Thursday 26 February 2009

Tha'ts the plan.

I think I have the plan for the Fair Isle vest all worked out. I have found shades and tones I am comfortable with and darn it, I'm not going to change it now. Maybe....

So this is the pattern part of the plan. The repeating lines of trees separated by two rows of small perrie patterns are from Sheila McGregor's "Traditional Fair Isle Knitting". All the yarn is Cascade 220, a completely non-traditional yarn. The most used colour of the vest will be 8686 brown. The second brown is, I think, called Walnut, but I can't read the number on the band. Sorry. I have only 1 skein of walnut, so I will be using two rows only between the brown background shade and the cream. The cream is the last background shade, colour 8010, IIRC.

The rust seen in the diagram is colour 2435 and is the only rust used for an accent.

The current plan for greens is to use 2429 Ireland green for all the trees and green parts of the perrie patterns as you can see. I do have some 9338 Lichen that I might use to provide the pattern a little more depth. I'm not completely sure. If I do that, the brighter green Ireland will be used in the 8686 brown areas, but I'd switch to the more subtle 9338 Lichen on the second line of the walnut, and use it through the cream yarn. Hmmm...(picture the little wheels of my brain whirling dervishly)

This is the most true picture of the colours of the yarns, so you can see what I mean. Looking at this picture is almost making my mind up for me. I really like the way the lichen looks against the cream and the walnut and in combination with the brown too.

I'm almost less sure of using the Ireland at all. From this picture you might think the Ireland is a little too much, a little jarring, but in front of me, the softer lichen gets lost in the solidity of the brown. (That was my experience with the Christmas hats) Maybe I'll do a little wee swatch just to confirm these colour meanderings...

Which is exactly what my colour work mentor keeps advising me to do.

Onward I go.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The colors are beautiful (use the Ireland). I made my DH a scarf from Cascade 220, really liked it. I haven't done Fair Isle or even stripes in a long time - you make me want to try it again.

mostlylurking