finished!

Gamaldags No.1

Do you remember my last post about Faroese yarn?
I told there I would knit two lopi sweaters with it and here’s mine all done!

The pullover in question is Gamaldags by Hélène Magnússon, a lopi pullover traditional by its motifs but modern by its cut, as with all the patterns from her.
She proposes several color combinations in the pattern (and with kits) and I wanted to make blue-grey-brown one for me and colorful one for my daughter.
I bought 4 shades of grey and a turquoise blue of Snaeldan 3-ply, thinking of combining them simply.
And this was my first attempt:
gam1-swatchrate
It was really catastrophic! The darkest grey, very close to black, doesn’t go with the lightest grey, not the blue either, and the blue doesn’t match the lightest grey. The medium grey was too “pale” and almost invisible…

So I searched my stash for shades and tried a couple of combinations.
And I chose this combo:
gamaldags-swatch-small
I put this very vivid blue in the silver grey, the only color it accepted to be married with, the lightest grey with a very dark brown (named peat) because they contain both yellow, and found a medium grey darker than that of the skein I’d bought.
Do you find the medium grey popping up? It’s because it was my dominant color. If you haven’t yet known know Yarn dominance theory, read this article on Interweave.
Finally, I didn’t use the darkest grey and the medium grey of Snaeldan, but it wouldn’t be difficult to find a perfect project for a worsted-weight medium grey yarn, and as for the dark grey yarn, I’d like to use it as a MC as it’s such a deep and rich color.

And while I hesitated for the color combo, I’d begun the body and sleeves.
My swatch shrank at washing, from 22.5 row to 25 rows for 10 cm [4″], so I made the body and sleeves longer. I knitted sleeves to 52 cm [20.5″](!) so that the final length would be 47 cm [18.5″]. Do you find it long? This is because I had to do the same for the sleeves of my Seacoast, a pullover with a round yoke. It seem that with this type of yoke, because of its round form, sleeves go closer up to underarms than with other yokes.

And I’m happy with the result 🙂
gam1-fo5-small
The sleeves shrank as I calculated and cover warmly my wrists. Frankly speaking, I prefer working with fingering-sport weight yarn, but pullovers knit with worsted weight yarn are really warm, and we need them this winter in France!

The cool color combo could look a little bit mannish, but my theme was glacier, and I love it 🙂
gam1-detail2-small

The only thing left I have to do is to make another one for my girl 🙂

NOTES
Pattern: Gamaldags by Hélène Magnússon
Needles: 3.5 mm [US 4] & 4 mm [US 6]
Yarn
MC: Snældan, Nappað tógv 3tr: #3 Mist
CC1: Snældan, Nappað tógv 3tr: Turkish Blue
CC2: Snældan, Nappað tógv 3tr: #2 Cloud
CC3: Drops, Alpaca: #517m medium grey, held double
CC4: La droguerie, Alpaga: Tourbe, held double

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