In the fall of last year, 2024, Geraldine of The Wandering Flock and I started scheming a collaboration - I had fallen head over heels for her color explorations that she was posting.
I had several 2-color ideas that I pitched back to The Wandering Flock team inspired by their swatches. The design we landed on was a pretty simple sweater with a ruffle collar, keyhole + ties. I wanted Geraldine to pick the colors because these colors are a little bit of new territory for me. I don't work with a lot of similarly shaded light hues in general. The two colors she picked are Apricot and Neon Lilac.
The slightly more dominant color in the pattern is the merino singles color, Apricot.
To me, apricot is everything golden hour- glowy, warm, citrine, and pinky. When paired with the Neon Lilac Mohair Silk, the knitting turns pink from afar. A true magic trick.
Neon Lilac is truly a color I would never choose. This is honestly where the joy of collaboration comes in. An unexpected result stemming from shared creative forces. Neon Lilac is grape fizz and Lumpy Space Princess from Adventure Time.
Because the pair knit up so pinky we thought it would be a joyful Valentine's Day release. For me, any excuse to celebrate is worth celebrating. Bringing joy into my daily life through celebrating silly occasions brings me cheer and motivation. I do also really like the idea of celebrating all of the bountiful types of love: Self love, Romantic love, the love of longtime besties, the love I feel for my dog or other familial love.... all are worth celebrating. Especially this year, the world can use a little love. And so we celebrate Valentine's Day because why not.
The Geraldine Ruffle Pullover is lovingly named after Geraldine, from The Wandering Flock, and also my own grandmother who taught me how to knit. She also taught me how to be a bit thick-skinned as we did not have the best relationship but I am forever grateful that she gave me the gift of knitting.If you are interested in hearing more about some of the design details and seeing the fit, check out my try on video on my You Tube channel.
There are a few really cool details that I think are really interesting in this pattern including the armhole gusset inspired by the point of a heart.
I hope you'll check out my pattern during the drop at 10am ET on Valentine's Day 2/14/25. Happy Knitting
