Hunting the perfect stitch pattern

I found some half price Rowan Pure Wool recently in my local woolly wonder emporium in some colours I like together so I bought 7 balls of the black and 7 of the clay and I already had 1 ball at home of the Cypress. So I now had to rack my brains for a suitable pattern for this bonanza. Here is some of the thinking and deciding process I went through before I found the stitch pattern I wanted to use.

I have recently really wanted to knit a check or tartan pattern to I tried that first. Here is a swatch of my first attempt…(I used the crochet slip stitch I used in my Haiku wrist warmers for these patterns.)

 I wanted to try to get a rougher line through the middle of the pattern so I used both the black and the clay colours held together for the two stripes in the middle of the lighter squares but it didn’t really come out as I had in mind – not enough of the black. So I tried a solid line with more  vertical stripes.

 I even started with the ribbing I wanted to use on this swatch which I’ve never done before! Yep, I’m trying to be more prepared these days… I definitely like this pattern better but it still wasn’t right. The light bits look too much like windows. So this one was out too.

I scrapped the check pattern idea at this point as I didn’t think it was working with these colours. (I might go back to it later though…) So I tried a stripey pattern I’d been thinking about where you change colours randomly in the middle of rows.

 I also added a wee vertical crochet slip stitch stripe in this one. (Can’t get enough!) I realised at this point that these colours are almost exactly the colours of the jumper The Big Man was wearing when I first met him. Maybe why I like them so much? But this still wasn’t right. Maybe it’s one to come back to for a Big Man jumper later…Oh, yes, I forgot to say – I want to design a lady jumper for the first time. I’ve been a bit scared to do it but told myself not to be a wimp and just get on with it – it can’t be that hard!

So, my head was whirling about with all the different things I could/couldn’t do with this wool in these colours when I suddenly remembered another technique I had tried on a swatch before but never made up into a pattern. Weaving in yarn! I really like this technique for some reason and when I knitted a swatch using it I knew it was the right one straight away.

I even did a circular swatch for the first time! (A tiny one, admittedly but it’s better than none.) As soon as I realised I wanted to use this stitch pattern, I realised it was going to have to be a circular jumper as I couldn’t face sewing all those ends in…and probably no-one else could either so no-one would want to knit it.

So I’m now designing my first circular jumper! I’m 11 rounds in and have only frogged it twice so far! That’s not bad right?

I’ll let you know how it goes…

tkm