In the Making...

Gentle Blooms is perfect for using up those special skeins of yarn. Gentle Blooms is a bandana-style cowlette, which means you get the beauty and fun of a shawl at a small scale but it’s easy to wear and will stay in position. The design came about as I had quite a lot of yarn leftover from my Vertices Unite . The yarn was a gorgeous merino and silk blend, and I didn't want to leave it languishing in my stash. Maybe you've got some gorgeous yarns in your stash that aren't enough for shawl. The quantities needed are - MC: Navy - 225m [247yds] CC1: Cream - 85m [93yds] CC2: Pink - 97m [107yds] As usual, I wanted the knitting to be enjoyable, so the vast majority is knit and purl. There is a handful of stranded knitting rows for the "Gentle Blooms". The positioning gives the biggest impact for quite a small section of stranded knitting. Or as they say "the biggest bang for your buck!". Since it's all about the details on a project like this, the neckline...

Navelli was a lovely top to knit. I love combining colours in a project and I'm particularly thrilled with this combination.  I'd originally bought all the colours from Lay Family Yarn . The original lighter skein that I wanted to use had a greener tone but I realised how perfect a match the Ephemera skein was from Mr B . It has touches of the burgundy in it and has a warmer tone too. The coffee-coloured is Macchiato and the burgundy is Forager. Both are from Lay Family Yarn.  The base for all of them is 75% merino / 25% nylon  and 425m/100g. These colours are a bit of a departure for me (in terms of what I normally wear) but I'm absolutely thrilled with it. Can't be serious all the time. Can we?  I worked the 5th size which gave me about 8" of positive ease. I didn't modify a huge amount in the pattern. My gauge was a little off 25 x 36 instead of 24 x 30; though it's a pattern where the sizing doesn't need to be hugely precise. I used a larger needle...