Yesterday I had a lovely Mother's Day. We were still basking in the joy of the Plinkety Pleasures show put on by 5 Cent Coffee et al. Those folks never disappoint! 5 Cent's version of Total Eclipse of the Heart is ringing in my ears. It was fabulous (in a sincerely cheesy and dramatic way).
We had chorizo and popovers (my favorite!) with homemade jam for brunch. A strange combination, but hey, it tasted great.
For dinner, Kay made traditional Jamaican food. Beans and rice with coconut milk, brown stew pork, and fresh carrot juice. Boy, was that good! She even cleaned the kitchen and washed the dishes. What a treat.
I am very grateful to have her in my life. Thank you Kay! Mwah!
Sweater Business
Thank you for all the support and ideas (and promises to prod me) for my sweater project. I really appreciate your input.
On the yarn crawl, I also got some Jamieson yarn for a Fair Isle sweater. I got the DK weight (despite Janine's sage advice). I was worried that too fine of a project would keep me from feeling enough accomplishment and I would get stalled. It will be a cardigan with set-in sleeves and corrugated ribbing. I may try Janine's Shaped Shoulders in the Round.
I didn't show the yarn earlier because a couple of colors were missing. They are now here and swatching has commenced. I started with a Saxon design, but it was too fugly murky. We will not be viewing that one. I decided to go back to basic principles. Some graph paper and doodling got me a pattern I like. I believe that good Fair Isle patterns have a lot of movement. There should be more than horizontal stripes. Marina wrote a great post to show this idea. With this in mind I started by making lines and arrows in all three directions: horizontal, vertical, and diagonally. And, then fill it in for design and to decrease float length.
I am fairly happy with the pattern. This is a rough chart (with a few errors in it). I made the chart in Excel by making the cells small and square. Then I just selected cells to paint with gray. It is clunky and crude, but it is software I already own.
Here is my swatch (as usual, click for big):The colors are great for me. I think it needs something more though. The transition from Amber (orange) to Buttercup (darker yellow) is too abrupt. I don't have the pop colors either. It feels a little flat.
My colors are all Jamieson. The greens in order are: #825 Olive, #233 Spagnum, #147 Moss, #1140 Granny Smith, #365 Chartreuse, and #350 Lemon. The Red-Yellows in order are #187 Sunrise, #587 Madder, #578 Rust, #478 Amber, #182 Buttercup, #350 Lemon, and #104 Natural White.
Here is the swatch tiled to give a sense of how the garment will look.
What do you think? What colors should I add? or remove?
Modifications to the chart? It may need more emphasis on the diagonals.
Brutal honesty is requested.
It's an excellent start. Better than I could do I'm sure.
I'm wondering if some purple would give you the lift you are looking for. It seems to me that something a little unexpected would help.
Posted by: LaurieM | May 14, 2007 at 03:15 PM
Purple is what I was thinking as well! And maybe a touch of pumpkin too.
Posted by: Rebecca | May 14, 2007 at 03:30 PM
Well, I'm very impressed, but I do think the color transition is a bit abrupt. For me, what would improve it most is if the vertical arrows popped as much as the horizontal arrows. They kind of get lost. It's very nice, though.
Posted by: AuntieAnn | May 14, 2007 at 03:43 PM
I think your patterning might give you more diagonals and verticals (right now it's mostly horizontals it seems to me) if you either took off the bars that make the square around the star or somehow add visual weight to the row below offset. Maybe by swapping the diamonds. The ones next to the boxes are heavier visually in an already heavy (because of the boxes) row. So maybe just swap them with the diamonds below.
I'm not sure I'm making sense. Lets try this. Right now you've got (starting in the upper left corner of your chart) motifs that look like
ABABA
cdcdc
ABABA
cdcdc
maybe try
cBcBc
AdAdA
cBcBc
AdAdA instead.
Here's all the colors that come into the US for your DK weight yarn. http://www.simplyshetland.net/Jamieson-DoubleKnitting.html I think you might want to try "Scotch Broom" (1160) in between "Buttercup" (I keep wanting to say "Princess Buttercup") and "Mustard". But I also think you might want to add a popper color. I'm just not sure which one or where it might go. Perhaps that color card can help you out.
Posted by: Ronni | May 14, 2007 at 08:54 PM
I can't give you any real advice because I'm sure you have a better sense of the color and pattern than I do.
I have a friend who always talks about the "zing" color in a patterned piece, which is the same as "pop," I guess. I'd love to see something totally wild, like a dot of magenta in the center of your x's.
But that's just me.
Honestly, I think it looks pretty damn good as is.
Posted by: jessie | May 15, 2007 at 03:28 AM
You know I'm hopeless at colours but I know I like that! You did a great job at blending the colours.
Hmm, how about a bright blue for the pop up colour?
Posted by: Marina | May 15, 2007 at 04:33 AM
Glad you had a great mother's day, you deserve it! The fair isles looks wonderful. Maybe one more color or something lighter for the darkest color.
Ang
Posted by: angelarae | May 15, 2007 at 05:02 AM
Ronni gave much better advice than I ever could, but for pop - how about blue? You have all warm colors and a cool contrast would add a lot, I think.
Posted by: elizabeth | May 15, 2007 at 08:38 AM
I use Excel for knitting all the time. ; ) I even used it to chart the colors and sequences for Fibonacci stripes -- I was able to get pretty close with accuracy, too. You might try -- even if you're not spot-on with the colors in Excel, it should give you an idea of whether purple, pink or blue gives you the spark you're looking for.
My first impulse is purple -- but whether it should be a lavender or pink or blue shade is beyond me.
It's amazing already!!
Posted by: Vicki | May 17, 2007 at 09:51 AM
I love your color combinations and agree with some of the previous commenters that a little purple might add a touch of unexpected spice. It was fun meeting you in the shop and seeing the wonderful colors you took home with you :-)
Posted by: nona | May 20, 2007 at 07:58 PM