Color Inspiration

I've been thinking about blogging a lot, but as you can tell, I haven't done any for ages. Now that we finally have joined the 21st century and have wireless Internet, it makes it easier to do more blogging!

Have you ever wondered how a dyer finds inspiration for her colorways? I can't speak for any other dyers, but I thought I'd tell you how I do it.

I usually get them one of two ways. The first is that I think of a color name. For example, the Phat Fiber Sampler Box's theme for October 2011 was The Witching Hour. For me that was a particularly easy one. I've read the Witching Hour and most of the Mayfair Witches books by Anne Rice, and the colorway that almost immediately popped into mind is Mayfair. I'll have to post pictures of it later. :)

A main component would have to be the Mayfair Emerald. A huge emerald set in gold and inscribed with Lasher on the back gave me two colors right away - green and gold.

Lasher, the mysterious spirit who has haunted and helped the Mayfair family gave me the second color, the brown of his suit which is how so many passersby saw him on the porch with poor, doomed Deirdre. It's how we first see him in the books too.

That gives me three colors, green, gold and brown. I wanted something more, so the black of the wrought iron that surrounds the house on First Street became color number four. I decided to add purple mostly because I've been in a phase where I've been buying yarns and fibers from other dyers with green, yellow and purple, and it was time I tried my own interpretation of it.

Now I have 5 colors. This is when I start experimenting with dye concentrations to see how it looks and can I use any of colors I've already developed. Eventually I find the colors I like, and a new color is born.

Way number two is that I see something that inspires me. Butterfly Bush is a colorway inspired by the butterfly bushes that grow in my yard. I took pictures and examined the colors more closely to see what about it attracts me most. Then I start mixing dyes and experimenting again.

Sounds easy, doesn't it? It is and it isn't, if that makes sense.

Happy knitting!