Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Glorious color


Finally, finally the sun came back. Not just peeking cautiously over the horizon 
(we have a very poetic expression for horizon in Finnish, well, we have a word that is similar to horizon but I love to use the other word "taivaanranta" which translates as "the shore of the sky", like in sea shore - I'm not sure if there is a more poetic one in English too, could not find, but please let me know) 
but she climbed bravely higher than she has done for a long while and up there she shone brightly from the beautiful blue sky. The light brought back colors, and I did not realize how much I had missed them until today when I was all of a sudden aware of golden yellow, warm oranges and clean blues. Those were the ones I saw first but after I had basked in all of them, I started to search for more and there were greens too... And the shadows of the woods were violet. The light was so bright that one had to look very closely to see the more shy colors.
All the colors exist in light. When the sun sets and the shadows grow, all the different tones of gray march out, and I do love those delicate, sophisticated, soft, quiet tones too, but today I turned my face towards the sun and felt the light touch on my skin and the refreshing caress on my soul and spirits. The temperature was almost -10°C but I am sure, I did not imagine it, the sun did feel warm on my face.

Colors matter. You can hide all your sorrows and secrets in shadows and grey but sun and light will bring everything out to the open. (I did not realize we had so many cobwebs in the corners and that all the dust mice were so huge already.) You could spend your whole life studying colors and there are many who have done so. Colors change in different light and they adjust to the surrounding colors.

If I find myself in need of color bath, I pop over to see what Lucy is doing in Attic24. She is a crocheter and she knows her colors. Everything she makes is bright and happy mixture of colors. She is making a blanket at the moment; she talked about combining colors in her last post and that was fascinating to read. If you miss happy, bright yellows and deep, balanced reds and cool, fresh blues, hop over.
Long time ago, 20 years, maybe more, I made this little study of colors with bits of fabric and a simple quilt pattern.
I did not have very large selection of fabrics to choose from but I managed to make these patterns with the lean collection. I have kept the pieces because it was a lot of work and I still can remember so well how determined I was to understand more about the construction of color palettes.  I took pictures of them today to show them to you.  I am sure my pattern and color selections would look very different if I was to do them now. And with printed, patterned fabrics, the colors of course play little bit differently than if they were just pure hues.
Blue - orange, complementary colors, the hot orange is almost glowing in the cool, blue background.
Yellow and violet, another complementaries (I think I like this most.)
These are strong bold colors typical to Amish quilts.
Neutrals
All reds, monochromatic
Cool colors
Warm colors, there is also disharmony there between orange mixed with red and red mixed with violet (as always, difficult to get accurate red when taking a picture)
And finally pastels.

So today... be enchanted by colors, know their impact on you and learn to understand their value.

Wool with you,
Lene

PS. I do hope little Väinö, my new kitten, will get to know his surroundings and that when summer comes I am able to let him be out in the yard free. Kille never went far; he knew his surroundings and stayed close to the house. Kille was excellent mouser and I am hoping that Väinö will step into his shoes. If he does not care for it, it is fine with me and then I think I will need to find companion to Väinö that is more inclined to hunt. We live in the country and keeping the yard free of mice is important. Tina (although a dog) has been truly  a good hunter, but she is old and she is not eager any more. Ruusu is not bothered to hunt, she enjoys her life on the couch.

I do get holes in my socks! It is unavoidable if they are loved and used. I have knit few pairs with all wool yarn and they do not wear as well as the ones with nylon in them. I usually knit my socks with yarns that have about 25% of nylon, rest being wool. Most of the time I don't reinforce my heels. I have many pairs and by rotating them all the time, it feels like they last longer.

4 comments:

  1. I love your quilt blocks; you have a wonderful sense and understanding of color. I have started on the Hitchhiker scarf and have high hopes of the pattern and the yarn...I do love to knit socks though and usually wear them with clogs all winter..

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  2. Thanks for answering my question about holes in socks. I'll now look for yarn with 25% nylon!

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  3. I love colour too! I always try to be wearing a bold blue or red or teal or purple somewhere in my outfit. I get very tired of seeing everyone wearing black and neutrals all the time! Thank you for all the beautiful photos you always share. It is so interesting to me, living actually on the opposite side of the planet, to see the world outside your windows.

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  4. Oh, what beautiful, snowy photos! I love snow. Of course, we do not get very much snow here so I can see where people who live in very northern climates could tire of it. I remember one winter here where it snowed a lot and almost every week. As I shoveled the driveway and sidewalks and had to lift the heavy snow shovel really high to dump the snow on already high snowbanks, I wondered how people in areas with more snow do it! Then there is this past winter where we had one significant snowfall of 2". I was sad. Thank you for posting your snowy pictures. I love nature in all seasons. I have been subscribing to Lucy's blog for about 3 years and I love her style of writing and her beautiful crochet. Interestingly, in your quilt squares above I find my favorite one is the Neutral. Maybe due to the perfect balance of colors and patterned fabrics I don't know exactly but it is definitely interesting to me.

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