Status: Completed
First conceived: sometime in September 2024
Completed: in November 2025

Some pieces move quickly. This one did not.

Although Chromatic-Drift eventually became No.26, the idea behind it goes back to the earlier days of our studio, sometime in September 2024. It stayed with us for a long time, not because we had lost interest in it, but because small studios do not always work in a straight line. Other sampling work came in. B2B orders needed attention. Shipments had to go out. Then, when there was room again, we came back to it.

Looking at it now, this piece feels important to us for that reason. It was never a clean, uninterrupted project. It was something we returned to again and again, each time understanding it a little better. In the end, it helped shape not only one jumper, but also part of the way we now think about turning artwork into knitwear.

Chromatic-Drift is made in 100% merino wool, with an enlarged abstract intarsia colour-block motif. But more than that, it carries an early version of our process inside it.

Started sometime in September 2024

The original painting

This project began with an oil painting made up of irregular geometric areas of colour.

What first pulled us in was not just the contrast, but the balance. The colours were strong, but they did not feel harsh. Saturated, but not overdone. There was movement in the painting, but it still felt held together.

At that stage, we were still figuring out what kind of visual language felt natural to us. We already knew we were drawn to colour, but this piece helped us notice something more specific: we liked colour when it felt alive, not flat. Bold, but still able to breathe.

Updated on September 27, 2024

Our first idea

Our earliest thought was fairly direct. We wanted to bring the painting onto a jumper with as much of the original colour structure as possible.

At first this felt exciting. The painting had many colour areas and a lot of internal movement, and we thought keeping more of it might preserve what we loved. But once we began thinking about actual sampling, the gap between the image and the knit became obvious.

With intarsia, there was no clean way to carry that many colours and that much complexity into one piece without making the result feel too busy or simply impractical to produce.

We also briefly discussed print. It would have been easier in some ways. But the more we considered it, the less it felt right.

We did not want to just place an image onto knitwear. We wanted the artwork to change as it entered knitwear. We wanted it to work with the knitted structure, not just sit on top of it. So we let the print idea go.

Updated on October 23, 2024

Then we left it for a while

Around this point, the project slowed down.

Part of that was because we were busy with our usual B2B development work, sampling requests, and shipments. Part of it was because we still had not found a version of the idea that felt convincing. The truth is that this stage was not especially efficient. We went back and forth. Left it open on screen. Closed it. Came back. Left it again.

That probably sounds unglamorous, but it was real.

Some projects move because the answer is obvious. Others need to sit quietly for a while before the next step becomes clear.

Updated on January 16, 2025

A different approach

When we came back to the project properly, we stopped trying to hold on to the whole painting.

Instead, we started looking at one section of it. A fragment. Something we could enlarge and rebuild specifically for knitting. Once we did that, the project finally began to move again.

This was the point where it started to make more sense.

Rather than treating the original artwork as something to copy, we began treating it as a starting point. We were no longer asking, “How do we keep all of this?” but “What is the part that really needs to stay?”

That shift changed the whole piece. It made it lighter, both visually and in the way we thought about it.

Updated on February 6, 2025

Working on the motif

After that, we spent weeks testing the motif in the pattern system.

This stage was repetitive in the quiet way that knit development often is. We adjusted the outlines, changed the balance between the colour fields, shifted the scale, and kept checking whether the design still felt right once it was placed on an actual garment shape rather than floating as a flat image.

We did not want the motif to become too hard-edged or too rigid. We were looking for something a little softer, where the colours could still feel like they were moving into one another.

That drifting quality stayed with the piece, and later gave it its name.

By the end of this stage, the motif had started to feel settled. Not finished, exactly, but believable.

Updated on March 18, 2025

The first yarn

Once the motif was in a place we liked, we moved on to yarn.

Our first choice was a cotton, wool, and nylon blend. On paper, it made sense. Yarns like that are often soft, practical, and easy to wear. We thought it might give us the comfort we wanted while still holding the colour-blocking cleanly.

But once the sample came back, it became clear that something was off.

The garment felt too heavy, and the drape was stronger than we wanted. Instead of helping the colours move, the weight pulled the whole jumper down. It made the piece feel a bit too straight, a bit too fixed, and a little more formal than we intended.

That did not suit the mood of the design.

The idea behind Chromatic-Drift was always tied to movement. With that yarn, the jumper lost some of it.

So we put it aside again.

Updated on June 25, 2025

Still unfinished

There was another pause here.

Not because we had given up on it, but because other work had to come first. This is one of the less romantic parts of running a studio, especially when design sits alongside production work and day-to-day responsibilities. Sometimes a piece you care about ends up waiting while other deadlines move ahead of it.

Chromatic-Drift stayed with us through that period.

Even so, we kept returning to it in small ways. Looking at the motif again. Thinking about the yarn again. Letting the project remain unfinished until we could see it more clearly.

Updated on September 9, 2025

Choosing a different yarn

When we came back to it later in the year, the material decision became much clearer.

We moved to a finer 100% merino wool yarn. It was a more expensive choice, but it immediately felt closer to what the piece had been asking for all along. The handle was softer, the fabric felt lighter, and the jumper had more ease once worn.

What we liked most was the balance. It did not feel too thin, but it did not feel heavy either. It sat somewhere between lightweight and medium weight, which made it easier to imagine across seasons, in spring, and also through autumn and winter with layering.

The merino also changed the colour in a way we really liked. The original painting carried a strong oil-painted intensity. In wool, the colour softened slightly. The natural texture of the yarn and the way it takes dye helped quiet the saturation just enough, without losing the boldness of the idea.

That softening mattered. It made the piece feel more like us.

Updated on October 21, 2025

When it started to come together

By this point, the design, the motif, and the yarn were finally working together.

That sounds simple, but it took time to get there. Earlier versions had one or two parts that felt right, but not the whole piece. This was the stage where it stopped feeling like an experiment and started feeling like an actual garment with its own character.

The colour-blocking still carried the energy of the original painting, but the jumper itself felt calmer, softer, and easier to wear. It no longer looked like an artwork trying to stay unchanged. It looked like something that had been properly translated into knitwear.

That difference matters a lot to us.

Completed sometime in November 2025

What stayed with us

By the time Chromatic-Drift was finished, it had become more than a completed style.

It had quietly taught us a lot about our own process. About when to let go of literalness. About when to simplify. About how knitwear should not just carry an image, but absorb it and change with it. It also reminded us that not every meaningful project moves quickly, and that sometimes the longer route is the one that shows you what the piece actually wants to be.

We are very happy with where it arrived.

The final version keeps the boldness that first drew us to the painting, but the merino wool softens it into something warmer and easier to wear. The colour still has tension. The shapes still move. But the overall piece does not feel loud. It feels settled.

Looking back, even though this became No.26, it belongs much closer to the beginning of our studio than the number suggests.

It was one of the early pieces that helped us understand how we wanted to work.

And in that sense, it never really was just one jumper.

Material
100% Merino Wool

Technique
Intarsia knit with enlarged abstract colour-block motif

Now available
No.26 Chromatic-Drift · Jumper