Gradients

Many months ago I got the itch to try some gradient yarns but I was having difficulty in finding yarns in the colour and weight that I wanted. I then did a deal with a Ravelry friend (who now has a great etsy shop, Ozifarmer's Market) to dye some yarn for me. The base is a very fine merino which is almost a cobweb weight.

And then a few weeks ago she very generously gifted me two more skeins of her lovely gradient dyeing.

Ever since I received the first lot of yarn I have been looking for the right pattern. I finally decided on Longing for Robins Return for my first attempt. This is a shawl that has long been in my queue and I was very happy to finally be able to knit it. I thought the very fine yarn would be ideal for this delicate pattern.

Once I had finished this shawl I was eager to give another one a go and this time I decided on the Leadlight shawl using the Bendigo Woolen Mills 2ply base.

I'm eager to try a few more shawls using gradient yarns, any pattern suggestions?

Almost forgot about this one

Way back in June I cast on Bakau. I thought it would be a quick and easy knit and one that I could take with me on my travels.

And it was indeed quick and easy and while we were in lovely Murramarang I very nearly finished it but ran out of yarn while casting off. I set the shawl aside while I looked for a solution and over time I forgot about the shawl.

Then, a few nights ago, I was knitting Longing for Robin's Return using a gradient yarn dyed by Ozifarmer when I realised that the colour I had reached would matched my Bakau. Now Bakau was knitted in a 4ply Bambaroo and I was using a very fine laceweight for Longing for Robin's Return, so I merely held it double and cast off my Bakau. And I am happy to say that the difference in yarn is barely noticable.

I used 4mm needles and 155g of hand dyed Yarn Workshop Bambaroo.

Sangria anyone?

Way back in July I joined the Sangria KAL. It started well and I shot through the first couple of clues but then we started travelling and my time with the shawl was severely compromised. But whenever I got the opportunity I worked on it. It was a fun shawl to knit and using knitCompanion on my iPad really enhanced the experience. One of the great things about knitCompanion is that it allows you to add whole or partial PDF files to your original file. This is great when knitting a KAL where the charts are released in installments.

But back to the shawl. The KAL was designed so that you had flexibility in the number of chart repeats as well as the the number of charts you wanted to knit. I only repeated Chart A and knitted B to E once each. I knitted the shawl on 3.75 needles but in hindsight I think 4mm or even 4.5mm would have been better and would have given me more drape. The yarn is BWM Classic 2ply hand dyed by Emylly123. I added clear size 8/0 beads.

And notice that spring has come to our garden!