a tale of two swatches

ah hebredian 3 ply, how i love thee. i love your soft hand, i love your rich heathered colors.
but i didn't love my selkie for the crossed in translation sweater. bah, the colors in selkie were too much with the patterns of crossed and twisted stitches on every row. the pattern was just lost, i think this sweater would be better in a solid color yarn with more of a twist. so the stitches will pop. (sorry i didn't take a photo, i was too disgusted before i frogged).

next try, looking through all my books for a starmore that could be cardiganized like fern. hmm, irish moss from aran knitting is a good candidate, and it has cabling on only the right side rows ;-) started the back, but wait, the same problem. the glorious colors in the yarn are not being shown to their best advantage with all the tightly twisted stitches. (maybe i'm not being completely honest as the photo looks pretty good).



swatch again, this time plain stockinette. ah, lovely, the sumptuous colors are shining through!
last fall when i knit dunadd, i couldn't decide whether to knit it with selkie or lapwing. dd pointed out that lapwing would provide a nice contrast with our new couch and love seat, whereas selkie is almost exactly the same color. so lapwing is was.

but i still loved the selkie on the couch. aha! st.ciaran is the perfect answer :-) beautiful cable patterns, the perfect complement to selkie. now i am awaiting 3 more skeins....