Decades of Yarn is the 2022 yarn club, taking a stroll through the 20th Century trends and fashions, taking inspiration each month and creating a brand new colourway on a variety of bases and in a mini-skein collection and Blanket Club!
Each month I'll be sharing the colours created and progress on the Blanket I'll be designing to go along with the club - feel free to knit along with me and share your progress in our social media pages!
This month, the colourway was taken from the luxury that exudes from the upper class decks of ships such as the ill-fated Titanic. Because if you're going to fantasise about being in the past you might as well make it a fantasy with ever flowing teas, parties and evening gowns - right?
Although somewhat limited in my fashion sense in real life, I can pick a wonderful gown out (a bit like this one, featured in the Met Museum collection) and imagine what it might have been like to be a Lady, albeit a lady with all the freedoms and opinions I have today! This is in part why the 1910's was fascinating to research, there was quite a way to go, lets be honest, but there was the air of change...
Women's suffrage was well underway in many countries, there were a growing number of outspoken ladies who were beginning to shape common thinking and even the fashions began to reflect this. Although the 'ladies' of the day were still caught up in customs and etiquette of dress and social niceties, there seemed to be a relaxation in style. Corsets were eased and began to be phased out, lines of gowns began to take a more natural look and the world was wild open with international influences being shown in the fashions of the day.
Working on personal tastes, I picked out a handful of gowns, re-watched Titanic (obviously!) and devoured pictures and illustrations of the 1st class facilities of the trans-Atlantic ships of the day. Truth be told, I had a great time! And once I got into the studio, the colourway 'Titanic Grandeur' was born.
But - I've hinted at all this during the process of doing it via Instagram, what I've not given any detail on yet is the blanket KAL promised! The plan is each month to release the pattern for a section of a blanket which uses 50g of the monthly colourway and 3x 20g mini-skeins taken from the mini-skein collection. January was a bonus month, as I felt it needed an extra skein to allow for an i-cord cast on.
The key design feature of the January section is the Woven Wave slip-stitch pattern, which adds a heavy texture to
the blanket border, and works perfectly with a fading set of mini's (in fact, you'll soon see a whole range of patterns released in this style!). A really simple pattern repeat, see below for a link to this month's pattern download and a video of me demonstrating the stich (with lots of babbling, it's one of my first videos so I hope you'll forgive the amateur nature of it!).
If you decide to knit along do share your progress and thoughts with us, either here on the blog post or on Instagram via #DecadesofYarnKAL