Nature's Las Vegas!

Buffy, a friend on Ravelry asked me how I chose Long Leaf Coat colors. The obvious answer is, With a little help from my friends!


As I understand it, after Kaffe designed the coat, the pattern was issued twice (at least), once in Rowan Magazine 12, using a combination Rowan Donegal Tweed 4-ply yarn, Rowan Lightweight DK, and Kaffee Kid Silk. This original pattern can be downloaded free from Rowanknits.com, and it is the one I am using. The yarns are no longer available unless you are lucky to find them in Ravelry stashes.

So I began with the Rowan download list of yarns as reference. I looked the old yarns up in the stash holdings on Ravelry, and found all but six of the colors. The images gave me a good indication of the specific colorways and whether a particular yarn was a light, medium or dark shade of the color.


Raveler chris4252 has posted copious notes and pictures with her Coat I project, and she quickly answered all my color questions, giving clear discriptions of the six colors that I could not find. (Who knew that Kaffe's Kid Silk "Pillar Box" was named after the red collection boxes of the Royal Mail?) And chris4252 is going through a color metamorphosis of her own right now, starting Coat II in an altered color scheme!


A second edition of the pattern was in the Swedish knitting book, Sticka Med Kaffe Fassett (Knitting with Kaffe Fassett??) , using Rowan Scottish Tweed 4-ply and DK yarns, and Jaeger Matchmaker Merino 4-Ply.  Ravelry member lahodges has collected all yarns original to that coat edition, and all of those yarns are pictured on her Ravelry project page.  I used her yarn pictures for reference to purchase my Rowan Scottish Tweed 4-ply and dk yarns. The discontinued colors were quickly disappearing, so I bought what I could (with the exculsion of that bright pink.) 


Next I compared all the colorways of images of finished Long Leaf Coats that I could find on the web, starting with this Kaffe original--or so I like to think!  Kaffe gave a lecture in New Hampshire in May, 2009, and brought this Long Leaf Coat along for display. Quiltamama attended the lecture and posted this image on her blog. When I asked her if it was the "original" Kaffe coat, she replied: 


It was definitely knitted by either Kaffe or his partner, Brandon Mably who was there too and is heavily involved in the knitting business.  I'm sorry I can't remember which one, though I have a feeling it was Brandon.  It was part of their display they had all around the room.


The brightest rendition I found was on Mette's blog. Vivid in snowy surroundings, Mette uses it as both a coat and a blanket at her camp in Norway.


The Rowan Magazine 12 download is more saturated than Kaffe's coat, and the Scottish Tweed yarns look like they will perhaps render a subtle colorway.


So I have my Scottish Tweeds -- about 15 of them, or almost half a coat's worth. I've picked the  Green Mountain Spinnery yarn Mountain Mohair Claret as one of the base yarns. More of it is used than any other color, about 400 grams. The other heavily used color is Rowan Thistle, a deep purple. My coat will have a deep claret look about it.

 The remaining 17 or 18 colors will be chosen and blended from Paternayan needlepoint yarn as I reach first insertion point of each. I'll take a look at the coloring of the other "trees in the forest," and pick the next color following the shades of the Rowan download image and it's yarns, working towards a saturated colorway.

My daughter said it best:  Autumn is nature's Las Vegas! So I'll make a coat with autumnal glitz--befitting a grandma, of course!