Colourwork Club

Brunstane Cowl
I designed the Brunstane Cowl specifically to be a good first stranded colourwork project: it's both manageable and skill-building. The colourwork design intentionally begins by alternating colours after every stitch, so you don't need to worry about tensioning the floats, then gradually increases to a maximum of 5 consecutive stitches in each colour. The bold, graphic design is shown in three relatively high contrast palettes, and has a clear foreground and background pattern, making it easy to tell which colour you should be using when, and which should be dominant. The pattern repeat is only eight stitches, so you can find your rhythm.
The cowl is a simple tube, tapered slightly so that it flares around the shoulders and hugs the neck. This shaping is achieved by simply changing to a smaller needle size; there's no increasing or decreasing to worry about combining with the colourwork. A cowl is also the ideal circumference to practice your stranded colourwork tension on: working on one circular needle means there are no "ladders" to worry about at the gaps between needles, and I find the larger circumference and regular length needle tips helps knitters to relax.
Brunstane features Rauma Petter, a woolly DK superwash. I chose the yarn because the weight is easy to learn new skills with, and although it's a superwash, it's not too slick and blocks well.
Bellfield
The Bellfield Hat makes a great second stranded colourwork project that will stretch your skills. It's worked bottom-up with a cosy folded brim and enough slouchy length to pull down over your ears. The contrast colour cast-on is worked using what might become your new favourite cast on for ribbing: an alternating cable cast on. Working bottom-up means you can begin the colourwork comfortably on a 16 or 20" needle and switch to double pointed needles or magic loop once you've established your tension.
In comparison to the first pattern in the Colourwork Club, the Brunstane Cowl, the colourwork in Bellfield is a little more challenging: the pattern repeat is larger, so you might have to focus on the chart more; there are slightly longer floats of 6, and on one round 7 sts; and the crown shaping is incorporated into the colourwork. There's also a large section in the middle of a very simple repeating pattern, in which only alternate rounds are stranded, so you'll have a chance to relax. That snowflake crown is totally worth the effort! Whether you add a pom-pom is completely up to you.
Broughton
The Broughton mittens features simple but effective small repeating stitch patterns, combined with a bold geometric cuff pattern. They include some new, fun techniques like the Estonian Kihnu braids at the cuff, and feature an optional flip-top opening. I love the flip-tops because I find without them I'm constantly taking my mittens off to do something with my hands, with flip-tops you can quickly use your fingers without risking a mitten falling in a puddle! For extra warmth, softness and a neat finish the mittens are lined with lambswool, which is used held double to add a pop of contrast on the cuffs. The thumbs and flip-top openings are worked using an afterthought method where stitches are held by knitting them with scrap yarn, which is removed afterwards to create an opening and live stitches - this is a really useful technique that you can use for sock heels and pockets, as well as thumbs.


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