June Yarn + Pattern Club with Gauge Dye Works!
A collage with three images including a hot pink and yellow flower very up close, a long stretch of blue green lagoon water in front of a green forest, and rusty orange autumn leaves on a gloomy day. In the middle of the collage, text reads, “June 2021 Yarn + Pattern Club.”
Today’s the day! Signups are now open for the June instalment of the Gauge Dye Works Summer Yarn + Pattern Club.
About the June Club Inspiration
Our inspiration for this year’s club started with a video game. I needed something to relax, so I asked my friend Jessie in Portland, “What was that soothing game you made me play when we crashed our bikes on an icy road and I hit my head even though I was wearing a helmet and you wanted to be sure I didn’t have a concussion?”
The answer was Monument Valley and it really is just as soothing as I remembered. But more than that, it’s beautiful to look at. It’s a sort of mind-bending puzzle game where your character finds her way through various mazes, buildings, and landscapes. Playing it, I immediately thought of Catherine at Gauge. I thought, she would like what I’m looking at too. So I found a few screen shots and saved them to a Pinterest board to share with her.
She did like them and we spent a little brainstorming time figuring out what was so great about the design. Catherine, of course, noticed the way the colours in each scene worked together. Most of them had colours that were on the opposite sides of the colour wheel and monochrome shades of those colours. That created really interesting gradients and the impressions of shadows. The other thing that grabbed us was the clean, graphic geometry of so many perfectly straight lines and shapes that intersected and opposed one another.
We wanted to grab some of those elements and play with them, so Catherine dyed up some yarn that had those qualities of opposite colours with bold stripes and gradient monochromes. She included a bit of dark grey to offset the vibrant colours, and as she worked, the colour schemes she created really ended up looking very seasonal.
She had palettes that felt very spring, summer, and autumn. The idea of moving forward with a “Three Seasons” collection felt totally on-brand for both of us, so we went with it.
In my pattern explorations, I kept with both the seasonal feel and the inspiration of intersecting, bold lines and stripes. It took a bunch of iterations before I settled on a sock design and stripe sequence that felt right, but we cannot wait to show you where we landed.
Catherine and I tend to work together in a round-about way, circling around different ideas, exploring what appeals to us on our own and then how the other person reacts to it. It’s really never just a straight line from some single inspiration source to our final collection. We usually notice things along the way that take us in a different direction, like going from the visual graphics of a game to the natural inspiration of the seasons. We found a theme that made sense to us together even if it’s a bit of a way’s off from what got the spark going in the first place.
About Club Sign-ups
Sign-ups for the June club are now open and we hope you’ll love what we came up with this year! I think this collection is our most cohesive one yet, and we’re delighted to offer three colour palettes for the June club inspired by spring, summer, and autumn. The actual pattern and yarn are a surprise, but you can get a good feel for each colour way by perusing our nature images and collages. We also decided to include a, “Surprise me!” option just because we think it’s fun, so you don’t have to pick if you don’t want to.
Click here to learn more and sign up!
If you decide to participate, comment down below telling me which colour way you signed up for!
P.S. We struggled over whether to call our third colour way “Fall” or “Autumn”, but in the end it was decided by graphic design. “Autumn” is a much more similar length word to “Spring” and “Summer” than “Fall” is. So it ended up being all about looks. The fact that we agree about the importance of such things is an example of why we keep doing projects together.
P.P.S. If you need a reminder of what our summer club collaborations are like, check out these listing for previous club patterns and yarns, and this blog post from last year with more about how our process works.
Some Previous Club Patterns
Hardy enough for adventuring yet pretty enough for lounging, Saxe Point will be a lovely addition to your sock collection. The socks are worked toe-up with an afterthought heel and shaped leg, with a colourwork cuff to top it all off. I designed this pattern in collaboration with Catherine of Gauge Dye Works. She took colour inspiration from one of my photos of Vancouver Island’s rocky seashore, and together we created a yarn designed to create a wonderful knitting experience — along with the perfect pattern to show it off. The self-striping yarn makes colours appear on your needles as if by magic. I have included instructions for creating the same effect by substituting yarn.
The pattern now includes the bonus “Twinkle” chart for some holiday cheer!
The yarn designed especially for this pattern is from Gauge Dye Works.
Full Spectrum is a clever reversible hat with fetching stripes on one side and pleasing geometric colourwork on the other. It’s worked from the crown of one side, through the brim, and to the crown of the other, so that the whole doubled hat is worked in one piece. It was designed in collaboration with Gauge Dye Works - their self-striping yarn makes this an addicting and enjoyable knit!
The yarn designed for this pattern is available in three colourways from Gauge Dye Works.
There’s also a cheery Twinkle colourway! You can get the colour-blocked version for the toque (it would also be great for the Botanical Sampler cowl) or the multi-striped version for the Saxe Point socks.
A flowing gradient splashed with short row “leaves” turns this semi-circular pi shawl into a stunning statement piece — and the perfect wrap for your outdoor adventures. And the best part? It’s worked in a unique self-striping yarn that shifts and blends, with golden sections appearing as you knit to tell you when to work each Leaf. It’s addictively mesmerising! I worked closely with Catherine of Gauge Dye Works to design this special shawl. It was an unusual collaboration, in that the yarn colourway and the pattern were developed in tandem to create a knitting experience that’s fun, engaging, and reflects the beauty of the great outdoors. Instructions are included for substituting a non-striping yarn.
The yarn designed especially for this pattern is available from Gauge Dye Works.