Friday, January 2, 2009

Light Bright

There are some color combinations that only a 6 year old girl can love.  Here is one of them. Because I was letting her pick out her own colors, I picked a pattern that I could knock off in a day or so--also, it's cold and the kid needs a hat.  A while ago, I had queued up Knitty's "Center Square" and after a little gauge math, I was off the the races.

I started by knitting it on two circulars, but the tangle of 
cables and yarn started to really annoy me so I just wrestled them onto one 24" circular until I got to the crown decreases.  I have to say, I wouldn't really recommend that--it made for unpleasant tight knitting that never felt fun--I just wanted to get to the end.  It was a little small after I finished, but I'm hoping blocking might help with that.

Though I like the colors she picked out, I'm not crazy about how they look together in this pattern, and in the process of knitting it, my addled brain figured out why.  Artists and other color experts will instantly tell me where I went wrong, but it took me a while to see that though the blue and pink are very different colors, they are very similar in color value.  That means they have a similar amount of white in them and therefore, next to each other, they don't really create much contrast.   Interesting lesson learned and filed away in noggin.  After a break from the colors, I'll whip up some matching mittens, per her request.

Center Square, Knitty.com
One skein each Cascade 128 in Powder Blue and Cotton Candy
US size 10 needles

1 comment:

pdxknitterati/MicheleLB said...

You are absolutely right about the color values. I've been playing with color lately, and I combine by trial and error. There's a bit of ripping involved! And, like yours, it was because the colors (blue, green, white) were all to middling pale. Much better with a deeper blue.