A friend recently gifted me most generously with about 20 balls of Kismet Funky Stripes in a colourway that I love and have used before to make a shrug. It has rich hues of oranges, purples and browns and makes me think of the incredible Autumn scenery one can see if you know where to look, like Kenmo Lake in Underberg which is still on my bucket list of places to visit. Check out a photo here of this lake with the Autumn colours of the trees showing against a backdrop of the Southern Drakensberg. Living in South Africa it is not always that easy to see the beautiful Autumnal shades of changing leaves like one can in other parts of the world as we do not have as many deciduous trees that lose their leaves.
My quandary was what to make with my gifted yarn. I did not feel like dealing with the tails that come with overlay mosaic and the subsequent double border, so decided to try one of Svetlana Rogatykh's interlocking designs. She is an incredible designer and exceedingly generous with many of her intricate designs that she has offered for free. I scrolled through my list of her patterns and finally decided on Dance of the Butterflies. I have always loved butterflies and enjoy watching them flitter around in my garden. One of the most common butterflies I get to see in my garden is the common Garden Inspector or Garden Commodore (precis archesia archesia) and, ironically, it has the colours of my Funky Stripes. It is native to Subsaharan Africa. Below is a picture of the dry season/Winter butterfly which has the orangey-red and purple colouring whereas the ones that emerge during the wet season/Summer are more orangey-yellow in colour with no purple, so they seasonally morph into different colours.
Here are some other butterflies in my garden that I have managed to photograph before they fly away. Catching them with their wings open is not as easy as one would imagine either. Below is a citrus swallowtail butterfly (papilio demodocus) which often lays its eggs on our lemon tree leaves. What you think is bird poop on the leaves, is actually the small pupa that soon develops into an amazingly beautiful caterpillar.
Below is the gaudy commodore (precis octavia sesamus) in its dry season form - shining blue (looks black on the photo) with a red/orange band
As you can see from the photos, the butterflies really seem to enjoy our Duranta sapphire Shower which is also a huge favourite of carpenter bees. Nary a day goes by without me seeing these large, noisy insects feeding on the nectar of the flowers.
Back to my Dance of the Butterflies, an interlocking in the round throw. I started the project early August 2022. One of my worries at the start was which of my two colours to use as the colour for the design: the multicolour of the yarn that I was gifted or an off-white yarn called Porcelain. I am very glad I chose to use the porcelain as the background colour (so, colour A in the pattern) as I think the multicolour would have overwhelmed the design otherwise.
Thankfully too I was able to get help from Svetlana, the designer, on her FB pattern support group as I was just not getting round 2A. Suddenly everything clicked and off I went. There were quite a few rows that I had to frog, not because I did not know what to do, but simply from lack of concentration and, not having fully recovered yet from breaking my wrist badly in May, frogging is doubly irritating! I put the throw into the naughty corner for a while and then decided, no, I need to find an easier way for me to follow the written pattern as it is easy to lose your place. I think my training as an educator has helped me many a time to come up with ways to simplify things. It has been so much easier just to memorise a sequence of numbers and made me work much quicker too. Obviously I know how to interpret the numbers.
Since doing this I have not made one mistake and saved myself hours of work. The designer even asked whether she could use my idea in an upcoming pattern. It is developing nicely now and I am almost halfway. I do take a break from it every now and again and do other things - unfortunately I am one of those people who gets bored easily and like to have different projects on the go.
As you can see from the picture above, the butterfly feelers are showing already. I have been sidetracked by some other projects, but will hopefully get back to this soon.