Pattern Roll-Call: Yarns for Color Affection

You know I love dyeing yarn — I love thinking up the colourways, and I love whole adventure of creating the colours.  But when I send a skein off to the customer,  it always feels like I’ve somehow stopped halfway through the process.

A skein of yarn is nothing more than a lovely, smooshy bundle of potential.  The process is never complete until a knitter or crocheter has chosen that skein, picked a pattern, and cast on.  That’s when all that potential begins its release at last, completing the journey from colour to yarn to project  ..and finally to something beautiful in your hands.

Doing the trunk shows the other weekend, I got the chance to be a part of that process.  All through the shows, I got to help customers choose their perfect yarns and match them with the perfect pattern.  What fun!

And time and again, I found customers were asking for those yarns in sets of three…

Three Yarns, Two Words: Color Affection

Everyone is knitting Color Affection by Veera Välimäki, and it’s easy to see why.  It’s a gorgeous shawl that showcases stand-out colour with an intriguing off-center construction.  Traveling three different yarns across four sections, the colours mix and separate (and maybe mix again) in ways that make every project unique.  In love with it yet?

But picking three colourways that both compliment and contrast can be difficult, and here’s where the SpaceCadet’s collections really come into their own.  All the colourways in each collection are designed to work together, so all you have to do is choose maybe two semi-solids and a variegated, and there you go — your project is sorted.

You could go for soft….

(l to r: Lucina in Gentle, Lucina in Translucence, Stella in Quilt Blue)

Or you could go for bold…

(l to r: Izarra in Dept of Rocket Science G120405-003, Izarra in Honey, Izarra in Dept of Rocket Science G120405-006)

So go ahead, mix and match — see how the same colourways can work with lots of different options?

(l to r: Estelle in Quilt Green, Estelle in Dept of Rocket Science C120319-005, Estelle in Mercy)

(l to r: Estelle in Quilt Green, Estelle in Usui, Estelle in Quilt Blue)

And Now With Two Colours

But what if three colours seems a bit too much for you?  No problem, you can start a little more gently with two other Veera Välimäki designs, Different Lines and the Stripe Study Shawl.  Both have that same interesting asymmetrical shaping, and both have that striping that allows the yarns to play off each other so beautifully.  But for these shawls, you only have to choose two colours.

So go with warm…

(l to r: Izarra in Pride, Izarra in Honey)

Go with bright…

(l to r: Celeste in Plum, Celeste in Plumberry)

Choose a pair of semi-solids…

(l to r: Izarra in Venus Sea, Stella in Plume)

Or swap one out for a variegated…

(l to r: Izarra in Venus Sea, Izarra in Dept of Rocket Science G120405-003)

No wait, swap the other!…

(l to r: Izarra in Dept of Rocket Science G120405-003, Stella in Plume)

See what I mean?  The collections…  they make it so easy.  So go ahead — choose your yarn and cast on!