Rainbow Blayter

I'm always on the look out for patterns which work well in handspun, partly for stall samples, but also because I happen to spin rather a lot of yarn....

I tend to like patterns with flexible yardage, or ones that allow you to combine smaller amounts of differnt colours, I also love how 2-ply handspun looks when knitted up in garter stitch. 

This particular pattern was released during Wovember last year. It's a baby version of a very nice looking adult jacket called Blayter. The original was in beautiful natural shades, and when I saw it I have a feeling it would work well using smaller bits of handpsun, at the time I was thinking of the Birds and Queens sample packs. But then of course I came up with the Rainbow Sprinkles, and they work perfectly for this!

My Mum, ever the practical one, looked at it and despaired of the white sleeves... but you could swap them for black. I made the smallest size, but on a larger needle as my yarn was slightly thicker than commercial fingering weight. I made a few other modifications to the stitch count as well (full details on my project page). It's a really clever pattern with very little traditional seaming, you mostly join the pieces using kitchener stitch, or pick up live stitches. I suspect you could make the next size up using the fibre in the pack, but probably not any of the larger sizes.  



Right now I'm still on a bit of a Rainbow kick, I'm spinning up some BFL that was a prototype for the Sludgy Rainbow colourway that I dyed for the Hilltop Cloud team to spin during the Ravellenic games. It's all a bit more subtle though, as the colours blend as you draft. I've got 3 different base shades of BFL to work with so fingers crossed I'll be turning it in to this pattern.



What's your favourite pattern(s) for handspun?