Color Play: An Exploration of Self and Inspiration
I thought I would share the colors of nature here in Kodiak that are inspiring me…plus the dogs are adorable!
If you are anything like me, I see inspiration everywhere, and yet for the longest time, the color on my needles was always the same. I had found what I loved and wasn’t budging. Partly because I was enjoying what I was knitting, and partly because I was not color-confident.
Now if you are loving what you are knitting HURRAH! That is wonderful! And it is also fine to be thoroughly enjoying what you are doing, and still find immense value in challenging yourself. How do I know? Well, for ages I loved my natural palette! I couldn’t get enough of my grays and brown yarns.
My autopilot was taking me through my yarn decisions. Yes, I knew what I loved, but I didn’t know I could love more!
Our heart doesn’t divide up a certain amount of love. Love is endless! Love is huge! Love is ABUNDANT!
Our affections are not limited to “THIS MUCH AND NO MORE!”
My friend, once we adopt a mentality of abundance there is no stopping us!
We are free to love ALL the colors, and we love making socks AND shawls AND SWEATERS (and napkins and washcloths, stuffed animals). Trust me when I tell you, we never have to choose.
We never lose an opportunity in our knitting.
And this is true EVEN WHEN WE know OUR KNITTING TIME IS LIMITED.
So for now, let’s just acknowledge and appreciate where we are: “I love knitting with neutrals AND I am willing to grow and explore other things without fear or obligation. I can try new things in order to grow and evolve as well as confirm what I know!”
Let me get back to helping you get started on trying new ways to develop your color palette and plan successfully your next colorwork project! Here are my 10 strategies to help us in knitting or crocheting, sewing, or scrapbooking. These tips are transferable when it comes to color and successful preparation:
10 strategies to help us in knitting or crocheting, sewing, or scrapbooking… everywhere!
Look to Nature. I shared in a previous podcast and blog post how to look for inspiration in nature, in our own backyard. (Click here to listen and read more) We can also draw inspiration from photographs, paintings, or color palettes found in magazines or online platforms like Pinterest. This will help you establish a starting point for your color choices. Learning from examples of color combinations not only helps you with color ideas you may already be trying to formulate, but looking at inspiration can open up a whole new buffet of ideas you hadn’t considered AND never knew you liked! And by the way, if you are on Pinterest, look for me there! I share a ton that will help you with all sorts of knitting-related ideas. It’s a fun place to be inspired!
Consider Color Temperature: This is something I started digging into a few years ago when we bought this house and began to paint. Colors can be categorized as warm (reds, oranges, yellows) or cool (blues, greens, purples). Before painting the walls, I didn’t consider that mixing temperatures A) was even a possibility and B) could evoke some exciting things! Experiment with combining warm and cool tones to create contrast and balance in your colorwork……… and also decor! Bright clear sky blue REALLY DOES LOOK AMAZING with soft yellow sunshine inside my home, on my needles as well as outside.
Use a Color Wheel: I went into a deeper dive with this idea on that same podcast and blog post I mentioned earlier. The color wheel is a great visual tool and even though I didn’t discover the help it offered until well into adulthood…that just shows that it is never too late to try new technology! You can refer to the color wheel to explore various color harmonies. Complementary colors (opposites on the wheel) create high contrast, while analogous colors (neighbors on the wheel) offer a more harmonious blend. A really fun activity I have found is to use the wheel to match my yarn choices and take small lengths from each to play with to see how they behave off of the wheel in real settings. This has become a real confidence booster as I have a template that I can start with that works and then adjust it to the actual yarn I have in stash!
Number 4 is one I am actually practicing right now on my needles….
Think About Value: Value refers to the lightness or darkness of a color. I want to stop and share why I am taking the time to define the terms as we go: because for so long I did not have them in my vocabulary in the context of color. I share these definitions with you simply because I wish someone had done that for me. Value to me used to mean “the worth of an object” and now I get it a bit better as it pertains to color to the lightness or darkness of a color… Incorporating a range of values within your colorwork can add depth and dimension to your project. Be brave and experiment with light, medium, and dark shades to create contrast and visual interest. The variety of values I am exploring is for a sweater on my needles. It has a rich, true black, 3 different fading values of black/grey, and white, as well as a punch of unexpected color…which I am on the fence about. But onto the next point…
Test Color Combinations: I have a long scarf-like tube I have been trying this with for years. It feels as if it will be as long as the Dr. Who Scarf. It is teaching me a lot about the power of subtle shifts… For this point, I think a big takeaway is: Before committing to your final color choices, consider creating color swatches or small samples to see how the colors interact. This allows you to evaluate how the colors blend, contrast, or compete with one another. I spoke a ton about this in the aforementioned podcast and blog. It really could offer you some insight if you haven’t yet listened. Basically, I have NEVER regretted taking the time to swatch. I have only regretted not swatching. And that usually is when I am ripping out my work! Colorwork swatches can be “useful” or “utilitarian” rather than meaningless squares. You could test out a color combo in a square form. When you are done, sew a backing onto it, and voila! You can have a mug rug to treat yourself to, or surprise someone else with it! You could start, and develop a swatch journal, which can become a valuable resource for you, or your knitting group. The bottom line, YOUR EDUCATION IS WORTH INVESTING TIME AND RESOURCES INTO. You will learn from your swatch, even if it is just proving you were right all along! And the amount of yarn you are using for creating the swatch? My friend, you are worth more than a million swatches, so apply that abundant mentality to this. YOU LEARNING AND DEVELOPING is not wasteful. A swatch does not waste yarn. It educates you. One thing I left out that I’d like to share here as an aside is seeing how the colors will behave WHEN YOU LAUNDER THEM! You of course use a swatch to understand and admire OR DETEST- the color ideas you had, but I have saved myself so much anguish when I soak and block my swatch and discover one of my colors bleeds heavily. Oh, my friend, seeing the deep blue make the light grey a totally different color felt a bit sad for me when I saw it happen on my swatch, but it was not the same level of disheartened…bummed…I am so so sad feeling I would have had seeing those grey stripes discolored in the final knit on a sweater I worked days and days on, as opposed to an hour on my swatch.
Begin your color exploration with a Dominant Color (… or at least what you think will be the dominant color!) Choose one yarn color that will be the focal point or dominant hue in your colorwork. This color will appear more prominently in the design and can set the tone for the rest of the color combination. Once you play with that, feel free to flip it, or reverse it. Would it be better as a bold accent? Which do you like better for your sweater? Or your socks? Or your shawl?
Play with Neutrals: Neutral colors like grays, browns, or creams can help balance and tone down vibrant or contrasting colors. They can act as grounding elements or provide a smooth transition between bolder color choices. If you are prone to brights and bolds, this will be a bit of a change-up! Give yourself space to have some fun with the power of neutrals. And as you are led, pop one of your bold or brights in there to see what happens. You may find you love the bright pop— and you also may discover it feels nice to just relax in the neutral color zone without anything added to spice it up.
Incorporate Variegated Yarns: I am not going to lie to you about this one or pretend this is easy. Variegated yarns are NOT my thing. My eyes feel twitchy when I think of variegated yarns. There are so many things happening in the skein and I panic a bit and want to step away from the yarn. HOWEVER, once I remind myself my brain is just trying to keep itself from having to do more work, I can calm down a bit and not be a drama queen. What do I mean by that? Well, my brain, and yours, too, is hardwired to always keep us safe. And for our brains most often SAFE equates with FAMILIAR. Things that are familiar we like, and most often because there is no risk associated with the familiar. I dig into this point in greater detail in the podcast episode. CLICK TO LISTEN.
Seek Inspiration from Existing Patterns: Look for colorwork patterns or projects that catch your eye! What is it that speaks to you? I recommended keeping a little journal or opening your notes app on your phone to record all the different things that catch your eye and share a thought or two as to why. Examine the color combinations used. Are you digging the high contrast or the subtle blending? Analyze how different colors interact and consider how you can incorporate similar combinations in your own projects. And one more thing about this point that incorporates the first point: look at quilt patterns. I subscribe to QuiltFolk magazine and in every issue I’m absolutely delighted by the knitting inspiration I find from each page and project! QuiltFolk was the actual catalyst for why I went with the bold red pop of color on the Ilya sweater. (shown below)
The beautiful wrong side of the knitting for my Ilya Sweater by Boyland Knits showcases long, even, colorwork floats that I would be proud to wear inside-out!
10. Trust Your Instincts: This last one is probably the hardest at first, and yet the most liberating! Color is subjective, and what appeals to one knitter may not resonate with another. Give yourself permission to trust your instincts to choose colors that speak to you personally. Be courageous and tell yourself a better story than the one I told myself for so long. Rather than: “Mel, you should knit that from the preassembled kit because you are terrible at color.” I could have said: GIRL! How about trying something new? It may turn out fabulous! Or instead of saying: Urgh, I feel overwhelmed by color choices and I just can’t decide I could have been telling myself: “WOOOHOO! Look at the endless opportunities for colors! There is zero chance of me making a bad call with all these options! Which one is making me the happiest right now?” I want to encourage you to experiment and take risks with your color choices. Knitting is one place our “risky behavior” is not that much of a risk. Yeah, I know we are investing time and money in knitting, but neither resource is lost. If we learn, time is well spent. And if we have to rip it out, that yarn will not go to waste. We can repurpose it in a hundred different ways!
Remember, color is a creative and personal choice! Have fun exploring different combinations and let your imagination guide you in creating unique and beautiful colorwork knits!
I hope you are enjoying these color-focused moments together! If you are and want dig into color play or yarn substitution, I have a free pattern called SkyLine which incorporates 2 very distinct colors and weights of linen fiber to create a fun, easily customizable shrug. It works up quickly, so think of it as a low-risk opportunity that gives you creative license to simply have some fun while training your brain to be open to endless possibilities. You can play with color, fiber, and yarn weights. You think you hate linen? Here is your chance to flip that script. No linen in your stash? No worries! Get creative and substitute. Be open to honest-to-goodness freedom in bravely experimenting.
