I’m embarking on an exploration of what variations of St Petersburg might look like. I love St Petersburg, but I am aware that not everyone is going to want to knit it. I am also aware that I don’t want to knit a stockinette sweater, so there has to be some happy medium.
The first thing I’ve done is find two other lovely mohairs to use. They are really different, and give a really different look to the very same knitting–but they all achieve the same gauge. Whoo hoo! That has possibilities which are almost exponential. If every piece I create can be knitted in any of these three yarns and each will have a slightly different look (and price tag), then if I create variations on the original St P’s, the number of variations I create can be multiplied by three. If I also create additional types of pieces, say a shawl, or accessories, and they can each be multiplied by three, whomever buys one of the patterns will be buying the possibility of three variations. Now if I made this into a collection of 12 patterns, and each could be made in the three yarns, you could create 36 pieces before you repeated yourself. That seems pretty cool to me. I am in the process of making this happen.
When I was talking to the owner of Colinton Australia she told me to be sure I washed my swatch. Sadly, I forgot to take a picture of my swatches (the first above) prior to washing them. I can tell you with a fair level of confidence, that my stockinette was really uneven when I was knitting it. It is the top of the banana-colored swatch. It was actually shockingly uneven. At first I thought it was because I was drinking a martini, but when I redid it another night, it was almost as bad.
I considered doing them over on non-metal needles. But, lacking time, I just did my swatches and moved on, telling myself I would wash them and see what happened. A happy result!
This is the Russian Ballet Collection. It is still being choreographed!
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