Sitting in my house right now are three books by Kristin Nicholas:
This is the newest which I bought before the ink dried.
This is the oldest and is all about embellishing fabric with embroidery. I got it for $6 on amazon.
This is an older knitting book I borrowed from the library.
If you like the look of these, just do a google image search for Kristin Nicholas and watch your mouth drop open and your eyes bug out. Try her blog and see what a wonderful person she is.
Now why do I bring all this up?
I’d like a color story for my house like Kristin Nicholas has. I know her entire line of Julia yarn is her colorway for most of her work. Every color enhances the other colors. They all have an earthiness without sacrificing brightness and serendipity. It is easy to choose which ones to use together because no choice would be out and out wrong.
Actually I need two color families. One based on clear jewel tones to design clothes for me (and Meghan) to wear and one based on soft earth tones for my house.
Soft earth tones in Jane-language are usually “dry” colors. Well, I know what I mean by that. Like dried herbs. The greens are sage and thyme–very little yellow in them. Yellows are buttery, pale, transparent. Taupe prevails–of course taupe is sometimes grey and sometimes brown. The grey is like driftwood from the beach. Even the blues are a bit grey.
It occurs to me that I started talking about the colors in my den and moved to my “beach in the winter” living room. I still have accents of red here and there, but they are mostly a blue-red. Hm-m-m-m-m.
I can’t create my own color line, but maybe I can find it. A trip to Lowes to the paint chips is where I usually start. Then I should set aside a plastic bin and head for the stash. Find colors in any yarn and just toss then in. To find out what colors are missing from the palette, I can arrange what I have as a color wheel. I already know I have no yellow.
Have you ever put your yarns out in a sort of color wheel? It’s instructive. You will probably be missing at least one area. Maybe you don’t really like blue, so you have almost no blue in your stash. Consider taking a few favorite colors to the LYS and trying to find a blue that will work with them. You might plan to use just a little to make your favorites pop in a new way. Do a little striped swatch and keep the blue stripe small. Hang it up and view it from at least 6 feet away. How do your favorite colors look now? Did you discover something interesting? Did this activity show you that you really have a lot of Color X? Come count my purples.
Back to my plan. I haven’t even looked at organizing my stash for this year. I’m avoiding this task which I usually enjoy. I need a “body double,” a person to talk to while I do the job. The ADHD books say this will help keep me focused. The person doesn’t even have to help.
I know several retired buddies who for the price of a good chair, a good cup of coffee, and a good DVD just might be willing to oversee this project. All I need to do is pick a date and ask.
Well, just do it.
If it were only that simple . . . .
