Home colors
One of my touchstone books during childhood was Sarah, Plain and Tall. Sarah-in-the-story comes from Maine, has a cat named Seal, and says that her favorite colors are blue and green and gray, the colors of the sea. I grew up tall on a rocky coast on the other side of the country, and I always identified with her. If you were to dye a colorway for my island, it would have to be blue and green and gray, and also dry-grass-and-driftwood, like this:
See the Great Blue Heron on the end of the cannery pier? He’s island colors all over. I was out birding with my parents and some other island folk when I took these. The birds were mostly hunkered down to stay out of the rolling fog and damp, which we sometimes get even on sunny late-summer days. The islands are always cooler than the mainland, which makes them good places for knitters of wool.
And speaking of wool…
Surprise! A finished project! It’s a Fishtrap “swatchcap”, as EZ likes to call them. She’s perfectly right, in this as in nearly everything else: why knit a useless square to test your gauge and materials when you could just dash off a hat?
You’ll notice I camouflage pretty well with the dead grass, too. When I lived in New England and New York I found myself filling my closet with deep reds and pumpkin-y oranges, and spring in Portland made me want pale leafy greens. But when I’m home (and San Juan Island will always be home, no matter where I live), I revert to browns and blues and sandy beige. I’ve only just noticed this impulse to adapt to my landscape, and I’m realizing it affects my knitting, too. Has anyone else experienced this sort of color instinct? I’m not sure if it’s a primitive urge to be unobtrusive or a subliminal form of inspiration from the environment, or maybe both.
At any rate, this visit to the island also made me realize how jarring it is when the colors you see aren’t what your mind expects. We had a potluck party at South Beach, and as the sun went down we got this:
It’s the smoke from the forest fires in the Cascades and on Vancouver Island. That mauve sky and the tinge of cerulean in the water are beautiful, but they don’t look like the San Juans at all. And they made the whole landscape look wrong: the greens were too vivid, parts of the sound looked yellow… I felt like we were all on drugs. (Big props to Mr. Garter for the sunset picture, though.)
All this rambling is leading somewhere, I promise. I’ve been thinking a lot about color and how to make more mindful use of it in things I knit. Thus far, I’ve mostly used solids in my garments, or I’ve let variegated yarns dyed by someone else do all the work. But I want to start doing some dying of my own, and I’ll get my chance in October — no sooner did I post my eagerness for the natural plant dyeing class than Abundant Yarn opened up registration! Huzzah! I also want to start learning colorwork. I’m going to practice on mittens, with Nancy Bush’s Estonian patterns as a guide. Choosing colors I like together was harder than I thought it would be, but next time I’ll show you what I’ve come up with.
In the mean time I want to know: what would a colorway of your home turf look like? And I’ll leave you with these darling girls:
That’s our Selkie on the left and then on the right, in Labrador Heaven at the beach with her friend Lucy.
Posted: September 9th, 2006 at 6:37 pm
i would like to tell you all that i have decided to be just like sarah. in furtherance of my efforts to become sarah, i have decided to knit all the same garments as she. oh ho ho, the miss may chemise was only the beginning. now i am toying with a fishtrap cardi for my gentleman companion. i just read the “january” chapter in KA last night, and contemplated a swatchcap. soon, very soon, i will knit in a tent somewhere out west. muahahahahaha!
seriously, i love fishtrap, but never thought chris would wear it. but your zipper idea… fabulous! this could be the oft-postponed curse-be-damned boyfriend sweater after all.
oh, and the color of my home turf? uh, smog. and maybe “burning chemicals” – such an elusive and ever-changing hue! (location: NW Indiana)
Posted: September 9th, 2006 at 7:59 pm
hmmm, new york is my home now and forever will be. i can’t ever imagine moving back to michigan. so greys and blacks it is for me and i must admit that i’m pretty happy with that 🙂
your photography is looking just lovely these days! those are some cute pics of the dogs.
Posted: September 10th, 2006 at 5:49 am
Extra loved your post today! My town colors would be green, brown, steel gray, and a bit of blue. I live in Dallas, TX and would have the trees, the dirt, the tall buildings and the little bit of blue is for my little boy who is my whole world.
Posted: September 10th, 2006 at 6:10 am
Coming from the midwest, surrounded by fields of corn, alfalfa, and soy, I’d have to say the color I most associate with is green. Of course, just seeing me, that’s a pretty obvious statement. But now that New York is my home, I am surrounded by a rainbow of colors every day, so my inspiration is unlimited.
I agree with Steph, your photography is stunning and I always look forward to it.
Posted: September 10th, 2006 at 8:16 am
I live not-all-that-far from The Purling Pirate, and I don’t pay all that much attention to the colors outside, since we only have two seasons: February, and summer.
The inside of my home is every shade of that red I can get my hands on, with brass and dark woods and loads of glass candlesticks. What I’m buying in the shops, these days, is reds-into-oranges, witness “Swatching Louisa” from my own blog.
The Unsinkable Molly Brown would be very, very happy here.
Posted: September 11th, 2006 at 5:55 am
your photos were almost painfully beautiful. especially on a day like today, it’s nice to get out of the city for a minute, even if just through your lovely pictures.
Posted: September 11th, 2006 at 8:56 am
I agree, those photos are delicious. I love the heron on the pier ~ very forlorn and lovely.
I don’t think I adapt so much to my geographic area as I do to season. I’m heading towards the oranges, browns and golds about now.
Posted: September 11th, 2006 at 8:59 am
you know, it’s funny, i just bought yarn that fits in perfectly with your color scheme. it’s by schafer, and it’s the famous women line. it’s called edith piaf (my quebecoise (is that right?) friend told me i needed to start speaking french (parlez vous francais?)). i have been promising to post a pic, so i spose i better get over to my house and do so (i’m at my fiance’s)
my color scheme, reflective of what it looks like here? greens & browns, with dashes of red (for the corn huskers!), and maybe golds & tans for the grain. however, i’m partial to blues myself.
Posted: September 11th, 2006 at 8:33 pm
That hat is absolutely gorgeous and I love the idea of making a hat as a swatch. I am envious that you’ve found Elizabeth Zimmerman’s books. My library doesn’t carry them, and I haven’t found them in bookstores either. Clearly, someone is plotting against me.
Those photographs are just gorgeous, and I love the colors!
Kristen
Posted: September 12th, 2006 at 5:41 am
I have to agree with gleek – my colors are sidewalk tan and asphalt black, and that steely blue of the buildings when they catch the sun. I’ll be walking around NY today with my eyes open for more colorful inspiration!
Posted: September 12th, 2006 at 5:59 am
I love your post! All those colors, mmm…. And as for geographic location, I’m from Georgia, which I always associate with vivid green–the grass, the dense trees, the kudzu covering everything in sight. And ask anyone what color I prefer to knit with–no big surprise there!
Posted: September 15th, 2006 at 1:10 pm
hey, i meant to ask you – how did you decrease to finish off your swatchcap?
Posted: December 6th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
Wow – looks great! I am inspired to get back to mine!