Anyone who knows me will tell you that I love color. I rarely wear black unless I'm in concert and only then because it's the uniform du jour. Naturally I was thrilled to find out a season or two ago that bright denim pants and sassy colored tops were now considered "in". Of course I translated that info straight away to my knitting.
As you can see, this sweater set looks like I ground up a box of Crayolas and painted my yarn with melted colors. It is easy for me to cruise the yarn shop and find colors that will look wonderful together but I am asked more often than I would have believed if I would teach a color class. If you are one who isn't certain what works with what, let's do a simple class.
Look at this color wheel. Bisect it from top to bottom and side to side. This means that these colors are as opposite from each other as they can be. Now look at the colors that are to the right and left of each of these four colors. Note that they complement each other. See how the neighbors to any color compliments each other. Now you know what will work for your projects. This doesn't mean that you can't knit opposites, but for the purpose of learning what works, stick with complimentary colors until you are more at ease with colorizing your projects.
Another way to find inspiration is to go to the fabric store. If you find fabric you love, go buy an eighth of a yard;, find another and another - just buy more. Buy a big sturdy poster board and take it home. Start to make your own color wall. If you are lucky enough to have a spot where you work, then you can leave it up, but a skinny little board like that will slide behind your dresser when not in use.
Add items to the board as you find them. This would include yarns that are the same shades as your fabrics, buttons, other embellishments. Snip a little off your fabrics of choice and put them into an envelope. You can take that with you when you go shopping for yarns.
Consider the seasons of the year. In Spring you find fresh clear baby shades of yellow, pink, ,mint green and sky blue. In Winter these same shades deepen into jewel tones, but they are the same shades, just different color values. Summer and Fall are similar. What is hot and brilliant in summer, darkens toward earth tones in Autumn.
Of course the neutrals are in favor in every season, but white, for instance, can go from snow white to linen to egg shell. The trick is to know what shade looks best on you. There are tons of studies on which season of the year each of us resembles, but you probably already know that when you gravitate to cranberry red, you'd never be caught dead in fire engine red. We just seem to know! However, if you really can't tell, go have your colors analyzed by someone who will charge you buckets of money to clue you in.
I'm a lucky one because I can knit any color I want and it will be perfect and that's not because of me, but rather those who will purchase or be given one of my baby outfits. I do it for charity, sell it on Etsy for charity, and nobody ever threw anything back at me...'cause they don't know who to blame.
And before we close, I took that shirred sweater I wasn't very impressed with to knit class yesterday and one of the ladies loved it so much she purchased it for a coming granddaughter and the Women's Association of the church received her check. It really goes to prove that we are our own toughest critics and even after I pointed out what I had done wrong, she never saw it, only saw her new grand baby wearing it.
Please come back and we'll see what's new in our neighborhood. Hugs to you and your projects too. Pat
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