new bmc

Just popping in to show you a few photos of the new BMC sample which will be coming with me to Woolfest. I wrote the pattern for two sizes of cowl – small and large. The large one you may have already seen, and this is the small. This size is worked over 7 repeats of the pattern (as opposed to 26) which means that you only have to cast on 147 stitches (as opposed to, ahem, 546).

This sample is worked up in Jamieson & Smith Jumper Weight, and I just love it. The colours in the J&S palette are really complex: one never quite knows, until one starts knitting, just how they are going to appear, or speak to one another. Separate, in the ball, the shades look so distinct, but knitted up together they perform a kind of muted alchemy. The combination in the finished object appears, to me at least, quiet and subtle, like something that has been naturally dyed.

I have never worked with shade FC24 before – that fresh, pale green that forms the cockleshell – but it is rapidly becoming one of my J&S colour favourites.

Anyway, I’ll have a few kits in this colourway with me at Woolfest (each kit contains enough to make a large and a small cowl if you are so inclined). I’ll also have kits for Sheep Heid , Rams and Yowes, Tír Chonaill, and the Sheep Carousel. I’ve been receiving a number of emails and tweets about the availability of the latter: if you are coming to Woolfest, I’m going to do my best to ensure there are enough kits to go round, and I’m also making arrangements for postal and overseas orders. More of this anon.

I’m going to take a proper break now – so I won’t be available to answer any queries until June 26th. See you in a week or so!