Let's hear it for purple!

Whether it’s the shade of a particular chocolate wrapper, amethyst geodes, or alliums growing in a flower bed, purple really is my favourite colour - I even use it as the main colour in my branding! 

The Vikki Bird Designs logo features a lot of purple

For a long time the only way to get purple dye was to use the mucus of a particular type of sea snail. Yuck. And expensive! The dye was so expensive it was only affordable to rulers, royalty and aristocracy. In 1856, William Perkin developed a synthetic purple dye, Mauveine, which brought the cost down and made purple accessible to a much larger portion of society.

Hazel in Caramel socks in a lovely rich purple

During the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee at the start of this month, the official colours of the celebrations were not the ubiquitous red, white and blue, widely associated with the union flag, but platinum (the metal associated with 70th anniversaries) and Pantone 3515 C, the rich purple that has long been associated with royalty. The jubilee was marked by a 4-day weekend, which I took as a sign to cast on some new socks. For the past few years, Jodi at Cuddlebums (one of my favourite indie dyers) has dyed up a special sock set to knit up over the long Easter weekend; Jodi decided to do the same for the jubilee weekend, and I treated myself to a set. I love all the colourways that Jodi dyes - they’re all inspired by rainbows - but when this one arrived, I was extra-excited because it was in my favourite colour: purple! The mini skein accent was a platinum grey, which was very on trend for the weekend.

Jubilee yarn by Cuddlebums

I loved knitting my very purple socks over the course of the weekend. To add a little extra fun, I used the polls feature in my Instagram stories to create a ‘choose your own adventure’ game. Based on the answers given, I ended up knitting a picot cuff, eye of partridge contrast heel, and a lace patterned foot. Watching the little rainbows emerge was such a joy - on some rows every single stitch was a different colour! The final socks look pretty cute too, and I’m in the process of writing up the pattern - would you be interested in knitting your own pair? Let me know in the comments.

A rainbow in every round!

Fabulous purple rainbow socks

Can’t wait for this pattern to come out? Why not check the sock patterns I’ve already published? You can find them on Ravelry* and PayHip.

*Ravelry may affect people with photosensitivity. Proceed with caution.

Antler cardigan: Quitting while you're ahead

A few weeks ago I posted a progress shot for my Antler cardigan, and it was going well. I had very nearly a whole sleeve and was looking forward to speeding through the whole cardigan as fast as I could. And then I stopped, and then I thought. In the summer I wear a lot of cardigans, and they're all lovely, but they're all lightweight, shop-purchased cardigans (mostly from Debenhams and H&M) that I throw on over little tops when it's a bit cool for bare shoulders. And in the winter, I throw on heavier weight jumpers, nothing too crazy, but a DK or aran weight jumper is always welcome. The Antler cardigan is going to fall somewhere between the two camps: it's a cardigan, perfect for summer, but too heavy to wear in the summer months, and it's the perfect weight for winter, but I never wear cardigans in the winter as I find them a little draughty.

The progress so far: almost a whole sleeve

I'd also been having doubts about the fit. I had gone for the size closest to my chest size, which had 1 inch of negative ease. But having worn my winter jumpers in the past couple of weeks, I realised that I like my winter garments to have a bit of positive ease, so the cardigan is going to be a bit small. And even while knitting the sleeve I was questioning the rate of increase in the sleeves - every 6 rows is great on a baby-sized sweater, but I kept thinking it was a little fast for an adult cardigan (and yet still I carried on to the end of the sleeve; one day I will learn).

And so my conclusion is to rip it out and start again. A size bigger, with slower sleeve increases (every 8 or 10 rounds, I'm still undecided on that one), and I might try and convert the body to a jumper (which no one in the first 20 pages of projects on Ravelry has tried; how hard can it be?!). And then I think it will be a garment I love. But for now it can sit on the naughty step for a bit; selfish knitting can wait until after Christmas.