Nicola came to visit yesterday, to try on the mock-up for her wedding dress. Thankfully it all went very smoothly, and tomorrow I can start cutting silk! She also came bearing Christmas gifts, which turned out to be a bag full of Rowan Colourscape Chunky. The colourways are designed by Kaffe Fassett, and mine is “Cherry”.
I had a look online to see how it would knit up, and it makes nice wide stripes. My immediate thought was to look for a pattern that’s knit sideways, so you can make vertical stripes with it. Apparently Rowan had the same idea, as this is what’s on the cover of the pattern book that goes with this yarn:
After a quick look through my mountain of knitting magazines, and a few doodles of possible shapes and patterns, I decided to just start knitting, and see what happened.
I’ve decided to go for a very boxy shape, with a minimum of shaping that might disrupt the stripe pattern. So, it’s going to be a drop-shoulder jumper, with a deep rib and a cable up each sleeve. This is about two-thirds of the first sleeve, and I plan to keep knitting it until this ball of wool runs out. Then I can make another one the same, and work out how to distribute the three remaining balls of wool around the rest of the jumper.
The fabric in the background is a silk skirt that I bought years ago. It was on all the advertising for the La Redoute catalogue at the time, so I signed up for the sole purpose of buying this skirt. Unfortunately it’s too small for me at the moment, so I won’t be able to wear it with my new jumper. Shame, as the colours are absolutely perfect together!
I might take my knitting on a fabric shopping this week. Perhaps I can make a new skirt or a pair of trousers to wear with it instead. Of course, that means I have to finish the jumper in time to wear it to the wedding… so perhaps I’d be better off concentrating my time on the wedding dress instead!