I posted earlier about a nifty new pattern/technique club from Knitsonik and friends – Color to Knit.

The first project launched on May 1 – a scarf pattern called Brightlingsea. Along with the pattern, we got coloring sheets to color our own interpretation of the pattern. I did not want to knit the pattern as is, but couldn’t wait to get into those coloring sheets! I’m not going to share my colored pages, as I think the pages are proprietary to the club. However, here are my swatches.

I did blocks for seashores and beaches I have known and loved. Seward, at the bottom, is the first block I did after our weekend there recently. You may notice it is bigger than the others – this one is really overknit. After this one, I settled on a smaller format. Next I tried the speed swatching method where you knit and then slide your work back and just carry the yarn across the back in big loops. That worked, but it drove me crazy. Then I just went to knitting back and forth. It worked fine.

Coloring and then swatching the different beach blocks let me play with different gradient orders and try out solid vs. tonal vs. variegated yarns for this type of pattern. I got to try out two really different background with the same main pattern colors. I experimented with low, medium and high contrast combinations. All in all, it was a very satisfying exercise, and really enjoyable. Someday I might continue this exercise to the point where I can put it all together into a throw or something, but it might just remain a fun experiment with color knitting!