Have you ever started knitting something that you thought would be a straightforward project but turned into a complex mind-changing struggle. This is happening to me right now and I don’t know if I will ever get to the end.
Out of all the new designs from Rowan Spring and Summer 2022 one caught my eye. It was this one, Eve, designed by Georgia Farrell and knitted using Kidsilk Haze and Summerlite 4ply.
Eve by Georgia Farrell
It wasn’t the colour that attracted me, as yellowy-green colours would not suit me, but the possibility of the huge number of colour combinations. My mind was a-whirr! Blues, purples and pinks mixed with shades of white. However, that was before I checked out the colour shade card for Kidsilk Haze and Summerlite 4ply. Consequently, my choice dwindled down to blue or pink with white stripes.
Please keep in mind that the colours depicted below and on computer screens may differ in reality, and it is always best to compare yarn shades with actual balls of yarn.
Before I made my final colour choices I looked at the designer’s chosen shades, Eve green and Cream in Kidsilk Haze and Seashell in Summerlite 4ply, to consider why they worked so well together.
I think it was due to the fact that Cream Kidsilk Haze and Seashell Summerlite 4ply were very similar in hue and Eve Green in Kidsilk Haze was a stronger shade but in harmony with them. With this in mind, I made some preliminary choices from my shade card and then headed off to the haberdashery department in John Lewis, Oxford Street to group balls of my chosen shades together. The shades that seemed to work well were Kidsilk Haze in White and Grace and Summerlite 4ply in Pure White.
So, the lovely people at Rowan sent me my chosen shades and I started to knit a test sample. I made this fairly large as I wanted to test it accurately. However, all was not well. – the shades appeared to change colour.
The bright white shade of Summerlite 4ply affected the appearance of the white shade of Kidsilk Haze and turned it into a pale beige shade. The same thing appeared to happen to the clean pink colour of Grace – it became a muted pink. Unfortunately, knitting these shades together was not working for me – I really do not look good in muted colours.
I decided to replace the white Kidshilk Haze with a blue Kidsilk Haze called Heavenly as I thought a blue would harmonise better with the Pure White shade of Summerlite 4ply. I had a couple of balls for a few years which were waiting to be knitted into ….. something …. well maybe this will work.
But no, it wasn’t any better. The pale pink colour of Grace and the blue colour of Heavenly that were so clean and pure in a ball of Kidsilk Haze became muted when knitted up into a transparent material.
The reason for this change in hue was due to the transparent quality of the knitted Kidsilk Haze material – it allowed the colour of my skin underneath to mix with both the pink and the blue Kidsilk Haze yarn and dulled their beautiful shades. It was as if I added a tiny blob of pale cream paint to the pink and blue dye mix. Unfortunately, this colour combination still wasn’t working for me.
I was determined to use Heavenly, the blue Kidsilk Haze shade, and went back to my shade cards and John Lewis. I decided to look at the shade Duck Egg for Summerlite 4ply and Ghost to replace the pink Kidsilk Haze. Keeping in mind that comparing the different colour balls of Kidsilk Haze did not help before, I put my fingers underneath a few strands of the yarn of each ball I had chosen. I thought these colours were less likely to affect each other and might work so I bought the shades Ghost and Duck Egg to go with Heavenly.
I have now been knitting Eve for a few weeks but I’m still not sure about the shades.
Changing the shades for this design has turned out to be extremely challenging. If I had a cupboard full of Kidsilk Haze and Summerlite 4ply in every single shade available I could have spent months finding a colour combination that I preferred. Maybe I went the wrong way choosing light shades and should have gone with darker shades. How about these combinations:
Blackcurrant and Dewberry in Kidsilk Haze and Aubergine in Summerlite 4ply
Or Turkish Plum and Laguna in Kidsilk Haze and Navy Ink in Summerlite 4ply.
I think I will leave testing these shades for another day…..
What shades would you try and why? Please let me know. Leave a comment by scrolling down to “Leave a Reply”.
For details on the pattern Eve, please click the links below.
Hope you have a less challenging knitting experience this Spring and Summer!
Esther x
I like the original colours, and this may well be my next project….once I’ve finished last summer’s jumper!
I think the original colours work really well together too Helen unfortunately, they just wouldn’t suit me. Have fun knitting it up!
I think you got of to a wrong start. There are only 2 colours in this design namely yellow and white. (or 1 colour and 1 neutral to be more precise). The two shades of white are only used to change texture. The yellow has to be very bright to stand out against the white. (My box with coloured pencils always has a lot of yellow left, because it does not stand out on white paper.)
I would keep the two whites and add a contrasting colour, for pink I would have chosen KSH candy girl, and for blue KSH royal, KSH blush might also work for pink. Your blue and purple colour choices might work, but now you are using only one colour, so the stripes will be very subtle. Think of a second contrasting colour to go with them.
Also because you are using dark colours, the lighter texture will be lighter in colour not darker (as was the case with white).
It is a real shame that Rowan drastically reduced the number of colours. This is the reason why I have not used Rowan for a while, I just find 50 shades of beige not very inspiring.
Thank you for your comment Gisela.
I agree with you that there are two shades used in the original design that are there just to change texture however the original shades are not white but very much off-white – namely cream and seashell. Maybe you missed the part in my blog where I explained that I changed these two shades as you suggested for a white (Kidsilk Haze) and a pure white (Summerlite 4ply) and the Eve Green shade to a pink. It didn’t work out because the white of Kidsilk Haze turned into a beige shade due to the affect of it sitting next to the bright whiteness of Summerlite 4ply – basically colour interaction. This combined with the transparency of the knitted material muted them further. Maybe I should correct this to say that it didn’t work out for me because I do not like muted shades and they don’t suit me me either. So the pink and two whites may have looked really good to someone else.
I think Laguna as the contrast. Then : pure white and either ghost or heavenly.
Thanks for your comment, Barbara. Does anyone else want to have a go at choosing some shades?
My opinion is that the Summerlite needs to be a lighter shade. I like the dewberry and black current combo, but with a shade of Summerlite either in a shade of white or a pink closer to the dewberry. I think the Aubergine is too dark for the background of the dewberry. But I haven’t worked with these yarns much, so I’m just guessing.
Thanks for your comment Terianne. What does everyone else think?