Spotlight on Lomond + Alternate Colorways

Neutrals

Lomond was inspired by one of my favorite ready-to-wear sweaters, a sturdy, winter-weight yoke that's always in my suitcase when I head to my folks' place in Wyoming for the winter. The original sweater was a mix of low-contrast, heathered neutrals, with an oatmeal body that was a natural match for our Fawn colorway, and a single dark CC that anchors the motif. I substituted Red Feather for one of the original greys, to add a little extra contrast and visual interest, and used Charcoal for the darker contrast color that anchors the motif. Here's a look at the original sweater, underneath my Forest Park scarf (standing, somewhat unaccountably, in the frozen Gros Ventre River).

I cannot describe how cold I was when we took this photo.

There are a number of possible neutral palettes for Lomond that I really like, using combinations of our Charcoal, Aspen, and Ash colorways. You could go dark, flipping Lomond's Fawn backdrop for Charcoal and using an Aspen and Ash motif. An Ash MC would give you a very close analogue to the original, while Aspen's crisp ecru would give the sweater a bolder, cleaner, higher contrast look.

With Aspen as the MC...

Aspen is quite a different bird from our other neutrals: though it's made with the same blend of Corriedale and Merino, we don't use any "natural" (read: grey or brown) Corrie to make it, so it ends up being a relatively pure off-white. Because we dye our dyed shades over our heathered bases, this also means that Aspen is one of our only non-heathered shades (Raven, a true black, is the other). It isn't quite as wooly-looking as Fawn and Ash, but it's a bright, clean look that really pops as a backdrop for colorwork (as Meghan used to great effect in her Point sweater from Deep Winter 2020). For Lomond, I love it as a backdrop for Gold Leaf and Midnight, or the original Red Feather and Charcoal CCs.

With Ash as the MC...

An Ash backdrop will be a little darker than the original Fawn, but it has that same sheepy charm, and is enough of a mid-tone to provide contrast against both our lighter and darker colorways. The original motif pairs two colors of relatively similar value (Red Feather and Charcoal), both of which contrast a lot with the MC (Fawn). You could easily replicate that formula here by pairing Ash with Gold Leaf and Midnight, or Gold Leaf and Charcoal. Or, you could flip it on its head a bit, and use two colors of quite different values, one of which is close to the MC, by pairing an Ash backdrop with a motif in Aspen and Red Feather.

I've been getting a lot of wear out of my Lomond on our cool summer nights, and I can't wait to see my mom's version. We've loved seeing more of your Spring 2020 projects cropping up on Ravelry and Instagram these days, so please keep sharing them with us! Be sure to tag us @hudsonandwestco and use the #hwontheroad hashtag so we can find you. Want to make your own Lomond? Our handy bundle feature on the pattern page will help you build out exactly the quantities you need for your size.