Color

A tile from my ceramics days.

How do you pick out colors for your clothing projects? I've been thinking about this a lot lately. As someone who has done a lot of sculpture, I tend to fall in love with shapes, textures, and other structural aspects while color is more of an afterthought. When I did a lot of work in the ceramics studio, for example, I would often dread glazing my artwork. The colors could be unpredictable at times, and I was so nervous that I would ruin all of the hard work I put into sculpting the clay. Now that I've gotten into sewing and knitting clothing for myself, I find that I'm still a bit wary of color. I realized that for my current sweater--Joy, I picked out a color (purple) that I don't have much of in my wardrobe. While in some ways this is a very logical way to choose a color, I think it would make more sense to pick out a color that I know looks great on me. The thing is, I'm not sure I've ever really given much thought to what colors look good on me. I tend to love neutrals, or pseudo-neutral colors. These aren't thrilling to knit with, but would make a much more versatile finished product. I also realized that I was avoiding knitting too many sweaters in the same color, since this seemed like a silly thing to do--but really, who cares? I can have five different gray sweaters--as long as that makes me happy. I've been taking note of the projects I love on Ravelry, and their colors. Often, a simple, plain color can be just the right thing to highlight the lovely lines of a particular pattern. Here are some examples of my recent favorites [ravelry links]:

katiehellon's flair
winterwren's short sleeved tunic
zeitgeistyarns' herringbone sweater
siggasif's gradient
gotiks' silver streak
olgajazzy's camel silk jacket

Victoria and Albert Vintage Patterns

Have you seen the fantastic free vintage patterns available on the Victoria & Albert Museum's website? There are a couple cute sweaters, including the excellent one above, as well as a variety of hats and gloves and other things. I'm thinking this would look excellent in yellow and white stripes.

Works in progress

My craft life is moving at a snail's pace while I pack up my apartment, and prepare for my big trip this summer. But, I have been making some progress despite all of the other stresses. Joy only has one sleeve left (plus finishing, collar, etc):


And here is the first peak at the Hayfield Jumper. I'm loving the stitch pattern, but I'm a bit suspicious of the *bright* yellow yarn I chose. It always seems like there are very few choices between pastel yellow and super-bright yellow. I think this will work out, but it might look a bit 80s--we'll see!