Sublime Natural Aran Yarn and Pattern

So, at the end of what has proved to be a rather busy month, I can finally reveal what I've been working on for none other than Black Sheep Wools! In order to promote some new yarn, they wanted me to review the yarn and create a brand new pattern that will be available for free download from their website. Having been creatively bone idle for most of the summer I was itching to do something and this was the perfect opportunity to get my hands on the knitting needles again. 

The yarn is Sublime Natural Aran in Ecru, Portobello, Smithy and Gracie. The colours are beautiful - Portobello and Gracie are really rich, almost jewel-tones while Smithy is more marly and makes for a nice contrast with the other colours.The yarn is really lovely to knit with and, although at first I thought it was quite lightweight for an Aran, it thickens out to make a nice soft and fluid material. It is 100% wool, so it is a little fuzzy but lovely and soft, and I reckon this will keep me nice and cosy during the winter months. It's also made in England and supported by the Campaign for Wool, so you can rest assured that by buying this yarn you'll be doing England's sheep and wool industry some good!

So onto my pattern, which I hope showcases just how gorgeous this yarn is. Interestingly enough, the colours that were sent to me are reminiscent of the colour palette of the Anglesey landscape, which is lucky for me as I already had an entire project's worth of research! However I decided to expand my research and develop my Final Major Project even more, moving away from my painterly, abstract knits and looking back at traditional Welsh or Fair Isle patterns.

After knitting a few samples up I became very interested by figuring out ways to translate woven patterns into Fair Isle. Weaving, especially tapestry weaving, gives you more freedom with the amount of colours you can use whereas Fair Isle only allows you to use two per row, so this involved some tweaking and simplifying of traditional patterns such as check or welsh blankets. I really liked my Welsh Tapestry Blanket sample - both the way it looked and how it links back to my original inspiration worked really well and so I got to tweaking it, crafting it into a cowl shape and size and voila! Ready to knit!

Welsh Tapestry Blanket example

My samples, and Sublime Natural Aran Swatches

I'm really pleased with how it's turned out and I can't wait to see what you all make of it too! The rib gives a nice border and prevents the edge of the cowl curling over to reveal the inside, something I wasn't so keen on in my other three cowls. It's nice and tall too - so it'll definitely keep you warm on the side of a Welsh mountain.

The pattern is available to download from Black Sheep Wool's free pattern page right now and you can get the yarn from here! Simples.

Seaweed Fair Isle Cowl

Last but certainly not least, (my personal favourite) is the Seaweed cowl.

This one simplified a loose ink drawing of seaweed into a knittable image, which becomes fairly abstract and organic when the cowl is being worn.

You can see the links between photo, image and knitting sample here - all with the same distinct seaweed shape but each material/technique obviously offering different qualities! When I made the knitting sample, I was exploring duplicate stitch, which is how I managed 3 colours. The pattern for the seaweed remained largely the same when I was translating it for the cowl knitting pattern, with the exception of dropping the duplicate stitch element.

You can see the resulting final pattern more clearly here. There are 3 repeats lengthways, and the seaweed motif is mirrored in the round, which I think adds to the organic effect. Colours were picked out from my matching silk scarf (to be revealed later!) and I think they compliment each other really nicely, especially thanks to the yarn I used (Rowans SilkTwist) which has an almost glowy effect. Again, this cowl is available to purchase from my Etsy shop right here or, if you want to knit it yourself in your own colours then you can buy the pattern from Ravelry!!

The Holyhead Cowl

Now I've put my 3 cowls up for sale on my Etsy shop, I thought I'd do a series of 3 blog posts giving you a bit of insight into how they were made!

This cowl was inspired by Holyhead Mountain, and the combination of the gorse and heather against the rock.

After doing numerous drawings, paintings, colour studies etc from my photographs - I blew aspects of them up (see left) and used all my research to help me make knitting samples.

Here's a selection of them on Holyhead Mountain - my Mum and I took all the samples and photographed them in the landscape which they were inspired by. It was so strange going back because this was early spring, and all my photos were taken late summer - so the colours of the landscape were completely different. It was also quite amusing carrying a rucksack full of knitting around Anglesey :')

Some samples for the Holyhead Cowl were largely led by texture - such as this one, which was knitted with several strands of wool at once rather than using any specific colour work technique. Whichever colour came out more prominently was left entirely to luck, and the boucle wool I used really did make the sample feel like the hardy plants living on the mountain!

 The other sample I did was more geometric. I broke down and simplified my painting into a pattern that would work knitted in Fair isle. Fair isle knitting can only be worked with 2 colours per row, and so my brushstrokes became short stripes and large areas of colour became very uniform. I did really like this effect - all that needed altering was the colours, as at this point I was fishing colours out of a basket of scrap yarn that my mum gave to me!

My project eventually developed at looking at things in the round, and somehow I ended up looking at Buffs, specifically their packaging. I made my own "Buff packaging" out of iconic Anglesey objects - lighthouse, maps, birds - and voila! An idea was born.

I set about designing a knitting pattern, to be worn round the neck (like a buff, but more like a snuggly knitted cowl) and just did it! Knitted using fair isle in the round my first cowl to be finished was this one.

You can buy the knitting pattern to make your own, OR, if you don't want to knit your own, you can now buy the original from my Etsy shop - you decide!

 from Ravelry
Or go here to purchase from Etsy.