Up in the Northern Mitten, it’s been sliding right into Fall with a bang!
After a few balmy days reminiscent of summer, the rains came and with them, the winds.
Here in Tustin, the colors of Fall are still with us, but now are shared as much on the ground as on the limbs of the trees.
Evenings are markedly colder after sunset – and the perfect thing to work on is something made from wool.
This is my current *lap blanket*. :)
It is the Velynda sweater I started a few weeks ago and it’s been growing in leaps and bounds. The Body is finished now and I’m ready to make the first sleeve.
Delicious! This is such an organic green you can almost eat it. It is dark; it is heathered. It is mulespun yarn from Cottage Craft Woolens, located in New Brunswick, St. Andrews by-the-Sea, Canada and they called this: “Kelp Green”.
I love it.
In the beginning, since it is a heartier wool, I was almost tempted to wash the skeins before I started knitting with the yarn, before I wound it into balls. Since it has been deep stashed for a Long Time, it is not as supple as I know it can be. But I chose to use it as is because the washed swatch showed a beautiful bloomed fabric – even and uniformly fluffy. If the yarn was pre-washed, evenness might suffer and make a bumpier surface.
But as you can see, this is knitting up into a beautiful fabric, with popping cables, and a wonderful color depth.
It is even more rich than above – with both slight darker and lighter parts of the strands of yarn themselves.
And the structure of the yarn itself guarantees a long and happy wearing sweater for many years to come.
When I decided to cast on for this, I had some black yarn picked out, because, who, after all does not need another black sweater? This yarn was in the same box with the black and it was so dark, it was much more neutral than any green I’d ever seen.
Why not a change? I took a couple skeins of yarn and parked them on a load of colored t-shirts fresh from the laundry and they went with them all: teal, dark persimmon, chocolate brown, tan heather, kelly green…
And not surprisingly, it looks most fabulous over all black — can’t wait to wear this over a black T, black skirt, black tights, black boots combo…
I’m not sure what’s more enticing, your photos or your description!
No joke, I’ve been looking at the Cottage Craft website, wondering about their yarn, so I was delighted to see how lovely it is in this sweater. (and the pattern is darn swell — it’s idling in my queue, in fact) It will be fabulous when it’s finished!
I LOVE this yarn … beautiful!
Thanks!
If you are ever in St. Andrews-by-the-Bay, you can visit the cottage too!
Here’s a great tour: http://bit.ly/nS9H8y
I have been having such a time trying to decide what to use for Velynda….and there I was with three colors of Cottage Craft in my stash being completely ignored! Thank you for this post…..I am all set now but to choose which color!
The yarn is lovely! Can’t wait to see it all finished.
Yay to stash busting and putting the Cottage Craft to such good use!
So – I’m a serious lover of green – but I haven’t anything in such a deep dark variety. I went directly from your post to the Cottage Craft sight and purchased the kelp, then into Ravelry and purchased your pattern. Can’t believe how affordable the yarn was – also can’t wait for it to arrive! Thanks again for inspiring!!
If anyone is considering Cottage Craft Yarn in St. Andrews, check out the Ravelry group called Cottage Craft Fine Woollens (**Problems with mail orders**).
Welcome to Michigan! Such a gorgeous time of year to be here. Your sweater is so beautiful. Cant wait to see it done.