Beautiful Sock Yarn & Wool for Your Next Project
When we visited Shetland, I knew I’d want to bring some wool-related souvenirs home. But I’m sure that is on the top of every knitter’s wish list when they are going to the home of Shetland sheep and Shetland wool… Especially if they love doing any fair isle or colour work knitting.
So please join me on my week of Shopping in Shetland…[Read More]
In the week before we left for our holiday I knit a fair isle tam. I chose 15 different Shetland yarns using a triad colour scheme in purples, teals and a hint of orange to add a little bit of zinginess.
The pattern I used was Tam No 12 designed by Mary Rowe and published in her book Knitting Tams: Charted Fair Isle Designs. I adore this book. It has a short section at the front on the construction of a tam followed by the charted patterns for all 17 tams. I had so much fun deciding how to use my colour choice in the pattern.[Read More]
I love the colours of these lovely socks. They are comfortable and warm. I love the autumnal colours in the rusty metal. I photographed this sheet of rusty metal a while ago when I was walking on the beach. It had been washed up near the old boathouse. Amazingly rich colours of the rust and the interesting textures and jagged holes in the metal really appealed to me and had me reaching for yarn and needles even though these colours aren’t ones that I usually work with. I love purples and blues and greens so working with russets and golds are slightly outside of my comfort zone. But it is fun doing something different and I enjoy exploring different colour combinations.
I used one 50g ball of Crystal Palace Sausalito 8107 Fall Herbs and one 50g skein of Artesano 4ply Alpaca 8774 Ecuador to knit these socks. These socks would be equally beautiful knit using two solid-coloured Opal or WYS sock yarns. Imagine how glorious they would be combining a Crazy Zauberball with one of the solid-coloured sock yarns.
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I’ve been reading Julie Williams excellent blog Little Cotton Rabbits for several years. When I read that she was writing a knitting pattern for her bunny girl and bunny boy I couldn’t wait to buy them. I had long hoped to be able to buy one of her delightful knitted animals. I particularly love her badger girl and I am keeping my fingers crossed for the badger girl to become a pattern some day![Read More]
I love how intricate the beautiful fair isle motifs look and yet I’m only ever knitting with 2 colours in a row. I think the darker colours really stand out against the paler background. This is shown wonderfully well in the photograph that I used to name the Moodboard – The Colours of Scotland.
I also noticed that a repeating motif on these moodboards was the agapanthus flower in several different colours. When I was a child my mum used to buy me colouring books which I coloured in and would create kaleidoscopic patterns. I always remember these when I am creating patterns on squared paper. I think it is why I enjoy playing with fair isle motifs so much.
It amazes me how different the swatches and patterns can look using the same set of pale and dark colours. In the Moodboard – A Little Breathing Space I noticed that the pale blue looked quite purple beside the camel and turquoise colours. I was thinking about this when I was choosing the images that I wanted to work from.
In the Moodboard – Discover Life’s Pleasures I was interested to see how the swatches would look if they only used the paler coloured Alpaca 4ply yarns. In the larger swatch I wanted see the colours in graded stripes and then used the lightest colour for knitting the fair isle motif.
The Moodboard – Dream Catching inspired the swatch that became the pair of Fair Isle Alpaca Fingerless Mittens that were gifted to my sister. I always find that the more I play with and experiment with a set of colours the more ideas that I get for new swatches.
The Fair Isle Alpaca Fingerless Mitts were really beautiful when they were finished. I love this combination of colours.
With this Moodboard – Now Don’t Miss Out, I was interested in the quality of light juxtaposed against the darker colours. With the dark berries I loved how the light made them look bluer. I also loved the exploding star shapes in the thistle and the white agapanthus flowers. I explored both of these elements in these knitted swatches.
This week is all about my moodboards. These ones all used the same colours of Artesano 4ply Alpaca. I did this series of moodboards some time ago. The first Moodboard – Iconic Treasures shows the 5 pale colours and 5 dark colours of 4ply Alpaca that I used for all the samples knitted for these moodboards…
I collect images from magazines that inspire me. Whether it is because of the beautiful details such as the intricate cutout paper sculptures in the jewellery advert. The vibrant colours of the ocean in the seascape photograph. Or the subtle pastel colours in the photograph of the beach huts and the pebble beach.
I use paint colour strips from the hardware store as I find them great for picking out the colours I want to use.
Hello, I'm Nicolette Kernohan. I love sharing unique knitting projects, exploring colour & inspiring your creativity. Knitting Squirrel sells knitting wool & sock yarn in glorious colours & fibres.
