brand new shades

December 24th is a big day here at KDD HQ, as our Colour Compass project reaches its grand finale, and we all open the final package in our advent calendars to reveal a brand new shade of Milarrochy Tweed – welcome, Snapdragon!

Snapdragon joins five other brand new shades of Milarrochy Tweed, which we have really enjoyed revealing over the course of December to add to our existing colour range. In our Ravelry group, knitters from many different corners of the globe have shared their distinctive colour findings, and over on the Knitsonik blog, our good friend Felix has thoughtfully explored each shade’s everyday associations as we opened our calendar packages together every morning of December. Inspiring us all with her creative curiosity, I know I am not the only one who has looked forward to reading Felix’s daily posts throughout a month that many of us find difficult to navigate. Thank you, Felix.

Sitting in the Milarrochy Tweed palette between the light, pink-ish tones of Cranachan and the rich russety tones of Backen‘ , Snapdragon is a glorious “true” red, of deep, bold hue. Packing a punch of saturated colour that is enlivened by its neutral tweedy neps, Snapdragon is already a firm favourite of mine (as you will no doubt become aware in coming months) but wait! Aren’t there 5 other new Milarrochy shades as well? Aren’t they just as interesting, just as delightful? Of course they are. Shall I introduce you?

Over the years, I have often knitted with several near-neutrals that have really gripped me. I find these light, unsaturated shades, sitting somewhere between green, blue, and grey very compelling – as well as discovering that they can form useful “lifting” shades when one is working on a palette. So here is Eyebright – a “lifting” shade if ever there was one. Its name is the same as that of the small wildflower whose tiny white petals sing, if you examine them very closely, with an intriguing bluish sheen. Like its namesake, the light hue of our Eyebright is beautifully complex: a blue that’s barely there, enlivened with a pale wash of silvery green.

Here is Eyebright, sitting very comfortably among our other shades of blue.

But if you place Eyebright alongside the red or pink shades in the palette, you’ll find it can read more green-ly or more silvery. And speaking of pinks, meet Thrift: another shade I named for a favourite summer flower, and which proves a nice match here for Felix’s super summery shoes.

Thrift is a lovely soft, light pink: a dusty, airy shade that works really well in a palette of ice-cream pastels and which I think looks especially beautiful alongside the blue, grey and brown shades in the Milarrochy Tweed palette.

Having had the opportunity to play with these colours over several months, I’ve found I’ve become particularly fond of Thrift in combination with another of our brand new shades: Chingly

The name of this shade means pebbly or stony in Scots. Stones and pebbles can be many colours, and so can this chingly shade – is it grey or green or is it something in-between?

Chingly’s indeterminate neutrality is my current shade obsession! Mercurial and tricksy, Chingly can either soften or embolden other shades that its placed against, depending on their hue and value. A shade I know I’m going to want to use a lot, Chingly is the opposite of dull or boring and I absolutely love it!

If Chingly is a shade that keeps its counsel, Gaskin is one which insists itself upon you, declaring: I’m green! I’m green! I’m green!

Alive with bold flecks of tweedy colour Gaskin is a rich green that speaks very powerfully to me of the flourishing months of late spring and summer (in Scots, a gaskin is a gooseberry)

I enjoy Gaskin’s self-satisfied high-chroma character, and I love its zingy pop of brightness between the light, yellowish-green of Stockiemuir, and the greyer, much quieter, tones of Garth.

Our final colour also speaks of summer: Outsea, a glorious light-hued maritime blue, with turquoise tones and bright contrasting neps (some orange, and some of inky blue) dancing over its watery surface.

In Scots, Out Sea is a phrase applied to distant fishing grounds, and is much the same as saying ocean deep.

A super-complex, mid-toned blue, this buoyant, lighthearted shade certainly has many hidden depths: “La Mer / Bergère d’azur, infinie”

I don’t know about you, but I’ve found reflecting on, and thinking about colour every day of this month to be a very joyful thing which has really brought the season alive for me.

And it is certainly very exciting to now be able to add these six brand new shades to our existing Milarrochy Tweed palette . . .

. . . which together expand the range to 24 glorious yarn colours!

. . . bringing much more scope for creative, chromatic exploration!

Please join us, if you like, as we begin our journey through the palette with a collection of brand new Colour Compass patterns!

I’ll say more about that tomorrow, but for now, a very happy last day of advent to you, however you are spending it.