The third sweater lot is something really special: 1500+ yards of handspun that I spun up almost 3 years ago. My original idea was to make it into a Cria sweater, but I decided that a fair isle yoked sweater would be even better. So I had my mother dye 2 of the 8 skeins, one olive green (it came out more golden green) and one brown. Then it became a matter of finding the right pattern.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that I ended up picking out a Ysolda pattern for this yarn, her newest pattern Strokkur. I'm still not sure if it's my ideal colorwork pattern, but I don't want to have to come up with my own pattern and I know that any Ysolda design will be a good knit.
So this week I've set to swatching. I'm really happy with how the handspun is knitting up, though I do wish there was a little more contrast between the green and brown in the colorwork section. I guess that's the downside of using hand-dyed yarn, for all of its beauty. But judging by how the rest of the swatching has gone, I can't wait to get started on this sweater!
2 comments:
I think it's gorgeous!
Just as a quick note, you might want to wash the fair isle swatch as you would wash the finished sweater in order to test for colorfastness. A good friend of mine made me a fair isle hat made with darker hand-dyed yarn next to a cream. Even though I hand washed in cold water with Woolite, the hand-dyed yarn bled so much that it ruined the hat.
Good point about bleeding. I didn't even think of that.
Fortunately, I always wash my sweater swatches in order to get accurate gauge. These 3 were rinse with Soak and no bleeding happened.
My mother must have done a good job of rising out any extra dye. She's awesome like that. :)
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