Measure twice, cut once

Buffy, I see your Romeo & Juliet Coat is now on Ravelry at GrandmaBuffy's Juliet Coat. And GrandmaLuLu is your Ravelry friend!

I loved seeing the beginnings of your project at the MDSWF Sunday. Fantastic colorway. And I can see why you make the wool fest an annual event.  How did you talk me into sharing half a bag of soft black fleece?  It added a certain farm smell to the drive home, somewhat dissimilar to new mown hay, if you get my drift....

Did you meet Miss Babs? She handed out business cards with a mini-skein of her hand-dyed sock yarn attached. I was lucky to get a rosy mauve colorway sample, and this little skein of yarn is going into the Jug Coat as a reminder of a happy, hot afternoon in Maryland.

The Jug Coat is still in the planning stages. Kaffe Fassett's directions:  The main objective is soft richness. Each square is gently distinct in its toning, without being too contrasting. I drew a schematic of layout of the squares (actually rectangles), and used a midrange of reds and blues to fill in colors. I tried to avoid a checkerboard look while making sure that there was enough contrast, but not too much, with the limited color palette available in the drawing program.

The restrictions are thus:  Choose background colour for each patch as desired, but be sure to match front half patches at side seams. Use contrasting colours for all other patches at side seams.

Since the Jug Coat is knitted in one piece from back bottom edge, up and over the shoulders and then down to front bottom edge, the trick will be to remember to reverse the half squares on the fronts so that they match the half squares on the back and make a unified whole: enough yarn must be saved after the first back half squares for use on the front of the coat so that the squares match up the seam.  The same rule applies to the squares that combine and wrap under the arms in the "half-T" shapes. The center shoulder square must be changed on the front side, although the rest of the shoulder squares can be reversed. That should do it.

I think I will presort my colors into groups to make sure the color is well balanced throughout the coat. About 18 colorways are needed for the back squares. That will give me a check on whether my yarn colors support my schematic arrangement before the cast on.

By the way, the New Hampshire Sheep and Wool Festival is this weekend. There's a day long demo of the care and cleaning of a fleece, with audience participation. It will be worth the drive for me to find out just what to do next with this big bundle of brown/black/grey curly wool you enticed me to cart home from Maryland.

Buffy, I see you did swatch before starting.