lacework detail shot

My first commission knitting!

I am sorry, dear blog, for never updating you lately.

But I want to, so soon I will return.

rambouillet roving by cjdelights

Journal Bandolier by cleverhands

Cinder by squoosh

Woodland Auryn by Plumevine

Dr. Beulenpest by TomBanwell

Severus Snape II by WeirdAndTwisted

Shades of black. If you looked at my log of yarns, you’d know how I feel about black. And when that black has several textures?

Nature's Bliss by blaghy

roving by woolgathering

The gentle spring-gradient  here is vibrant with color, but all tied together in one specific palette. I love warm, deep tones. The journal particularly has that glow. Muted, but bright.

Small Circles Table by michealarras

Sedona by FriendsinFiber

Can’t seem to get away from my fall-foliage obsession, even when I’m loving spring-colors, too.

Again, these are all taken from my favorites of the past few weeks, picking out trends in colors, palettes that I’m being drawn to.

Just fun looking at how colors translate in different mediums!

This is a piece themed on How To Train Your Dragon, particularly Toothless, the “Night Fury” dragon befriended by the hero.

It is also a project built around a strand orphaned from another project.

The two came together seamlessly, which is kind of surprising to me, when a theme clicks with something driven by a practicality. In this case, that I had a gorgeous orange ply that I’d decided was going to trainwreck “Tatara Nightfall”, which wasn’t looking how I wanted it to anyway…

And maybe my panic was unjustified, and having that third orange piece would have sparked off the yarn a bit more–but not for what I was aiming for.

Anyway, the idea to take the purple (a great high-contrast color with orange) and then maybe midnight blue, all colors that work together in night-scenes launched the making of the next two plies. The blue  and purple are both variegated in spots, the purple with a more smoky indigo, the blue with both that same indigo and a light blue. That ply looked just gorgeous on the bobbin, like the dragon Toothless’ hide, which gave rise to seeing it as a piece themed on that.

My brother had said Eboshi looked like a yarn for that movie, so the seed was already in my mind…

Corespinning is using a thread as your guide and spinning the fibers around it. I’ve seen a lot of neat-looking single-ply yarns lately (in an earlier post, I even announced my determination to try it) and this project was my chance to go for it.

For Eboshi, I wanted a lot of solid colors, where the streaks I’d carded in wouldn’t be lost in the folds of other plies. She’s a strong character, and I thought a bolder, less nuanced color look would suit her perfectly.

As I was carding together the colors, I ended up throwing in more dashes of the bright accent hues than I had planned.

Call it instinct, but now I’m looking at the actual screencap images of her, I’m kind of amazed how much they match. I knew they were close, but… Also, I was really happy with how the bright colors managed to punch UP the dark foundation of the yarn, rather than suppress it. I think the singles structure allows that to really shine.

It’s been a while since I was so whole-heartedly happy with a color-pattern. Working with hand-dyed roving you lose a little control (though you also introduce more nuance of color) and so these hand-picked colors from my stash of single-color roving working out so well is a bit of a reminder of what I can do left to my own devices.

Though the white thread showing through from where my technique fell off on corespinning means I’m going to challenge myself again, soon…

Newgrange by WeirdAndTwisted

A yarn taking the lead on this collection, because it is entrancing.

.

Citrus print by honeytree

Picking up the notes of green and veering in a different direction, here’s an art print that I adore for the clarity of color kept in the filtered photograph. There was a roving in these colors that I admired for a long time. We have yet to meet, but my fascination with this peach-orange blending into a burnt orange is still lasting…

.

Autumn Leaves by Walk Collection

Going with the theme of unexpected notes, this burn-brown with it’s purple iridescence has a pull to it because of the depth formed in it’s dyeing. A masterful piece of unusual coloring.

Pretty Thoughts by Schmooks

This artist does an odd collage of maybe digital painting and what appear like origami paper prints–a sort of freehand style that melds something both beautiful and a little wistful.

…yes, I use big words about every freaking thing. Heh.

Pretty old-lace-and-new-linen vibe, with notes of Wendy, I think.

Rebel Breeze – a bohemian spring

A sort of shabby-chic infused collection. The image I was going for was a calm heat of summer, but the style is more breezy.

I think I’ll need to try another again soon, but I am fond of this one…

Ragged Summer – vacation on my terms

And the color trends become more obvious as I favorite more things. First palette is:

Deep Wood Spring

Forest Print (Human Nature) by debbiecarlos

Swamp cashmere yarn by hedgehogfibres

Jardin de Paris brown velvet mini photo album by noshidesigns

These are deep earthy colors a little dusty with their richness, like the fresh dirt of spring and the first blush of green deeper into the wood than you can see.

The “Swamp” yarn is unfortunately sold already, but the shop is ever full of lovely things, and the others are still available at their respective Etsy Shops.

Another thing these share is fine detail, a stranding fine as new branches unfurling, and leaves stirring, delicate despite the weight of time in the earth they grow on.

The next color-set is the complete opposite:

Watercolor Skies

Brighton Boats by roseginnie

SaLe Sencha BFL by CorgiHillFarms

These tones are almost wintry in their icy blue–which is just apt for that chill of spring that reminds of where we’ve been. The sky hasn’t yet taken on that bravado of color that leads into summer, and the light is still a bit silvery, but the harshness of winter has mostly gone out of it.

Grounded by electric greens and shale-y browns, this is the lightly brushed tones of an ocean-side spring.

It so happens the roving is also sold already. The same recommendation stands for CorgiHillFarms–this woman knows her colors.

man leaning on stone wall in ireland by susanlavonne

It was a treasure, so my brother and I didn’t get to read it on our own. We soon acquired a paperback that my mom could reread from without worry, and we could smuggle off to our own rooms, with the sort of 70s watercolor psychedelics that I was resigned to from my father’s boxed set of Chronicles of Narnia, but seemed unfathomably surreal to me… I don’t think this is it, but it’s similar, and it may be the one I remember was faded so I can’t remember how it looked.

The Pretty Librarian used this cover as the classic to invoke the book for the write-up I did, and it’s a good one–the art by Tolkien matches the story’s internal style, and the illustrations he created for it.

It still has that desaturated tone, though, without much high contrast. I understand this is was a necessity of earlier printing, but when for me the primary imagery is so dark with night, and sparking with campfires and dragon’s breath… Well, you can understand why I am so in love with some of the Johnny-Come-Latelys of the field.

Alan Lee, my one and only forever Tolkien art crush. His muted use of color and the liquid textures of his paintings just floor me.

But wait, as if that’s not enough…

I do happen to have this one, the one above. Both of these evoke more of the clear beauties of Tolkien’s work, which is why Lee’s work is so popular. I mean, aside from the gorgeousness of it all… I’m not sure who this is, but it’s a similar style:

CAN YOU CHOSE?

No. This is why I personally own five of the seven different editions of Tolkien’s work represented in this house.