Why do I keep doing collaborations with Catherine over at Gauge Dye Works? Partly it’s because Catherine is great and we work so well together and partly it’s because of self-striping yarn! I’m including gradients in this and if you’ve ever knit with them you’ll know just how much fun they are! If you haven’t tried it yet, you don’t know the joy and anticipation of knitting just a few more rounds to get to that colour change!

When Catherine and I collaborate on a project, we like to incorporate the colour changes into the actual design so that the new colour is a signal to the knitter about what to do next. It doesn’t always work that way, but it’s a big part of our Three Seasons socks and shawl patterns from last summer’s club.

Profile of Andrea’s feet wearing gradient, textured, striped socks in shades of pink, orange, and grey. The grey stripes are narrower than the colourful ones. One foot is pointed in front of the other.

The socks have a fun and intuitive chevron pattern that’s worked on the big, coloured stripes. As a knitter, you’ll know when to start the chevron pattern because the new colour appears and you’ll know when to stop when the yarn changes to grey. The pattern is flowing enough that if you have a round more or less than I did in the sample, it doesn’t matter. Your socks will be uniquely yours and will still work with the pattern. Once you’ve done the chevron pattern a few times and you’re well into it, you may not even need to check the pattern because the twisted stitches can be easy to follow. That makes these a great, relaxing vacation project for knitting on your road trip or around the campfire.

The socks are worked top-down and I used a short-row heel so that you could use the extra grey heel yarn to work it without interrupting the stripes.

The shawl has a similar feel — get into the groove of the line-drawn triangle at the spine and just keep going until the colour changes! The motif works the same for both large and small shawl versions and for both 5- and 7-stripe shawls. It’s the kind of knitting that’s engaging to work and hard to put down.

You might be wondering if it’s possible to knit the Three Seasons patterns without the self-striping yarn and the answer is always yes! I design all of my Gauge patterns so that you could substitute your own yarn and just weave in those extra ends. You won’t have the yarn telling you when to move onto the next section, but the pattern will guide you to figure that out.

Have you knit either of the Three Seasons patterns? Tell me about your project in the comments! What colour? Which project? Which size? Are you in love with self-striping yarn like I am??

The collages above are a little bonus — those were some of the images that we played with for colour inspiration! We often use nature and my nature photography as part of our design process and how we give hints about what the patterns and yarns will be like since we’ve kept the actual designs a secret before launch in the past.

This year we’re changing it up, publishing a little later than usual, and not keeping secrets, but we will have two new patterns for you! Stay tuned for the first one in the next few weeks. If you want to be sure you don’t miss it, sign up for my newsletter.

You can find all my collaborations with Catherine at Gauge Dye Works here.

The magic of self-striping yarn

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