Choosing a colour palette

Colour is important in design, in fact it's important in pretty much everything, but it's of special importance when you're putting together a collection.  Every piece must work with every other piece.  The colour story has to be beautiful, cohesive without being matchy-matchy.

And it's not a straightforward thing to do when your collection is made from yarn... yarn from lots of different yarn companies, from different shops, from online...

My first thought was that I'd have to carry around a huge, growing bag filled with all the different items to make sure that any new addition worked with everything else. Whilst I was pondering the practicalities of yarn shopping with a holdall, a backpack and a small suitcase on wheels, I received an email from a paint company and had a revelation.

(Please note that I am not addicted to home décor as well as yarn. This particular paint company has a range of stunning, heritage inspired paint colours and I like to see what they’re doing and what new colours they’re bringing out. Just so you know.)

Anyway, back to the revelation. I realised that what I needed was a portable colour palette. A little card with all the relevant colours on it. Yep, that’s right. I ordered their free colour card. And when it arrived I cut it up into little rectangles of colour and had a thoroughly enjoyable hour arranging, discarding and selecting colours until I had a collection I was happy with. Then I went all Blue Peter and stuck the chosen rectangles on a card which will live in my handbag and accompany me on every trip to everywhere. Because you never know when you might stumble across some yarn or even a yarn shop.

Can you tell how ridiculously happy the colour exercise has made me? In case you’re wondering what collection I’m talking about, I’m working on a book filled with fabulous patterns and now it has a proper, grown up, cohesive colour palette. Now I just need to visit All The Yarn Shops.

Post pattern limbo

Whirligan in Scheepjes Whirl Dandelion Munchies

Yesterday I published my latest design, the Whirligan Cardigan.  A new launch is always very exciting, especially when you see your pattern on the Hot Right Now list on Ravelry.

But this morning, I feel a bit flat and in limbo.  This is the moment when I doubt myself and wonder if I have any more designs in me.  I start to worry that I've used them all up and this latest design was also my last design.

I've been here before, after the publication of each new design, and each time I get past it and find lots of new ideas bubbling up.  The trick is not to force it, to give myself a little time.  Tidying up all the mess I create when I create helps - all the notebooks, sketchpads and yarny mess that slowly builds around me as I work makes it impossible to focus on anything new so the first thing to do is to have a good declutter and sort out, open my sketchpad to a new page and arrange it neatly with a sharpened pencil.

After that, the best thing I can do is something completely different.  I hear that Mama Mia 2 is out at the cinema and I have a teenager who would love to come and see it with me.  Nothing like a couple of hours of Abba songs to clear the mind!

My design process

I should be starting on my next blanket later this week.  My first two designs were blankets that I wanted to make.  This third blanket is something that my 11 year old son has asked for.  He loves all things snuggly, squishy and comfortable (of my three children, he has the most cushions) but he also has an aversion to pretty and floral and has suggested that I make something more boy-friendly.

Why doesn't he love this as much as I do?

I've really been struggling with this and it's made me think about my design process.

Hearts and Flowers, well, I knew exactly what I wanted.  I wanted a beautiful floral theme, definitely working with hexagons, more realistic than stylised flowers and lots of white space to show them off.  Duck egg is one of my favourite colours, so that was a no brainer for the edging and I knew it would be the perfect balance to the bright shades in the flowers.

I started off with just four flowers and the heart, but when I started to put it together, I felt that it needed two more flowers to be perfect.  I didn't have a specific plan for the layout.  I started with a heart at the centre and worked outwards, trying not to repeat flowers in each circle of hexagons.  (I made one little mistake with that, but perfection is for gods and I am a mere mortal.)

Old Romance was a little different.  I started by choosing my colours - my local haberdashery has a a huge wall of Stylecraft Special DK in all the colours - and then came home to play with them.  My original colours included cream, which looked completely off when I started working on the design.  I also added plum at a later stage and changed how I used the raspberry, which was going to be little highlights, but ended up being a fully fledged member of my final colour cast.

Pattern should be published later this week

I was very much inspired by the colours and style of vintage tapestries, carpet bags and rugs and my colour palette really seemed to echo that vibe, so I knew that the design would end up being quite detailed and would probably include surface crochet, but it didn't really come to life for me until I added the simple embroidery.  I didn't have a specific plan for the size or shape of the motifs, but once I had the lime spokes embroidered in the flower centres, I knew where I was going.

This next blanket is a different animal.  I couldn't make the colours work, no matter how long I loitered in front of the yarn wall.  Nothing called out to me.  I couldn't settle on a design.  I had a vague idea about creating a tartan style with crochet, but it was all very vague and unexciting.  Since I started designing, I've begun to see pattern and colour palettes everywhere and it was seeing a woman carrying a white, grey and black bag with little pops of red on it that settled me on a colour theme.  The Boy seemed happy (or at least not unhappy) with the choice, so then it just came down to design.

I'm not much further along on that just now, although I have some ideas about angles and I definitely want to work this one from the centre out in one piece, rather than making up squares or hexies and joining them later.  I've spent a lot of time down a rabbit hole on Pinterest looking at patchwork quilts, which as an occasional patchworker and the daughter of a patchworker I love and I think it will help me take this blanket down a completely different path to my earlier, girlier blankets.

Watch this space.