Color vision

The ginormous wedding gift blanket – and part of the reason I only managed 19 FOs last year…

[Heads up - this is a image-heavy post. And a long post. I apologize in advance. Thank you all in advance for your visits and comments and views. I really really appreciate it].

For all of you who are looking to take a color vision eye test – sorry, you won’t find one here. Instead, this post is all about color and knitting and stash and the such. Yup, today’s Knitting and Crochet Blog Post tackles color:

Day Four (Thursday April 25th): Colour Review
What are your favourite colours for knitted or crocheted projects. Have a think about what colours you seem to favour when yarn shopping and crafting.

Only after writing this part of your post should you then actually look to see what colours you have used in your projects. Make a quick tally of what colours you have used in your projects over the past year and compare it to the colours you have written about. Compare this, in turn, to the colours that are most dominant in your yarn stash – do they correlate?

Now think back to your house animal – do the colours you have chosen relate to your animal in anyway – if you are in the house of peacock, for example, are your projects often multicoloured and bright?

Some of the projects I knit in 2012…

I like color. I do. While I have plenty of black and grey items in my wardrobe, I also like and wear clothes in jewel tones. That would probably surprise my mother who is always complaining that I should wear more color. I bet that the Indian woman in her – you’ll just find way more colorful Indian sari rather than black. Western fashion is definitely influencing Indian fashion, but you’ll still find bright colors in combinations that I don’t think many people will wear here. I mean, a bright orange and neon pink shirt here? To wear as everyday clothing? Not my cup of tea. But when I’m in India, in a Sari store it looks just fine and I find myself seriously contemplating if I’d look good in that. Huh. I guess it’s all about the environment.

I’m not as much a fan of pastels… I just prefer the look of jewel tones. There’s something about those saturated colors that make me happy. Pastel colors – meh. Although I do like them a lot in my stash and knitting. I’m not a colorway discriminator I’m just more of a color style discriminator. I like semi-solid colorways way more than crazy clownbarfy combinations (for all of you non-knitters, clownbarfy yarn is yarn that looks like a clown, well barfed on it: crazy multicolored). Not that I don’t enjoy funky socks, but honestly I’m much more likely to wear something that isn’t. And I don’t like pooling – especially not in garments. On my feet, ok, I can deal with that, but a sweater with pools color in patches here or there? Nope, I’ll likely not wear it, or overdye it to fix the pooling. And you should wear what you feel comfortable in, IMO.

baby cardigan - grey yarn and crazy clownbarf yarn held together, and scrappy linen stitch scarf – ways to ‘break up’ multicolored yarns and avoid pooling…

I took a look at my projects, and as you may remember from yesterday, I knit a lot of gifts. A lot. Which means that the color choice is most of the time determined by the giftee – by their color wishes or by what I think they’ll like color-wise. It’s pretty ironic that a lot of them are grey, black or the dark end of primary colors – like the Struan hat I knit for my brother-in-law. The colorway is called Brothers Grimm (MadTosh, yay!) and it’s a very dark green that could almost pass for black, depending on the light. It makes me think of the woods, where the foliage cover keeps out the sunlight and it’s so green that it’s almost dark, no matter what time of the day. A very fitting setting for fairy tales and thus probably the reason why the colorway is named after the Brothers Grimm.

For me – I go through phases where I prefer one color over another. For the longest time blue was my favorite color, then I went through a green phase. Then I started wearing more red (again) and right now I really feel like knitting something in yellow. And wearing yellow. It just makes me so happy. Overall, I tend to stick to primary colors. Oh, and stripes. Give me stripes any day.

some of my stripey projects…

As you can see, I love stripes. I have 21 projects with stripes, with an even mix between self-striping yarns and my own stripe creations. I’m actually joining a striped project KAL with any kind of striped project: socks, sweaters, scarves and shawls etc. And I have plenty of patterns involving stripes in my queue. One of the projects to be cast on within the next 30 days is a striped one. I have about 130 projects with some form of stripe element in my queue – not even counting those that could be modified with stripes.

So – I guess I’m beelike in that I move around between colors and design elements. At the same time, I have a thing for yellow right now and since so many of my gifts are in a dark/grey/black color, I have a bee color scheme going. And then the stripes, well, bees are striped. Ha!

Btw, last year’s knitting and crochet blog week also had us put up a post on the topic of color. It’s funny, I just took a look at what  I wrote, and yes, most of it is still true. I do like color, I still like striped yarns but not crazy color combinations, yada yada yada.

I leave you with a contemplation on my stash. I started putting this together yesterday as part of the Infographic but then decided to save that data for today’s post. (Btw, for all of you who asked, I got most of the information from my Ravelry project page and by playing around with the advanced search feature). The image isn’t  statistically correct – the percentages are different –  but the color sequence does reflect the color preferences in my stash.

Related articles

• Bees, beehives and honey (knitreadclick.wordpress.com)
• Where’s my Wednesday at? (knitreadclick.wordpress.com)
• Bzzz, bzzz, bzzzz: The House Cup (knitreadclick.wordpress.com)
• I’ve got some info for you… (knitreadclick.wordpress.com)

We now interrupt your program to bring you the 2012 Knitting and Crochet Blog Week

Well, hello! Let’s see if I can’t get myself blogging more frequently by participating in this year’s Knitting and Crochet Blog Week, so let’s get started:

Day One: April 23. Colour Lovers
Colour is one of our greatest expressions of ourselves when we choose to knit or crochet, so how do you choose what colours you buy and crochet or knit with. Have a look through your stash and see if there is a predominance of one colour. Do the same with your finished projects – do they match? Do you love a rainbow of bright hues, or more subdued tones. How much attention do you pay to the original colour that a garment is knit in when you see a pattern? Tell readers about your love or confusion over colour.

I’ve gone through different color phases – when I was a teenager, blue was my favorite color, then red, then again blue, and lately I’ve had a hankering for green. In general though I like jewel tones. I just don’t think that pastel tones look that good on me – and jewel tones contrast nicely with my skin tone (Indian girl here). And then of course there’s the ubiquitous black – hey, it’s slimming, and it supplements any color nicely, to my mother’s dispair. Ok, dispair might be overdoing it, but she’s always after me to wear more color. That’s probably due to growing up in India – you’ll find Saris in all and any kind of shades – such as hot pink with almost neon green. Nothing you’d wear here, but there it looks fine. Huh. But in general, you’ll find that colors are such a huge part of India and its culture, especially during Holi, the festival of colors.

But back to the topic at hand. When it comes to my stash,I find that you’ll mostly find green, then blue, then red, and a few gorgeous yellow-gold skeins. I also have a rainbow of colors in acrylic mix blends for my toy knitting, but the remainder of my stash basically consists of solid or semi-solid colors. In fact, I really like yarns with subtle color shifts, like these two – they look gorgeous when knit up, but still have visual interest:

Sundara Fingering Merino Cashmere in French Lavender

Yarn Chef Minestrone in Lime Wedge

I’m not really a fan of crazy color combinations in my yarn – I never know what to knit with them. At the most I guess I could knit socks with them, but really, I don’t like clownbarf. I actually bought this very clownbarfy yarn (yes, I didn’t pay attention, I thought it would have longer color changes). Ultimately I toned it down by knitting up the yarn together with a strand of grey in a baby cardigan (the pattern is the offside wraplan pattern).

clownbarfiness, prior to being toned down - What was I thinking?

saved from clownbarfiness by pairing the yarn with grey fingering weight yarn, resulting in a sport weight thickness, and I got gauge!

Knitpicks Felici in Rainbow

But I do love self-stripey yarns – I mean, stripey socks, what’s not to love? My most adventurous striped sock weight yarn is this one. It’s destined to become just plain vanilla socks, to let the stripes shine. And of course I have a set of striped socks in Germany colors – Regia released these World Ball colors leading up to the 2010 FIFA World Cup (soccer), so I just had to have a pair of these. I’ll get plenty of use out of them – both at the 2012 European Championship (again soccer), or at this year’s Olympic Games, or … In fact, I still have to make at least two pairs of adult socks plus two pairs of kiddie socks before June 8 – that’s when UEFA Euro 12 starts. Oy.

Ok, this has been a long ramble about yarn, so I’ll keep the project part short. Interestingly enough, the projects that I’ve knit for myself are mostly in the blue, green, and inbetween tones, while a lot of the projects for others are in red-purple tones. That obviously reflects the color wishes of the recipient – one of which is my sister who likes purple – but still. Who would have thought? (If you’re interested in seeing more details on those projects, feel free to visit my Ravelry project page. Or if you know how to add links to the individual pictures in a mosaic, please let me know!)

Sh*t Knitters Say

Bwahahahahaha

Tidy mind, tidy stitches

Alright, let’s move on to Day 3.

Day Three: 30th March. Tidy mind, tidy stitches.

How do you keep your yarn wrangling organised? It seems like an easy to answer question at first, but in fact organisation exists on many levels. Maybe you are truly not organised at all, in which case I am personally daring you to try and photograph your stash in whatever locations you can find the individual skeins. However, if you are organised, blog about an aspect of that organisation process, whether that be a particularly neat and tidy knitting bag, a decorative display of your crochet hooks, your organised stash or your project and stash pages on Ravelry.

I’ll first tackle the part of knitting tool organization, since that’s the part that I’m managing quite well. I have two sets of interchangeable needles – a set of Knitpicks and a set of Addi Click needles (btw, if you know anyone who’s heading to Europe, have them pick up the up a set for you, since they’re significantly cheaper there). And well, neither set of interchangeables comes in a particular practical case (Addi must have figured that out for themselves since the new cases are neat little leather envelopes). Anyway, I got so frustrated by my needles rattling around – both the interchangeables and the circular ones that I decided to invest in a knitting organizers from Sarah Kincheloe:

circular knitting needle organizer

needle roll

interchangeable Knitpicks organizer

I also have a knitting bag from Schroedinger Originals that I love. And in case I don’t have a knitting bag available, there’s always good old Ziploc. And I have a lace knitting bag from 3AM Enchantments for my bigger projects.

cube apples knitting project bag

lace knitting bag

I keep two small bags for my knitting notions – one that I can throw into my project bag and has the notions I always need – scissors, stitch markers, crochet hook, tape measure, gauge measuring thingy, knitting needle gauge, safety  pins, tapestry needles in various sizes, needle binder thingy, cable needle, knitting counter, little notebook, and a bit of string. The bigger bag holds everything else.

small notions bag

large notions bag

As to my stash, well, my organizing skills have been outpaced by my stash acquisition. I originally started out adding my yarn including photographs to my stash on Ravelry, but then it just got too difficult to keep up with the photos and the entries and so on. I do have a Excel master list that is lists most of my stash and is in urgent need of being updated. And the rest of my stash is organized as follows:

Ziploc bags

+

 

IKEA

means:  

Yup, good old IKEA boxes. I have a few other boxes and a bit of underbed storage, but most of it is in Ziploc bags in IKEA boxes. And to be on the safe side, I’ve also included a few cedar blocks in my boxes. Yup, I’m trying to make sure that no moths decide to make a nice meal out of my yarn. The boxes are all labelled and within the boxes, the yarn is organized by dyer – that way I have at least some way of organization and can find what I’m looking for without plowing through my entire stash.

As to projects, I use Ravelry to keep track of my projects. I tend to add projects one I have some decent pictures of the WIP, and sometimes I only add a project once it’s finished. But I really like how you can log your entries in detailed ways, and being able to rate the pattern, yarn and difficulty is incredible convenient.

Even though I don’t like to look at the dimensions of my stash I did manage to tackle this post. Phew! If you’d like to look at my projects, stash, or queue, you can find me on Ravelry, username anji. And if you’re interested in seeing other posts on the topic ‘Tidy mind, tidy stitches’  from other bloggers who’ll be blogging today on this topic, just search on Google (or another search engine) for the tag 2KCBWDAY3.

Hello Knitting and Crochet Blog Week 2011!!!

Woohoo! I’m excited! So let’s move on to the main event. Today’s topic is:

Day One: 28th March. A Tale of Two Yarns.
Part of any fibre enthusiast’s hobby is an appreciation of yarn. Choose two yarns that you have either used, are in your stash or which you yearn after and capture what it is you love or loathe about them.

First I thought I would post about my love of Wollmeise. I just love the colors. I first got hooked on Wollmeise when I saw the color Rhabarber in someone’s stash. Rhabarber translates into rhubarb, and I love rhubarb – rhubarb pie, rhubarb and strawberry jam, rhubarb compote, and so on. Anyway, I’ve knit some beautiful projects out of that yarn, including one of my favorites, a little shawlette that just pops thanks to it’s color (colorway is Stella Polaris):

Azzuro

But then I decided to post two other favorites of mine – both dyed by indie dyers.

Yarn #1: Yarn Chef Bouillabaisse

Bouillabaisse is her light fingering weight. The colorway is Kelp Beds, self-striping, and boy, these colors just glow. The yarn is soft but holds up well as a sock yarn. She has a number of different bases, and she really dyes up beautiful semisolids, but also gorgeous self-striping yarns.

Yarn Chef Bouillabaisse in Kelp Gardens

What more can I say – gorgeous colors, gorgeous yarn, and I knit super delicious socks out the yarn.

Monterrey socks knit out of Yarn Chef Bouillabaisse

Yarn #2: Sundara sock yarn (also not unknown in the world of knitting, I know)

Sundara sock yarn in Aqua over Limeade

This is another yarn I’ve really enjoyed knitting with. It’s sturdy and works up beautifully. I like this base better than her Aran Silky Merino. The color showed up beautifully in a scarf I knit (and which was immediately claimed by my Mom):

A cool drink (aka Haruha scarf)

Honorable mentions go to Mama Blue yarns (unfortunately she has stopped dyeing), Hedgehog Fibres, and, surprise surprise, a great workhorse yarn for knitted toys – Patons Dk. I know, it might come as a surprise since I’m a bit of a yarn snob, but how can I not mention the yarn that resulted in this mobile for my nephew?

The sheep clan up close

Shaun the Sheep and company, suspended

So, that’s it for today. If you’re interested in more of my knitting shenanigans, you can find me on Ravelry, username anji. And if you’re interested in seeing other posts on the topic ‘A Tale of Two Yarns’ from other bloggers who’ll be blogging today on this topic, just search on Google (or another search engine) for the tag 2KCBWDAY1.

And thanks go to Google Chrome and WordPress for almost eating my post but then allowing for a draft to show up. Phew!