Knitwear Designer for the BBC Micro, project part 2

This is a split-personality project. Part 1, in which I produced the pattern using a BBC micro is on my newstuffforoldstuff blog.

I'm continuing here because this is now a spin/knit project.

My goal was to reproduce the pink jumper I pictured in part 1. 

I went for Devonia from John Arbon, which wasn't as pink as I really wanted.  Below are swatches, first on its own, and then with a ply of white mohair to give it a silky sheen and lighten the colour. 

 I rejected that idea because it looks too speckled.  Another difference between the swatches is that the top one is 3-ply and the bottom one 4.  The extra work in spinning four plies is worth it for a thicker and rounder yarn. The fabric is very different. The 3-ply feels limp in comparison. The 4-ply feels chunkier and firmer, more like the jumper that I'm reproducing.

As an experiment (and I didn't hold out much hope) I wanted to try making the fourth ply from something in a definite pink. This 'cyclamen' tussah silk from Katie really is a hot pink. Too strong, I suspected. 

But no! The result is perfect. (One ply of the pink silk, three plies of Devonia.) The pink silk really does blend very well. The result is much more homogenous than with the white ply, and a little more pink than the Devonia by itself. 

I've never swatched quite so much! But I'm glad I did. I love the result we have here. 

So now it's spin, spin spin until I have my jumper's-worth of yarn.