more fabulous Tonnachs

How do you choose shades when knitting something for yourself? Do you pick what you like to suit your usual palette preferences? Or do you challenge yourself to try something different, and revitalise your wardrobe? Do you develop a fresh colourway around shades which carry specific meanings for you personally? Or could you work your sporting allegiances into your knitting, creating a garment in the colours of your favourite team? We have examples of all of these approaches to colour today, among our fabulous Tonnach winners .

First up is Jane, who decided to use single skeins from her Colour Compass box for her Tonnach, only buying extra yarn for the ribs. “There were several disastrous swatches,” says Jane “but then I thought about the colours of a mermaids tail and utilised the impressive array of blues and greens in the collection.”

“Once I had finished though, it reminded me a bit more of a peacock’s rather than a mermaids tail” Whoever the tail belongs to, your Tonnach is such a gorgeous blue-green symphony, Jane! I especially like the use of Ardnamurchan in the chevron centres.

One Tonnach was not enough for Jane, and, feeling a bit more confident about putting shades together, she began swatching from her Colour Compass box again, inspired by “an image of toffee apples being made with red and green fruit, orangey and brown toffee and creamy apple flesh.”

“When I made my first Tonnach,” says Jane, “I would not have been confident enough to include the brighter Stockiemuir with the other warmer autumnal shades.”

“. . . but I am delighted with how it turned out. Although, the vibe turned out (in my opinion) more 1970’s than toffee apples.”

You can’t argue with a good 1970s, vibe, Jane, especially when it includes Stockiemuir.

Rosalind, who “likes blues” but “is also drawn to purples” similarly used her own Colour Compass box to put together her own individual Tonnach colourway from Milarrochy Tweed.  “I selected the blues,” Rosalind says, “and decided Hirst was a good neutral to make the colours pop. I then chose Asphodel to add energy and colour to the garment . . .”

” . . . and knitted a swatch and realised that orange is the colour for bladder cancer which was particularly appropriate as I have been fighting it this last year.”

Your thoughtful colour choices have brought such a fabulous vitality to your finished Tonnach, Rosalind, and I wish you more of that same glorious, bold, orange energy as your recovery continues.

The colours we wear can convey powerful – often profoundly personal – meanings. When choosing my outfit in the morning, I often use a skirt or scarf in a particular shade to raise my spirits, or to cheer myself on, and we can use colour to cheer others on as well, as Ellen shows us with her own Tonnach.

Ellen bought herself some gorgeous skeins from her local dyer, Hazel Knits, with the idea of creating a hap for herself in the colours of her beloved Seattle Mariners. But then the Tonnach KAL came along and she felt compelled to knit herself a World Series Tonnach in the colours of her team. “Their uniforms,” Ellen tells me, “consist of Navy Blue or Northwest Green tops and Gray pants. The white and the red represent the colors of the baseball. To finish off my baseball Tonnach, I’ve added baseball buttons as well as a tag that reads, ‘MY OH MY’’, which is the catch phrase that Dave Neuhaus (one of the announcers) uses when the Mariners hit a homerun.” Ellen regards all the work and playful details of her Tonnach, as an investment for the long-term: “I will be cheering the Mariners on through the playoffs and for many years to come.”

Thanks to all our wonderful Tonnach knitters! What a great team of women you are!

Subscriptions for our brand-new Winter club are now open in the KDD shop, and, if you haven’t heard already, I’ll be back tomorrow to tell you all about it.