Finding Your Fade

After interviewing Andrea Mowry for the podcast recently, I got bitten with the Find Your Fade bug. Just before Christmas, Andrea released this gorgeous, huge, and stunning shawl pattern that used seven different colours of sock yarn, melting from one colour to the next. It’s pretty popular right now and deservedly so. It is a gloriously freeing exploration of colour. The shawl pattern alternates between garter stitch and easy lace to create a giant swath of fabric that allows you to simply enjoy colour.

A first try at a Find Your Fade palette. Tweaked the Coral Rose to a Persimmon.

Of course, this means picking colours. And sometimes that is the hardest part of starting a new project. For myself, I spent some time at the studio arranging skeins of Superwash Sport in various 7-colour schemes to find what I wanted to make. Finally, I settled upon the seven skeins show above: Coral Rose, Clementine, Orchid, Lavender, Gelato, Glacier, and Sea Spray. But something about it wasn’t quite exactly what I wanted, but I even went so far as to knit the entire first section in Coral Rose. Re-working the palette, I think I would choose Persimmon over Coral Rose to increase the contrast between the colourways. I still love these colours together but I went to work on a couple different options too…

Finally, I decided I needed to dye new colours for the shawl and so, I picked up some test skeins that we were working on for our Spring 2017 launch. Here are a couple sneak peeks at just two of the 13 colours we’re releasing in March — Mango Ice and Biscuit:

Find Your Fade, section 1, featuring a new colourway coming for Spring 2017 — Mango Ice

A new colourway coming for Spring 2017 — Mango Ice

Section 2 of Find Your Fade, working with a new colourway for Spring 2017 — Biscuit

Finally, I think I’m still hooked on the colourway gradient that I’ve been working on all these past few months with my handwoven baby wrap. And even though it’s finished now, I still want to play with these colours!

Dusk to Dawn

Handwoven wrap finally finished

Handwoven wrap off the loom

If you are thinking about assembling your own palette of colours for a Find Your Fade, you can use the code “findyourfade” in our online shop to get 15% off our fingering weight yarns (with a minimum of $150 order) until February 28, 2017. It’s a great way to get seven colours for your own shawl!

Happy fade-ing!