cardigan by Susan Crawford ever since it came out last year. I didn't get it together enough to join in the KAL she ran, unfortunately (honestly, I'm a bit useless at KALs...) but now, finally, is the moment! I'm knitting it in Spindrift by Jamieson's, which is a Shetland 4ply, perfect for this sort of knitting - light and "sticky" and available in a huge range of colours. After much um-ing and ah-ing and with a lot of help from my lovely friend Sophie (one half of the amazing Pomcast *cough* name drop *cough) we picked out the following colours:

Left to right: 567 Damask; 1160 Scotch Broom; 595 Maroon; 768 Eggshell; 769 Willow

Of course, choosing the overall colour palette turns out to be the easy part - deciding which colour goes where is hard! I knew I wanted my main colour to be Willow - it's such a gorgeous 1930s eau de nil sort of colour - and I loved the combination of the mustard and the deep red (thank you, Sophie, for picking out the perfect red when my eyes failed me!). I knew I wasn't going to do a straightforward conversion of the pattern colours, as I didn't want a contrasting rib/button band - the more Willow, the better!

So I pondered, and I pondered, and I cast on the rib in the meantime so I could ponder a bit longer:

Ah, vintage style knitting patterns. I love them, and constant possibility of 1x1 rib-induced insanity just adds to the excitement, no?

Side note: the pattern calls for 2in of the rib before you start the colourwork. I had intended to do a good couple more inches than that but I'm not sure I can handle any more rib. So much rib. And darn it all, I want the pretty colours to start now. Speaking of which, when I couldn't rib anymore, I decided it was time to take a break, stop pondering and start swatching:

I'm pretty happy with the main band, although I think I will tinker with the middle line that goes through it and do it in the Damask instead of Willow; I think that will make the flowers a little more solid. However, I really didn't like how the original small band (along the bottom of the swatch) was coming out. The Maroon is such a strong contrast with the background that it felt far too stripy. The top two small bands are my attempt to fix this problem, by either breaking up the red line with the yellow, or toning down the stripe to pink. I have spent a l-o-n-g time staring at this swatch (and posting on Instagram for advice - thanks, guys!) and I think I'm going to go with the upper red and yellow combination. The pink is lovely but just a touch more girly than I really wanted it to be (yeah, I know, it's flowery and green and pink and red and pretty solidly girly already but hey...) and I think once I fill in that middle row of the main band with a darker colour it should hold its own a little better. And yes, I know I should be doing more swatching to double check it all first but I really think doing it on the garment will make it all clearer anyway and I can always undo it later if it doesn't work and also I just want to get started already, mm'kay? You understand, I'm sure.

Oof, what a lot of waffling about a swatch! Hopefully you are vaguely interested in this sort of thing as I'm sure there will be much more to come now I have leaped aboard the Good Ship Colourwork.

Right, back to the ribbing. The constant, endless ribbing...

Jemima