I have got into the rhythm of knitting a new jumper or cardigan to wear in Shetland during some of wool week. I have a number of criteria for this: it will be unique to me; it will fit me well; it will be warm; it will be made of Shetland Wool; it will co-ordinate with what I will be wearing. Over the years, I have mainly dyed all or some of the yarn for it.
I liked the two yoked jumpers I had done previously and decided another of those would be just the thing this year. The ones I had done were in yellow / green tones and this year I decided I would concentrate on the purple/ pink colour way. The previous colourways were naturally dyed and this set would also be naturally dyed.
I am very particular about ‘fit’ at the yoke as the whole point to me of a yoked jumper is that it fits well at the yoke, back and front. I would knit the front, back and sleeves on my knitting machine. I have made a custom pattern for this with the back being higher than the front and the sleeve top sections therefore being lower at the front than the back. I have talked to several Shetland knitters of yoke jumpers, both hand and machine knit bodies. This has worked well for both the previous jumpers, even though I used different yarns and therefore different stitch numbers.
I thought I would do a different yoke pattern this year and spent a long time, months, playing with motifs and colour variation and stitch counts. But I do love how the tree removes stitches to do the decreasing. One morning I got up and decided I would actually much prefer the yoke pattern that I normally do and just work on getting the colours and the sequence of these as good as I could. I was going to use the grey main yarn I used previously and a dark grey to act as a border for the yoke and natural white as the background. (1)
So on to planning the colours. The plan was to dye some small samples of yarn using cochineal and indigo. This proved to be some of my most difficult natural dyeing. Usually I start with a main colour and then use additives to alter this colour to give the others. They then all ‘go’ together well.
Getting several different shades that form a coordinating gradient from two different dye baths was a completely different process. The indigo vat would get colder and the yarn would therefore need to be in it for longer but if it was in too long then the hue would be much bluer but I wouldn’t know how much bluer until I had let the air get to it and the yarn colour developed!
Add to this that I like to put yarn into indigo at least twice to get a good indigo dye and the fact that wet wool is darker than dry wool and you can understand what I was grappling with. Then there was the indigo, I need 5 lots of indigo dyed yarn, should I put them all in at once? I decided this was not the most sensible idea as I might want a quicker dip for some purples. But then what would the concentration of the bath be when I put the different yarns in at different times? For the actual jumper I was going to dye 25 g of each colour.
I already knew that it mattered which way the dipping went- cochineal then indigo is different from indigo plus cochineal. I do keep copious notes, but to be honest none of that helped much with this dyeing! This was about experience and trusting my processes.
So after the sampling I more or less had a plan, I think MIchael went and hid and I decided I just had to get on with it. I mainly do my natural dyeing outside or in my dye/ fleece shed and I seemed to spend the whole morning wishing the wool dry on the line.
These are the colours after they have come off the drying line
I was pretty happy with the results, and made the yarn into balls which I rearranged until I got the gradation I liked.
When I knitted this I could see some of the yarns needed to change places. So a second sample was needed and that was OK except for the central pink.
That just looked too ‘weak’. So I sorted round to see what other cochineal dyed pinks I had, I had quite a few in my stash and decided on a stronger pink!
This also shows the inspiration photo I used for the colours and the first and last sample I knitted for the yoke.
So at this stage I was ready to pick up the stitches, checking that the centre front and back motifs were spot on central and then all that was needed was to knit the yoke! As before I used a knitting belt, and 3 double pointed needles as I have learned to do in previous Shetland Wool Week workshops.
Beginning the yoke knitting
After this I kept on hand knitting, adding extra decreases and knitting a ribbed neckband that fits my neck.
I had previously washed and dressed (flat) the jumper pieces and joined the raglan sleeves on the sewing machine. (2)
Dressing the jumper pieces
I then finished the making up of the jumper and it had another warm wash and finish.
I was pleased with it and glad I had gone to some trouble to get a jumper I really liked and I hope suited me. It was great to wear it to Shetland Guild of Spinners, Knitters, Weavers and Dyers September meeting and get compliments, so much was going on that day that I had forgotten I was even wearing it.
The crowning glory was when we visited Wilma Malcolmson - the Queen of Colour- and she told me how well the colours had worked, without then knowing I had naturally dyed them myself.
The only pictures of me wearing in Shetland!
I had just been admiring the work of spinning and fine lace knitting of a beautiful shawl made by Satoko. We met at a wool week many years ago and as one does with wool week kept in touch by social media. She had brought two hand knitted ‘friends’ with her with different clothes !
This photo made me think I could knit a matching cardigan for the jumper, using yet more of the dyed yarn, that would Co ordinate with the yoke of the jumper but not replicate it! More to add to my knitting list!
I decided to use some of the remaining yarn to knit some more of my design of fingerless gloves to go with it during our time in Shetland. I will detail these in the next blog post.
I usually name my jumpers, this one is now called ‘sweet pea’. The colours of the sweet peas still in bloom in the garden when we returned from Shetland were the colours of the yoke, these are some remaining today as I write this.
Notes
2. More about how I use a sewing machine in construction is on post of 6 April 2018
3. Even getting the correct ‘grey’ to work with the naturally dyed colours took 3 samples before I hit upon the ‘right’ one. I enjoy sampling and find it is essential when doing colourwork like this. The grey on the left in the photo below has quite a bit of red in it although it does not show up well here. I selected the middle grey to use here.
