Our First Colourwork Club - Kits are now available!

We are so excited to announce the release of 3 brand new knitting kits today, each developed with care so that you can successfully create colourwork accessories. These kits began life as part of our Colourwork Club, which ran as a subscription club earlier this year, for knitters improve their colourwork skills. This proved so popular, we wanted to make these available for all wannabe colourwork knitters.

Brunstane, Bellfield and Broughton are now available as a choice of kits in three colourways (classic, vibrant and neutral) and from Wednesday all three patterns will be available to purchase as individual patterns, outside of the club.

Kits available

After Ysolda sketches her design, the journey begins. The team swatch and test yarn choices as well as colour options to make sure each project worked up from this design is successful. The end result is our range of kits, developed for knitters, by knitters.

Each kit includes yarn in your choice of colourway, and a high quality print pattern booklet. The print pattern includes a complimentary download code, so you can work from the format you prefer and always have a backup.

All three kits include one of our favourite yarns from Rauma in Norway. Kits are beautifully packaged in a recycled and recyclable paper bag that makes a perfect gift.

Kits for the Brunstane cowl include five balls Rauma Petter, a woolly DK superwash. This yarn is ideal for a first colourwork project because the weight is easy to learn new skills with, and although it’s a superwash, it’s not too slick and blocks well.

For the Bellfield hat we chose to use Rauma Finnul PT2, a 100% Norwegian wool that's ideal for colourwork.

The Broughton Mitts use two different yarns, both of which are included in the kit. Rauma Strikkegarn is DK weight wool used for the outer mitten, and Rauma Lamullgarn is a heavy laceweight that gives a perfect lightweight lining.

Of course you might want to select your own yarn colours and if that’s the case, head on over to our shop page listing, here. 

The patterns

Our colourwork club patterns were designed to get slightly more challenging with each one, starting off with Brunstane, an ideal first colourwork project if you're new to this technique. The three patterns will be available to purchase individually on Wednesday 7 October. (Can't wait? Neither can we...)

Brunstane

The Brunstane Cowl was designed specifically to be a good first stranded colourwork project: it’s both manageable and skill-building. The colourwork design intentionally begins by alternating colours after every stitch, so you don’t need to worry about tensioning the floats, then gradually increases to a maximum of 5 consecutive stitches in each colour. The bold, graphic design is shown in three relatively high contrast palettes, and has a clear foreground and background pattern, making it easy to tell which colour you should be using when, and which should be dominant. The pattern repeat is only eight stitches, so you can find your rhythm.

The cowl is a simple tube, tapered slightly so that it flares around the shoulders and hugs the neck. This shaping is achieved by simply changing to a smaller needle size; there’s no increasing or decreasing to worry about combining with the colourwork.

I really enjoyed knitting this - colorwork just flies off the needles!eemarsha on Ravelry

Bellfield

The Bellfield Hat makes a great second stranded colourwork project that will stretch your skills. It’s worked bottom-up with a cosy folded brim and enough slouchy length to pull down over your ears. The contrast colour cast-on
is worked using what might become your new favourite cast on for ribbing: an alternating cable cast on. Working bottom-up means you can begin the colourwork comfortably on a 16 or 20” needle and switch to double pointed needles or magic loop once you’ve established your tension.

In comparison to the Brunstane Cowl, the colourwork in Bellfield is a little more challenging: the pattern repeat is larger, so you might have to focus on the chart more; there are slightly longer floats of 6, and on one round 7 sts; and the crown shaping is incorporated into the colourwork. There’s also a large section in the middle of a very simple repeating pattern, in which only alternate rounds are stranded, so you’ll have a chance to relax. That snowflake crown is totally worth the effort! Whether you add a pom-pom is completely up to you.

Broughton

The Broughton mittens features simple but effective small repeating stitch patterns, combined with a bold geometric cuff pattern. They include some new, fun techniques like the Estonian Kihnu braids at the cuff, and feature an optional flip-top opening. For extra warmth, softness and a neat finish the mittens are lined with lambswool, which is used held double to add a pop of contrast on the cuffs. The thumbs and flip-top openings are worked using an afterthought method where stitches are held by knitting them with scrap yarn, which is removed afterwards to create an opening and live stitches — this is a really useful technique that you can use for sock heels and pockets, as well as thumbs.

I loved learning the braided cast on! I was worried about it, but it was easy! julieti on Ravelry

I’m kind of smitten with this pattern. This is my second pair, and I just cast on yet another this morning!KathyInIowa on ravelry

Tips and Techniques

Are you new to colourwork knitting but keen to give it a try? On the website you can find out more about stranded knitting, some techniques used and how to swatch. You read more here, where you can also find some other patten suggestions and tutorials to get you started.

If you're going to starting one of our colourwork club patterns we have so many tutorials to help you! Have a look here at the full list.