Posts Tagged ‘color progressions’

Yarn Progressions — Part 1

Posted by mtmom on April 11, 2010

Mountain Mom continues to explore Color Theory!

“Part 1” because I hope to post more on this topic, as I learn more. May take some experimentation time between some installments, but so far I’m just tossing around yarn balls. (he he!)

Sometimes, I wish I had an “expert”/”artist” like Blacksmith knitter looking over my shoulder and giving me pointers . . . , but then I figure that wrestling with it myself may ultimately be more instructive . . . right? Maybe?

So here’s a photo gallery of some families of yarns (I went first to my reds and neutrals) arranged in progression by value, or else by hue or by “warmth” (really a kind of hue progression, but this was more how I thought of it as I grouped them). I want the “steps” between colors to be about even, from one to the next, with no big jumps to jar the eye. The idea is, that I could use one of these groupings as a foreground or background in a Fair Isle style pattern-band, and they would “go together”. I would arrange them to be dark–medium–light–medium–dark, or cool–medium–warm–medium–cool, for instance, highlighting the center rows of the motif with the lightest or warmest or brightest of a “series”, or with the pairing of greatest contrast between MC and CC.

What I have *not* yet been able to assemble, though, is a progression by saturation or brightness/dullness; that’s where you have a pure-hue yarn (like a red-red) plus yarns with that hue progressively diluted with its opposite/complement (like more and more green), heading toward duller/grayer/more muted. I either don’t see like that, or just haven’t bought yarns like that.