Colour Swatches

Spring Cloud Palette

Ordering art and craft supplies online is convenient, but choosing colours can be very tricky. I thought I'd show you the difference between the online swatches and my own colour swatches for the spring cloud blanket. Obviously, part of the issue is that all monitors are slightly different, but I found the colours much more vibrant in real life. (I couldn't find nice swatches online for a few of the colours, so I used my photos in both palettes for those ones).


Spring Cloud Palette (Accurate Colours)

In fact, even my "accurate" photos still look paler than the yarn looks to my eye. And who knows what they'll look like on anyone else's monitor. But I thought it was interesting to compare and I know when I was picking out colours, it was nice to see various people's photos of the yarn to try to get a better idea. The blanket continues along stripe-ily. A long ways yet to go, but I've been averaging a stripe a day recently.

Edited to add: The yarn is Stylecraft Special DK and the colours I have are: Aspen 1422, Aster 1003, Bluebell 1082, Clematis 1390, Cloud Blue 1019, Fondant 1241, Lavender 1188, Magenta 1084, Meadow 1065, Pale Rose 1080, Sherbet 1034, Silver 1203, Spring Green 1316, Turquoise 1068, Violet 1277, Wisteria 1432.

Photographs and artwork by Allison Gryski. © All rights reserved.

B is for Baby Bun

Making special things for an expected little one is one of the lovely bits of "expecting". It's nice to dream of the little person who will wear the tiny garments and play with the toys created during this time of waiting.


Handmade for Bun

The next project in the queue for Bun is a crochet blanket. This led me to realising that all my baby things start with B! There are Blocks, a Bunny, a Blue Sweater, and a Berry Hat! So perhaps it was only natural, that a Blanket was next.


Misty Spring Cloud Yarn Palette

I plan to make a Granny Stripe blanket in misty spring cloud colours. I ordered the yarn online, so I'm hoping it will arrive some time in the next week and that the colours are similar to what I expected. It's a palette I associate with Monet's water lilies ... you might see some similarities with my Monet's Garden Patchwork Pillow.


Monet's Garden Pillow

Seeing some of the water lily paintings in person at the Musée de L'Orangerie was one of the highlights of Paris for me. There are 8 huge, curved murals, in 2 oval rooms, lit by diffuse natural light. You can literally fill your field of vision with the paintings. Something in my soul sings at that soft blue-green-pink-purple palette and the serene quality of the paintings. I actually teared up, it was so beautiful. Truly the museum felt like a sacred space. I only hope my blanket can capture a bit of that beautiful tranquility.


Photographs and artwork by Allison Gryski. © All rights reserved.

Snow and Stars

Winter Wonderland

I woke up to a lovely winter fairyland this morning. By the time I was ready to run some errands, it was looking more like this ...


Snowy Day

That photo isn't out of focus -- there's just a white haze from all the big fluffy flakes falling. I was absolutely covered in melting white fluff by the time I got to the grocery store. (Apparently the snow is closing down public transportation ... seems so strange to my Canadian upbringing.) It is so pretty and Christmas-card-like out, though! It has also meant a brighter day, so I took some more pictures of my star garland and stitched them together so you can see the whole thing. (click here to view larger)


Complete Star Garland

In other yarn-related news, the other day I acquired my planned yarn basket when I went to the market. I love having something prettier and more functional that an assortment of plastic bags! Now I've just got to get on with beading my candy cane garland, so that it's ready for tree-decorating on the solstice.


Yarn Basket

Photographs and artwork by Allison Gryski. © All rights reserved.

Colour!

Lovely Colours

Colour makes me absurdly happy. I love seeing colourful displays of art supplies. Picking out favourites and making arrangements of colours gives me a silly high. I guess it's being a visual person, but sometimes I think it's not normal how excited I get by stack of colourful yarn, fabric, or pencil crayons. (And then I read blogs by other yarn and fabric fanatics and know I'm not alone in my nuttiness).


Pots of Pencils

When I go into an art store, I love looking through the displays of pencil crayons. Pens and paints are also fun to choose, but it's the pencil crayons that always get me most giddy. At the yarn store I love seeing a wall full of luscious colours. Same thing at the fabric store. I'm especially keen on quilting stores where the goodies are arrayed by colour instead of type. Oh and buttons too, of course.


blue button square

Yup, organize a bunch of artsy crafty supplies by colour and I go a bit bananas. That visual stimulation is something I like in small doses in my home, so my current style favours a lot of plain white walls and furniture with my favourite colours introduced through textiles like quilts and cushions. Things I can have the fun of making!


Stacks of Fabric

I love arranging tidy stacks of fabric and pots of colour coordinated pencil crayons. But until recently, I never had too many colours of yarn before. My star garland project changed that and wow was it fun to sit by the shelf of yarn and pick out a rainbow of colours. It was hard to stop. It's been similarly hard to stop crocheting the stars as I keep getting to dip into my stash of yarn to pick out a new colour.


Rainbow Stars

Photographs and artwork by Allison Gryski. © All rights reserved.

Christmas Crafting

All that snowflake making has only made me more excited to make pretty things for Christmas. Part of it is that we left our xmas decorations packed up in Canada, so we don't have much here and I love Christmas time. It's also making me quite sentimental to think that things I make this year will become "forever" things for Bun that will always have been part of his/her Christmas.


Colourful yarn

For most of the year, I like a more restrained palette, but some of the fun of xmas is the garish, exuberant colours. My sweetie is fond of bright, fun colours, so I bought a selection of ten colours of cotton yarn (pink, red, yellow, light green, green, light blue, blue, light purple, purple, and white) when we picked up my new sewing machine (yay!).


Crochet Stars

I've started crocheting stars to make a garland, having been inspired by the cheerful, colourful style of one of my favourite blogs, Attic 24. My garland will have some stars like the ones in her advent garland and some small ones. For all the details, see my Star Garland project on ravelry.


Candy Cane Garland

I have also started a candy cane striped garland using some cotton twine that I saw in the kitchen supply store. I just crocheted a simple chain, and tied some loops in the ends. I have plans to add some beads to make it a bit sparkly. This one is destined to be a tree garland, whereas I think the stars will probably hang on our bookshelf.

I also made a little one-off star ornament when I was learning how to crochet the small stars. I always have to guess about hook size since all my crochet hooks are vintage ones made of bone. They're lovely to work with, but I have absolutely no idea on sizing.


Crochet Star Ornament

I now have such a stash of yarn and on-the-go projects that I plan to buy myself one of the cute (and cheap!) straw baskets that I've been admiring in the market for months. I've been pretty good here about not buying things without having a clear idea of a specific purpose for them. That's been one of the excellent and enduring lessons of our overseas-move-decluttering, so it's always nice when something I admired aesthetically suddenly has a functional purpose for me!



Photographs and artwork by Allison Gryski. © All rights reserved.

Yarn, lovely yarn

new yarn for my seaweed shawl
Originally uploaded by allisongryski
I realised the other day that my seaweed shawl was going to need more yarn than I had, so today I rectified that. I ordered some of the discontinued stuff that inspired the whole project from an online yarn shop in the UK. And then I went yarn shopping with a friend and bought some gorgeous new yarn.


Teal with sparkles
Originally uploaded by allisongryski
It was well-timed as I was struggling with some computer issues this morning and was feeling very grumpy. But I didn't think about my computer once after I had walked into the yarn store. All thoughts of anything but my shawl vanished magically. I just looked at colours, petted pretty textures, and had a great deal of fun picking out some more yarn. (Best yet, when I got home, the Computer Fairy -- aka my sweetie -- had fixed everything).


Camelspin
Originally uploaded by allisongryski
I wanted another ball of the variegated alpaca that I already had, but I bought 3 new yarns as well, all with some xmas present money. The most luxurious and gorgeous is the silk-camel. It was shockingly pricey, but that's just what xmas money is for, right? So now I'm all set to knit up a storm.


Peruvia
Originally uploaded by allisongryski

Finished a project!

cozy and complete
Originally uploaded by allisongryski
I have so many things to post about but not enough time to write them up! First up, the most recent and fun... after 3 years of sporadic work, I've finally finished my first crochet project. It's an afghan. I think I should have picked something less ambitious as by the end, it would take me through watching an entire movie to do just one round. Being overly ambitious seems to characterize many of my first projects (learning to quilt with a huge picnic quilt, just say, for example...).


finished afghan folded in quarters
Originally uploaded by allisongryski
And equivalently exciting, since I was keeping to my Only Two Yarn Projects at a Time rule*, I finally get to start knitting my Seaweed shawl. So named because that's what I thought of when I saw the pretty yarn that inspired the project:


"Olive waters"
Originally uploaded by allisongryski
Less than 10 rows in and I've realised that I probably need more yarn to make it as wide as I'd like. Of course, some of the yarn I bought several years ago is now discontinued. Internet to the rescue I hope!


yarn for my seaweed shawl
Originally uploaded by allisongryski
The variety of yarn is so much fun to work with. Lots of soft fibres, and pretty colours... it's really worth buying the loveliest materials you can afford. If you're on ravelry, you can see more details of my projects there.


seaweed shawl on the needles
Originally uploaded by allisongryski
* The Only Two Yarn Projects at a Time rule ensures that I actually finish things instead of just hop on to the latest thing I'm excited about. Being inspired is great, but not if it means you never finish anything. And my excitement and inspiration only seems to have grown in the time waiting to get to work on my Seaweed shawl.