KNITTING UP DULWICH ROAD

Brockwell Park is a rolling gift of green space for all of us who live near it. If I were to work out how much time I’ve spent walking, playing, running or lying in it, I expect it would be measured in years. I’m not going to do that, of course, so just know that I’ve been in that park a lot.

It’s a bit of a cheat to say that the view of the park from its entrance is part of Dulwich Road, because it disappears behind trees and a high wall by the time you’re on the road proper. But just as you turn into the road at Herne Hill junction the park fills the field of vision. In any case it must count because the park is such a dominant presence, lying behind all the buildings along the southwest side of Dulwich Road and visible in the breaks between.

I’ve been intending to feature Brockwell in the blanket’s four corners from the earliest planning, with a corner square given to the park in each season. On this beautiful April day, then, the park in spring is the perfect next step for my design and knitting.

My aim in all four corner squares is to show Brockwell Park as seen through its iron entrance gates. I first thought I would use a slipped stitch pattern to create dark vertical ironwork, but I was a bit sad about that idea; it felt heavy and boring. Then I came across a lovely pattern for stranded work in the Vogue Knitting stitch dictionary (‘Ivy League’, on p. 83). It comprises 12 x 2-row colour bands overlaid by a dark leaf pattern, which I think could act as an attractive depiction of looking through ironwork.

Copyright again prevents including a picture of the book’s pattern, and unlike my testing for the Brockwell Lido Grille, this one didn’t work out when I attempted to trace it – so you’ll have to wait until I’ve knitted a swatch to see how the leaf pattern works. But here is an idea of the colour palette for the spring square. It shows two 12-band vertical repeats.

The 12 bands represent the elements of the view as you look from the lower field of vision upwards, with the top 6 filled with more sky than the lower 6. From the bottom, they are:

1. grey-brown – path
2. green – grass
3. yellow – daffodils
4. green – grass
5. brown – trees still without leaves
6. blue – sky
7. grey-brown – path
8. green – grass
9. brown – trees still without leaves
10. blue – sky
11. grey – sky
12. white – sky

This a largely overcast spring day with the last cool sharpness in the air, new grass pushing through and a municipal slick of daffodils in the foreground (you can just see them in the image below). The shades are the best I could do with coloured pencils and will be more vibrant in yarn. At this time of year the grass is bright green and I have a couple of Rowan Felted Tweed shades that will do a wonderful job. The other seasons will have their own inspirations for colour. The three sky colours (bands 10, 11 and 12) will be distinct, although the blue will be pale. I bought the green Felted Tweed specially for the blanket – I’ll need a lot of it across all squares – but the rest will come from stash.