Allover winners!

Almost 450 entires were submitted to our Allover knitalong, and today I thought I’d introduce you to some of the winning knitters and their wonderful projects.

Let’s begin with our “Pick o’ the palettes” award, for colourful innovation. There were many contenders for this prize, but we settled on Liz’s Starnkeeker

To create this glorious garment, Liz combined a neutral stone-coloured Shetland yarn with multiple shades of her own plant-dyed Shetland, in different hues of green, blue, and rust. The result is very beautiful and completely harmonious.

And speaking of harmonious, here’s Johanna’s fabulous take on the allover colourwork challenge of Schene, whose patterned bands she adapted to create the top-down raglan which won our “Spun Out” award. Johanna spun this yarn from wool and silk, and then dyed it 16 different natural shades. I love Johanna’s muted palette of shades that really sing together.

Daniela won our ‘almost there’ prize for a project that was not quite, but almost completed by the end of the KAL. Here is her beautiful Schene cardigan in its finally finished state.

One of the most inspiring (and fun!) things about the Allover KAL was seeing knitters adapt pattern motifs, and really run with an idea. Sarah was awarded our “Canine Colour” award for the colourwork coats she knitted for her wee dogs, Peg and Strawberry.

I love Peg’s wee Schene, and Strawberry looks especially cosy in her Pochies

Andi is a brilliant knitter, who enjoys making colourwork garments and accessories for kids. She transformed many Allover patterns such as Astragal, Yomp and Pochie into child and toddler-sized pieces, which are a real celebration of colour and creative knitting. Andi wins our ‘Master modifier’ prize.

I spent an awful lot of time swatching and developing the two colourways that we eventually knitted into samples for Schene . I honestly think that no design has taught me more about the creative possibilities and potential of stranded colourwork (within what one might describe as the “traditional” parameters of horizontal patterned bands in the familiar Shetland style) and I enjoyed designing (and knitting) this allover immensely. It has brought me great pleasure to see so many creative knitters developing their own unique takes on this design with their individual use of colour. We awarded the knitters of several Schenes with a beautiful project award, including Ute, above (whose sunny, spring-time Schene I love)

Diane, who created a lovely Schene of muted pinks and greyish blues…

….Dawn, who blended a wonderfully balanced palette of Milarrochy Tweed into a Schene that really shimmers . . .

. . . and Linda, who also combined green with pinks and purples in her Schene to great effect. I sometimes find purplish and pinkish shades a little difficult to work with, and it’s been very inspiring for me to see the palettes these talented knitters have created for their allovers.

As you can see above, Linda also made herself a Yomp, another allover which lead many knitters in colourful directions beyond the one I devised for the original.. . .

Gill knitted herself this two-shade version, which I think is gorgeous, and Dana used over-dyed shades of her own Uist Wool to create a wonderful Yomp that has now been cheekily claimed by her husband, CJ (who I think you will agree it really suits!)

Featuring a large motif on the hand’s small canvas Starkin was one of the Allover patterns which allowed knitters to play with colour, and we’ve awarded many pairs of Starkin mitts and gloves prizes in our KAL, including this fabulous pair, knitted by Gill, whose choice and placement of shades of Milarrochy Tweed I love.

Pouzle was also a pattern which our many knitters had fun playing with, choosing shades creatively, and adapting and modifying the design for their own ends. Faith skillfully deployed the Pouzle motifs on this very well-constructed cover for her yoga mat. . . .

. . . .whule Onkuri made matchy matchy maxi and mini Pouzles. Onkuri, (who is an incredibly talented designer in her own right – seriously – check out her work) created several gorgeous allovers for the KAL and is the final, very worthy winner of our “Beautiful Projects” prize.

In our view, all of our allover knitters are winners but there was one who created so many beautiful things, and contributed so much to the club and its overall experience, that we felt she deserved her own prize categories and her own blog post (more of our ALLOVER SUPERKNITTER soon!)

There are many more KAL prize winners than I’ve had space to mention in this post – congratulations to you all – and huge thanks to all of our Allover members who made it a really enjoyable and inspiring club for everyone involved.