One More Time

Last year I knit John a Strange Brew colourwork yoke sweater. It was nominally a Christmas gift, but really I made it because, despite the fact that John had been my loving partner and prime cheerleader for years while Alexa and I built Tin Can Knits, he STILL didn’t have a hand-knit sweater… only a single sadly scratchy scarf. That’s a knitterly fail if ever there was one!

But wouldn’t you know it, once John’s sweater was knit, what happened? In spite of my drawer full of other lovely sweaters, I mostly wanted to wear his. All the time. So the unthinkable had to be thought. I would make myself the same sweater! We would match. Because what’s worse than a hand-knit sweater? Matching hand-knit sweaters on middle-aged lovers. (hahaha side-note… I LOVE saying “LOVER” out loud, because it makes Alexa cringe every time).

Just kidding, it’s really the best! Our kids are still a bit too small to know the hot sting of parent-inspired shame, but soon we will be embarrassing them nonstop, so we’ve gotta get started now, working on suitably ridiculous wardrobe.

The gory story of the design development for this yoke pattern was covered in the original post. If you’re interested you can find the charts there to make a matchy sweater of your own!

What I want to show you today are some alternative colour options that I considered. You might find these palettes inspiring if you’re planning a yoke sweater like Strange Brew , Marshland, Spotlight or one of the many beautiful colourwork yokes out there!

developing a colourwork yoke palette

To choose a palette for my copycat yoke, I began by pulling out my worsted and aran weight stash! I worked the body and sleeves of the garment in a tweedy grey, so I just had to select 3 colours that would work alongside it.

testing the palette

Once I’d selected some combinations that I thought might work, I used a graphics program to trial out the colour placement roughly on a sketch of the yoke patterning. This gave me a little closer idea of what the garment might look like with the colour combinations I’d shortlisted.

After some deliberation, and a call out to Instagram to see what the knitters thought about my colour combinations, I was pretty sure I was going to go with one of the light pink + rust options. But then I hesitated. The sleeves and body were finished, so all I had left was a delicious yoke to knit, but for some reason I wasn’t getting started.

back to the drawing board…

When it came down to it, what I REALLY loved about John’s knit was that cobalt blue. So I had to go back to the drawing board, and find a combo that allowed the cobalt to shine! In the end I pulled out some of my DK weight stash, trusting that it would work just fine with the worsted weight main colour. That gave me access to a crispy crunchy golden brown, and a more purple-toned deep navy. All told, I’m glad I went back in the cobalt direction! It feels more ‘me’.

I think we’d all agree it’s a little too matchy, buuuuuuuuuttttt… This oversized sweater is REALLY delicious to wear.

more play with colour

Did any of the colour combinations I explored inspire you? You could use your favourite palette above to make one of the designs from the Strange Brew collection – these combinations would work well for Marshland, Almanac, Fleet or Cartography.