Swatches!

Do you love swatching? I do! I love playing with colour combinations, trying out new techniques and seeing what happens to a yarn when you knit it. When knitting swatches I also enjoy and admire their different textures. The possibilities are endless. While designing Gloed, a knitted landscape, knitting different kinds of swatches helped me to determine its contrasts and colours.

Gloed mini swatch and abstract swatch

Of course, I also knit swatches just for gauge, such as the dark blue garter stitch swatch, made before casting on Paris Toujours. The light blue swatch with flowers was made because I was curious to see and feel the technique of the Late Bloomer Mittens by Kirstin Ledgett. I liked it so much that I decided to knit a cushion using this technique and I cast on a second swatch (the darker one with flowers) to try different marls. That cushion is my favourite project for now, I really love alternating knitting and embroidery, it is very satisfying.

I’m pretty sure this is not my last post on knitting swatches! To be continued…

Gloed Knit Wall Art

Golden yellows and Gloed, a shaped intarsia knitting pattern in Making No. 10 INTRICATE. How to knit shaped intarsia and what is Gloed? (the short version….)

As long as I can remember, I have loved yellows. Especially the golden yellows of autumn light, after summer, when there is peace in the air. So I am more than happy that my pattern Gloed Knit Wall Art has been published in Making No. 10. This issue is filled with an amazing collection of golden yellow projects (knitting, crochet, sewing and more).

Shaped Intarsia
Shaped intarsia is a knitting technique that creates flowing and meandering shapes of different colours. The difference with intarsia knitting is that crisp colour transitions and flowing lines are created by increases and decreases. An increase in one colour is compensated by a decrease in another colour and vice versa. More on shaped intarsia in a future post.

Gloed and its colours
Gloed (which is Dutch for Glow) is a knit wall art or a lightweight lap blanket. It depicts a landscape with different golden yellow hills. For each hill I combined a strand of fingering weight yarn with a strand of lace weight yarn into a marl (see next post on winding two-tone yarn balls).

These golden yellows are inspiring colours to me. You can follow my palette, or find inspiration elsewhere. Whether you are looking for high- or low-contrast combinations, your stash can be an endless colour palette. You may combine oddments from stash, your favorite mini skeins, and small quantities of handspun. It would be a great use of those yarns you dyed with natural dyes last summer.

For yarn quantities see pattern details either on Ravelry or in Making No. 10. Share your projects and use #gloedmakingzine or #gloedamsterdaph to join in online.
I just can’t wait to see your version in a different palette!

photos by Making