Mid-winter colour cravings and some laughable weaving experiments
We're midway through winter, and I am paying attention to how the light changes in the morning and evenings. Every day a tiny bit longer. Every day a little warmer.
This subtle dance between darkness and light, this new change of rhythm, it's already affecting me. It's making me crave colour, gentle yellows and blush pinks and whites.
And yet, I don't want to rush. I want to keep embracing winter's spirit, with its darkness, its moodiness. There is a time for every season, and I want to enjoy the season I'm in.
It means choosing yarns of weight and texture that mirror the weight of winter outside our windows. Heavy, comforting fibres that wrap us in their warmth like a cocoon become lighter. The deep, rich hues of the winter landscape, the inky blues, the mossy greens, the smoky grays might be washed with a lighter hue. And I might add to my winter projects small bursts of colour, a little red, a little white, reminders that spring is on its way.
What I am making
I am still knitting on my Satellite shawl, I am at the penultimate pattern repeat and excited to see how the finished and blocked shawl will look like.
In the meantime, I have also experimented a bit more with weaving. To compare the stitches, I first knit a strip in two colours of garter stitches (1), I used simple crochet stitch for a second strip of fabric (2). Number 4 is made on a cardboard loom and 2, 5 and 6 on a frame loom. Mistakes were made, and my resulting bookmarks are laughable, but I think this is how learning happens. Maybe in a few years, I'll come back to this and remake these bookmarks with perfect tension weaving. They kind of look like alien microorganisms, don't they? But it's fun and I will keep experimenting.
I am fascinated by Nancy Marchant's explorations with using weaving and knitting in the same project, what she calls woven knitting.
And I recently discovered her project The Weaver Bandana, a piece of textile that is first knit and then, with a needle, woven. It's just brilliant!
Book of the week
Palette Perfect by Lauren Wager
This is a book all about colour! Lauren Wager, the author of the blog Colour Collective, groups similar colour palettes in sections, such as nature, magic, retro, mystery, nostalgia. Since I got my copy of this book, the author has written a second book, where colour palettes are organized by season.
I like to browse my heavily bookmarked copy when I start new projects or just when I need a bit of inspiration. Sometimes there's a seed planted, and a new idea forms from there. Like combining pale blush pink with light grey and aubergine purple with lilac, or mid-grey, baby blue and cold lemony yellow. And lots and lots of other ideas.
May your days be filled with mindful moments. Until next time, be present.
Sky
Woven knitting! Now there's a combination :) I'm going to investigate that.
Ooh, that colour book looks fascinating. Thank you, heading to check it out now.