Swatching for Pemberley

I've just swatched for a rather ambitious project - Pemberley, a colorwork sweater by Ann Kingstone. I fell in love with the pullover the very first time I saw it, but I thought I could never make it myself. After meeting Ann at the Glasgow School of Yarn, I let the idea percolate in my mind, and I've decided I'm going to make it - even if it kills me.

I got the yarn from Knit Picks recently - Palette is a nice yarn available in a whole bunch of colors and easy on the wallet, even with a recent price increase. The only problem with it is there's a high turnaround in terms of colorways - so it wasn't possible to see if anyone else knit with these two colors together. Luckily I think the two colors, Regal and Lantana, are a great combination and just what I had in mind. I don't wear a lot of purple, but I think it will suit me.

You may notice a slight difference between the top section and bottom section of the swatch - I was testing the effect of color dominance on the pattern. I learned about dominance in stranded colorwork only just recently, and I'm glad I did.

In a nutshell, the position of the yarns affects the prominence of the colors - in two-handed colorwork (knitting one color English and one Continental), it means that you should always hold the colors in the same way - MC in left and CC in right or vice versa. If you keep switching, things will look odd. And, which color you hold in which hand can have an effect on the work.

As you can see in my swatch, on top the lighter color stitches appear a bit bigger and looser, while on the bottom they're smaller. On the bottom, the dark criss-cross pattern in the center appears more defined. I'm choosing to use the MC yarn as dominant, as shown in the bottom half of the swatch - I like that look better. Your mileage and preferences may vary, which is why it's important to swatch!

~Joyuna