Understanding Colour: Variegateds, from Gentle to Wild

Understanding Colour: Variegateds, from Gentle to Wild

Last week we talked about the different meanings of the colour terms “solid”, “semi-solid”, and “tonal” — all of which refer to yarn dyed in a single hue.  But so often the yarns that really send our pulses racing are the multi-hued colourways — layer upon layer of fabulous colour, almost glowing in our hands as we turn them over and over to catch every last shade.  These are variegated colourways and, beautiful as they are, they can be intimidating.  But there are different types of variegateds and, once you realise the differences, they become much more approachable.

Understanding Colour -- Variegateds from Gentle to Wild

So first, let’s define what we’re talking about.  The straight-up definition of a variegated colourway is any colourway that contains more than one hue (colour). So, going back to last week’s post, if a yarn contains light kelly green and mid-kelly green and dark kelly green, it’s not variegated, it’s tonal because the hue of all the greens is the same.  But if a yarn contains a yellow-green and a blue-green as well as the kelly green, now it’s got mutiple hues (colours) and that makes it variegated.  To put it very simply: in a variegated colourway, the colour varies.

But there’s far more to “variegated” than just that simple definition.  Here at SpaceCadet, we tend to divide our variegateds into two categories: Gently Variegated and Wildly Variegated, and the good news is that they are exactly what they sound like.

Gently Variegateds: The Easy-to-Love Variegateds

Gently Variegated colourways are low contrast — their colours blend and flow into one another.  Think of our colourway Time Traveller, all shades of green and gray and gentle flecks of copper.  There are actually a whole bunch of colours in there — it’s definitely variegated — but none of them are jarring against each other.  In fact, although the yarn looks clearly variegated in the skein, when you knit it up, it’s quite startling just how much the different colours begin to flow into each other.  In fact, if you back up a few feet, it all begins to blend together as if it were hardly variegated at all.

SpaceCadet's Time Traveller

SpaceCadet's Time Traveller Knitted

Wildly Variegateds: The Bad Boy Colourways You Can’t Help Falling For

Wildly Variegated colourways are high contrast, containing hues that pop and sizzle against one another.  These are colours that jump around on the colour wheel, like the rust-and-blue combination in Windswept or the maroon-blue-yellow of Molten Cool. They’re incredibly exciting to knit or crochet with, the colours morphing and changing across your stitches.  But because they are high contrast, they can be high maintenance as well — there’s a push-pull element to the colours that means that, unlike Gently Variegateds, they may not play nicely together in plainer stitches.

SpaceCadet's Molten Cool

SpaceCadet's Molten Cool Knitted

So, so far, so simple.  Variegateds are colourways that contain more than one hue (colour).  Gently Variegateds are low contrast and Wildly Variegateds are high contrast.  Easy, right?  Yep, so let me complicated it just a bit.

When Gentles Go Wild (And Vice Versa)

There’s another element to what makes us perceive a variegated yarn as either Gentle or Wild, and this one defies the neat definitions we discussed above.  That element is the specific layouts of the colour repeats.  Or put more simply: how quickly and often the colour changes.

A yarn with long colour repeats will tend to look more variegated regardless of whether the hues are high or low contrast, simply because those long stretches allow the colours to separate in your knitting or crochet.  Depending on your project, they may stripe (or semi-stripe), pool, argyle, or create irregular flashes.  And when there are these sorts of large, distinct areas of a single hue which abut other distinct areas in a different hue, our eyes more easily perceive those colour changes and the colourway appears to have higher contrast (even when the two hues are similar).

And the reverse is true as well: when a yarn has many short colour repeats, it tends to look less variegated, regardless of whether its hues are high or low contrast.  Short, quick colour repeats create tiny pops of colour that sit right next each other in your knitting without such distinct edges.  Because of this, our eyes perceive even a wildly variegated colourway almost as a single, multi-hued colour (as if such a thing were possible) and the whole thing appears to be lower contrast.  Think of a heathered yarn, which may have anything from grays and browns to blues, greens, yellows, and perhaps even hot pinks — and yet, because the colour changes are many and often, they all blend together in a way that could almost be described as soft.

A Wildly Variegated colourway looks gentle thanks to short colour repeats

A Wildly Variegated colourway looks gentle thanks to short colour repeats (2)

Here’s a great example:  this is Mythos by Laura Nelkin, which my assistant Jade knit in a one-of-a-kind colourway we created last year.  If you look closely, you can see that the colours are actually very high contrast — there are maroons, purple-blues, dusty aqua, lime green, and even yellow.  By definition, it’s a Wildly Variegated colourway (and kind of sounds like it should be approaching the dreaded clown barf).  But, in reality, the short repeats give only pops of colour instead of stripes or pooling.  And the result is a colourway that is Gently Variegated and almost heathered — proof that even high contrast colourways don’t have to be so wild after all.

Now It’s Your Turn…

So now that we’ve gone over the terms, here are two exercises to give you hands-on practice in understand these different types of variegateds:

  • First, go to the SpaceCadet colourways page and scroll to the bottom to see our variegated colourways.  Mentally note which look Gentle and which look Wild to you, and then compare it what we consider Gentle or Wild by clicking on the buttons at the top (you’ll see them marked “Gently Variegated” or just “Variegated” — I left off the word Wild because I didn’t want to them to sound scary).  Remember that although there are clear definitions for both, there are no right or wrong answers — the perception of wild vs gentle is pretty subjective.  Even very high contrast colours can look Gentle if they are configured the right way; and low contrast colours can start to look a little Wild if they are allowed to pool, flash, or stripe.
  • And then, go and look at your own stash and see what you gravitate to.  Do you have a lot of yarns with colours that blend and flow into one another, or that are close on the colour wheel?  Or is your stash filled with yarns whose colours that contrast sharply with one another?  Open the skeins up to see how long the colour repeats are, and think about how is that going to affect the way the yarn looks when it’s knitted or crocheted.  Most importantly, how do you feel about the colourways in your stash?  Are you excited to work with them and see how they come out or are you a little intimidated by them?  Ultimately, whether Wild or Gentle, low contrast or high, the how we feel about the end result is what really matters.  But we’ll get better results from our yarn — and our yarn shopping — if we really understand what draws us to the yarns we love.

Next up in this series: a colourway that seemingly defies all these definitions… and what makes it so interesting.  I’ll be posting that sometime in the next week or so — don’t miss it!

Adding Colour to Little Things and Big

Ok, it’s not actually Monday but, at least here in the US, it feels like a Monday, so let’s brighten the morning up with some great Mini-Skein ideas!

Y’know, as I was scrolling through Mini-Skein ideas this week for the SpaceCadet’s Mini-Skein Ideas board on Pinterest, the thing that struck me was how versatile they actually are.  I mean, when the Mini-Skein craze started, it was all about hexipuffs — tiny little six-sided pillows that give instant gratification and are eventually all put together into the stunning Beekeeper’s Quilt.

The Beekeeper's Quilt

And those little puffs get us thinking about using Mini-Skeins for mini-sized projects.  Two of my favourites that I spotted on Pinterest this week are the Itty Bitty Stripes hat, knit by deliknits from a pattern by Susan B. Anderson, and the Luxury Holiday Garland, knit by harleagh from a pattern by  Kristen Ashbaugh-Helmreich.  Both of patterns use small amounts of yarn highlight colour in a whimsical (and delightful way).  Who can look at that sweet little hat and not smile?  Or resist that garland of happy stars when holiday-time rolls round?  Yes, Mini-Skeins really lend themselves to mini-projects like these.

Small things with Mini-Skeins

But I think what is really cool is the way people are using Mini-Skeins now to add tiny pops of colour to full-sized projects.  More and more on Pinterest, I see designs that use yarn as if it were a crayon to add colour here there and everywhere…   Sweaters or cardigans with a gorgeous bright edging…  Or maybe a gently contrasting collar or cuffs.  Or… or… something really innovative and exciting — like the Stripes Ahoy! sweater, knit by machamaya and designed by Asa Tricosa.  Isn’t it fantastic?!?  I love how she’s used colour in a unexpected way to turn a simple design into something really eye-catching.

Stripes Ahoy!

And finally, I want to share Moore, a design by one of my favourite designers, Ruth Garcia-Alcantud of Rock & Purl.  It’s eye-catching of course because of its unusual off-center shaping, and side-to-side construction.  But imagine if you took those stripes and, instead of doing the pattern in just two colours, you used Mini-Skeins to add a whole spectrum of colour?  It’d be stunning, right?  No need to imagine — just click here and see how it would look!

Moore by Ruth Garcia-Alcantud

You see what I mean about how versatile Mini-Skeins can be?  The more I go through ideas on Pinterest, the less I think of them as yarn and more as yarn-crayons, to add colour where-ever it’s going to add impact to a project.  What more of that?  Follow the SpaceCadet’s Mini-Skein Ideas board on Pinterest and get inspired to colour your world too!

Everything You Do, You Learn Something New

When I started the SpaceCadet’s Mini-Skein Club, I set it up with two options — the Gentle Mix (mostly semi-solids and gently varigated colourways) and the Wild Mix (mostly wildly variegated yarns).  Everyone’s mini-skein project is unique to them and to the colours they love, so I was excited to give the club members the chance to tell me which  mix of yarns they’d prefer.

For the first shipment, I wasn’t quite sure how wild to make the Wild Mix, so I stayed on the conservative side (…the conservative side of, y’know, wild).  But then feedback I got told me the club members were ready to go further.  So for the next shipment, I was ready to really push it.  They wanted wild, they would get it — because I can do some crazy colour combinations!

I chose five of my most variegated colourways…

And when I looked at them one by one, they were wild — they were ka-razeee.  Here’s an example of what I mean by a highly variegated colourway…

SpaceCadet Creations Celeste fingering weight yarn for knitting and crochet, in Tiger Lilies

 

And here’s another…

SpaceCadet Creations fingering weight yarn for knitting and crochet

 

And another…

SpaceCadet Creations Celeste fingering weight yarn for knitting and crochet, in Submerge

See?  They’re pretty wildly variegated.  And pretty different.  And if they were that variegated and different on their own, I expected them to really explode off each other.

But then something really weird happened…

I put them all together and they suddenly looked… tame!  Well, maybe not tame exactly, but somehow a lot gentler, a lot more blended.  Certainly the collection was not as explosive as I thought it would be…

A Wild Mix of SpaceCadet fingering weight yarns for knitting and crochet

 

See what I mean?  What happened?!?

I took the little bundle apart and set each yarn on its own — and they each looked wild again.  Put them back together and…  they seemed subdued.  And I had to do it a couple of times before I realised what was happening.

Here’s the thing…  A wildly variegated yarn looks wild because the colours within it are so unrelated to each other.  They contrast, they compliment, and they make each other pop.  Put a few of these colours together and something beautiful happens!

SpaceCadet Creations Stella fingering weight yarn for knitting and crochet, in Carnival

But where each yarn contains a whole rainbow of colours, those same shades are likely to appear in other wildly variegated yarns too.  So when you put several such wildly coloured yarns together, the rainbows all start to blend into one another, to reflect one another.   Even colourways that look incredibly different can actually begin to… coordinate with each other.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes…

So I sat down and rethought the options, and here’s what I realised: those of you who choose the Gentle Mix are doing so because you want to create a mini-skein project that blends gently from one yarn to the next.  And those of you who choose the Wild mix are aiming to create a project with an overall effect of exciting contrasts.

SpaceCadet Creations Celeste fingering weight yarn for knitting and crochet, in Baroque

And I want to make sure the SpaceCadet’s Mini-Skein Club parcels help that to happen, so I’m going to slightly change the way I choose the yarns that go into the two mixes.  The Gentle Mix will stay mostly as it has been but, for the Wild Mix, I’m going to choose colourways that will make the whole parcel more contrasting, rather than just focusing on variegated yarns.  That will mean more semi-solids in the Wild Mix than there were before, but don’t worry — the overall effect will still be wild.

And you’re going to love it, because the mini-skein project you’re going to make with the new Wild Mix will be crazy colourful and eye-poppingly gorgeous!  And isn’t that what you were aiming for all along?

 

 

The Art of Hand-Dyeing

I’ve been thinking about colour a lot lately — about what draws us to it, about what makes us shy away. And, most interestingly to me, what is it that pulls some knitters and crocheters time and again hand-dyed yarns?

yarn, knitting, hand-dyed, indie dyer, crochet
Lucina fingering weight yarn in Carnival

Hand-dyed yarns are very different from the rest of the yarn universe. One thing that struck me at TNNA is that there were only a handful of indie dyers scattered  amongst the rows and rows of big yarn companies.  And the big yarn companies were very impressive, with their extensive line-up of yarns in every colour imaginable.  They sell dependability, repeatability, a yarn you can reach for time and again.

Whereas the magic of hand-dyed yarns lies in something completely different.  It’s something about freedom, the pure abandon of colour that might submit to the knitter’s will or might… might just turn wild and uncontrollable.  Hand-dyed yarns are about their untamed individuality, their uniqueness…  With hand-dyed yarns, you never really know what you’re going to get.

knitting, hand-dyed, crochet, indie dyer, yarn
Celeste fingering weight yarn in Baroque

So, as I watched them for a while, the hand-dyers at TNNA, busy chatting with LYS owners, I suddenly saw the dilemma…  For the indie dyer who wants to grow her business, there is the temptation to emulate the big yarn companies and to aim to pull those wild hand-dyed colours under control, to create legitimacy in a bigger marketplace by moving her line toward more predictability and controlled results.   But I suspect that what initially drew every hand-dyer into her craft was a desire to delve into the colours and go where-ever took took her.

knitting, yarn, crochet, hand-dyed, indie dyer
Celeste yarn in African Violets

So, being pulled in both directions, which way does an indie dyer go?

I think the answer comes back to the customer — to you.  The real question is, why do you buy hand-dyed yarns?  Why do you seek out indie-dyers when there are so many wonderful, established yarn brands in your local yarn shop? And I suspect the answer is that you are a very special kind of knitter or crocheter.  You are an adventurer.  And buying hand-dyed gives you a yarn that is like no other yarn in the world, which acts as a base on which to create your own art — the unique work of your two hands.  I think that people who buy hand-dyed yarn do more than just follow a pattern — they see the creation before it is created, they see the colours intertwined, they are drawn to the challenge of taming a yarn that they’re not quite sure will bend to their will.

In short, I think the knitter or crocheter who buys hand-dyed yarns is an artist herself, no less dyer whose yarn she works with.

So tell me, why do you buy hand-dyed yarns?  What is it that draws you to them?  And do you believe that when you create with them, you are also an artist?

knitting, yarn, crochet, hand-dyed, indie dyer
Celeste yarn in Carnival

The Department of Rocket Science

C’mere, I want to show you something…  Here, over here, through this door.   It says, “Department of Rocket Science” and I’ve heard crazy things happen in there…   No, don’t worry… it’s ok.  Look, I’ll come with you.  It’s this door here, see?  Come on!…

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I love to experiment with colour — it gives me such a rush and it’s why I dye.  For me, there is no moment in the whole dyeing process more exciting than when I lift a skein of yarn out of the dyepot and it reveals its colours to me.  Darker on the outside, softer on the inside… opening up like a soft spring flower, or glistening like a decadent chocolate.  No matter how many skeins I dye, that moment gives me a rush every single time.

sock yarn, hand-dyed, hand dyed, knitting, yarn
Estelle in Dept of Rocket Science Colourway 101222-002

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It’s through this process of playing with colour that I’ve created all the wonderful colourways that I dye for the shop time and again.  But, along the way, that process also produces yarns in colourways that probably won’t be repeated again — yarns that were stepping stones in the development of a new colourway, or yarns where I simply let my muse run free to see what would come out of the dyepot.

sock yarn, hand-dyed, hand dyed, knitting, yarn
Stella in Dept of Rocket Science Colourway 110106-001

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And so I have created the Department of Rocket Science.  It’s a special place where I can go to experiment  with abandon — to mix new colours, to dye with my eyes closed, to play with new fibers and new yarn bases.  And it’s place where you can come and discover results of all this wonderful experimentation, and choose one of these very special yarns for your one-of-a-kind project.  (And remember that all these experimental yarns will go into this section, regardless of yarn/fiber type, so if you’re searching the shop for a particular yarn type, don’t forget to check the Dept of Rocket Science as well.)

Stella in Dept of Rocket Science Colourway 110105-005
Stella in Dept of Rocket Science Colourway 110105-005


So go ahead… open the door!  You never know what you’ll find inside…  But it will always be something exciting!

Inspiration for Colour in Knitting and Dyeing

A few years ago, I took a class with Brandon Mably that completely changed the way I thought about colour.  It was an intense 2-day course which challenged us to think about how we see and use colour from the minute we arrived in the morning, until we left at the end of the day.  Brandon had us doing a lot of crazy things to shake up our brains, from throwing all our balls of yarn into the center of the floor and mixing them all up, to free-knitting swatches that contained 10… 15… 20 different colours.  It was a great weekend (and if you ever get a chance to take Brandon’s Design in Colour class, I highly recommend it).

And there’s one technique that he taught that has translated particularly well from knitting to dyeing.  He suggested that we use artwork that we love — paintings that really spoke to us — and use the colours as inspiration.  If those colours work in the painting, then they would work in our knitting too.  He walked around the room and let us choose from a stack of fine-art postcards and greeting cards, whichever painting called out to each of us the most.

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The thing about using this technique is that you suddenly realise how many colours you don’t see, even as they are right in front of your eyes.  When you first look at a painting, you may see what you think of as a “yellow painting”…

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But when you take the time to really immerse yourself into the colour, you suddenly see so much more — little spots of red that jump out at you, the grays that fade into the background, subtle greens that you didn’t even notice.  They all work together — these colours that you never would have thought of putting side-by-side — and they create a depth and complexity that pulls you back again and again.

Just realising that really began to set us free in that class, and we dove into the pile of yarn in the middle of the floor.  Using our cards as a guide, everyone’s knitting exploded into wild colour —  combinations of shades far more daring than we would have tried before.

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And then Brandon showed us a something else that I hadn’t noticed: different areas of the the same painting contain their own micro-colourways, and give off completely different moods from what you felt when you first saw the painting.  So if you take a painting that you think of as mostly sunny and yellow, and cover part of it up, you might find an area that’s completely different…  that’s moody and blue…

And when you switch your hands around again, the whole mood changes back to the sunny and yellow you saw before.  Or maybe to a different section, and a different colourway and mood.  Here are little colourways that you can pull out for inspiration in your knitting, and that I use in my dyeing — a whole world of colourways in one painting, just waiting to inspire you, if you stop and look closely enough!  And once you start seeing them, you really can’t wait to start using them yourself…  to start knitting as though you’re painting.

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(When I lived in the UK, fine art cards like this one from Woodmansterne were available in any card shop for just a couple of pounds.  But here in the US, I don’t regularly see cards like this — the shelves seem to filled with the standard assortment of greetings cards with nice-but-not-overly-interesting artwork.  I’d love to find a good supplier of art cards like this one to inspire me…  Can anyone suggest where I might find something similar here in America?)