Brightness and Contrast

At some point in our knitting lives, most of us encounter That Skein. That Skein is hand-dyed, richly multi-hued, and a perfect masterpiece in its own right. That Skein is something we covet, something we can’t resist purchasing, something we pet and stroke... and yet it languishes in stashdom. The problem with That Skein is that we can’t quite match the genius of its dyework to a pattern that does justice to its marvelous colours. Sometimes, That Skein turns muddy when knit up; sometimes it pools or flashes in unwanted ways. Sometimes it just refuses to let us knit it until it knows we can do full justice to its dyer’s art.

Brightness and Contrast is designed to take That Skein and, with a solid or tonal helper yarn, really let it sing.

This is an approachable shawl, with clever-but-easily-worked single-row stripes that keep the shades in That Skein from muddying each other. There is a contrasting band of a textural stitch that looks complex but is easily memorized, and