Pattern Inspiration and Quince & Co. Lark Yarn Review

This autumn's harvest brought a bounty of delicious fruits and vegetables - enough inspiration to fuel the imagination of any epicure for months to come. But even before they delighted my taste buds, I found these pears were a treat for the eye.

I love their silhouette, proportions, and rich tones of green and gold tinged with a subtle hint of russet.The attributes of these gorgeous pears inspired some of the ideas I had when working out the stitch pattern and carried over even to choosing yarn for a pattern design. After much consideration chose Quince & Co.'s Lark yarn. basket photo Quinceandco.com

 

Lark is a beautiful, reasonably priced, American-spun, worsted weight yarn plied with enough air to give it a slightly woolly texture and just enough cushion to soften the look and feel of the stitches (while not losing definition in a sculptural stitch pattern like the one I designed for this project).

 

Available in lovely solid colors, Quince & Co. has recently added a few heathers to Lark's range as well. Shade cards can be ordered from the Quince & Co. website.

 

I knit up several variations of the new designs, tweaking them until they captured what I had in mind, and the first pattern to be ready for test-knitting is a scarf. The scarf's texture is formed mainly by simple lace and cable stitches that look difficult but are actually easy and fairly fast to knit.

Lark stood up well to repeated frogging and re-knitting, even considering the constant manipulation of stitches required when working cables and lace, and just felt wonderful to knit with. I look forward to trying the other yarns in the Quince & Co. lineup!

That's it for now, I'm still knitting away on the next item in the set. The scarf should be ready for publication sometime in December.

Linen & Tweed WIP Update

It's been a long time since I've worked in costume or garment design, but I came across some beautiful linen fabrics and it set me to thinking of doing a bit of sewing.  

A stash dive unearthed charcoal gray Rowan Summer Tweed yarn and it looked rather nice with the fabrics so I've undertaken a complete ensemble design project - oy.  At the moment I am thinking skirt, tunic, and vest, but perhaps I will opt for billowy trousers rather than a skirt.  We'll see.  The knitted item will be for on top.

 

Summer Tweed cotton/ silk blend is rather dry to the touch, with a chalky feeling, and it sheds little bits of silk all over you when you knit with it.  It also has no give and can be tiring to work with.  

 

All those things considered, however, the tweed yarn has a rich, rough texture that I quite like paired with the smooth-but-earthy linen wovens, and a nice color with subtle black, gray, beige and tan variation from the nepps.

The gauge for this yarn is on the heavy side of worsted, but the silk should add some drape and I am planning a super simple, very open stitch to enhance this.  The blocked swatch looks quite nice.

It might be awhile before the finished outfit makes it debut, but I hope to complete it before the weather turns too cold to wear it, LOL.  

Knitting continues on my Beach Glass lace shawl from Diana's new pattern, and I've arrived at the bottom edging, but I had to put that project on hold this week until I finish some pressing items, then I should have FO photos soon after.  

This will be the last post before my one year blogiversary free knitting pattern and yarn giveaway contest ends. 

I'll use an online random number generator to choose the winner on the 22nd, and announce the winner's name in my next post!  Read all the contest details here.

Peace, blessing and happy knitting to all!