Portolan Pullover

Hi blog, me again.

I’m here to dry the ink on the pattern for a special sweater, made out of precious yarn from a visionary yarn maker, Rachel Atkinson of Daughter of a Shepherd yarns. As Rachel has expanded her color range since she began, I have picked each of them up as I have been able, some at Pomfest in London, others at her annual visit to Jill Draper’s Open Studio party during Rhinebeck, and finally last year I bought enough Heritage to round out the collection and combine them all into a sweater that itself owes its design to a chart that I started thinking about when I visited Shetland.

I’m digging up the Shetland association for this design mostly because of the travel aspect to it, that I thought of this pattern originally in a scribble, how triangles make more triangles out of each other when they are combined, but it evolved while fitting the idea into the geometry of how a yoke fits the body. As the triangles narrow towards the neck, something interesting happens and I think it begins to look like something familiar if you’ve studied the history of European expansion: Portolan charts.

Ancient navigation maps drew imaginary lines between destinations. Impractical or not, they were the principle guides of voyages at sea. This just feels poetic as a touchstone for a sweater combining Shetland and Yorkshire and my own Maritimer (in the Atlantic Canada sense of the word) elements at a time when travel is entirely taboo.

I deeply love Rachel’s yarns and her project in general, and I hope more knitters will look at naturally colored yarns in combination rather than just keeping one to a project. It’s marvelous how nature just goes with itself, no dye required. Although color, if you’re interested, is easily added. I think it would make sense to keep your contrasts high for the tiny triangles, and use whatever flight of fancy takes you for the remaining two, but I’d love to see combinations that diverge from my own. But you really have to knit with Heritage, and watch how beautifully is blooms when you wash it. It’s a hardy yarn that will serve you for a lifetime of journeys. May you have many.

Anyway, that’s all for now. I’m off to cast on for another idea.