ONE BLANKET FOR EACH MONTH….

I have been thinking in the past few weeks what I should make this year, and I have come up with a rather ambitious plan:

one blanket for each month of the year.

I know it might be far too much, and I won’t be able to keep it up, but I still thought I could try!

ALSO, there is another reason:

If you remember I have been thinking about making some posts about colors principles, but it can be quite a dry subject if handled on a theorist base so I figured it might be better showing the ‘rules’ of color’s harmony applied to an actual piece of work,  hence, the blankets.

It is an experiment, so please bear with me, and if it becomes too verbose or boring we scrap it, and we think of something else!

We  start with JANUARY’S BLANKET:

For the  January’s blanket,  I picked a very simple well-known pattern, a starburst square, and mine is Jane Brocket’s version, if you don’t have her book, please do not fret as there are lots of free very similar patterns available on the internet.

I am using  2 different type of  DK yarn :

Stylecraft’s SPECIAL and Stylecraft’s BATIK

I selected 22 colours…I know a lot, but  I took vantage of the fact that Batik comes on 50 grams balls so I can add more colours and still have the same average weight for the blanket.

 

I mixed the 2 yarns because this blanket is about HARMONY . Harmony , in my opinion, is  a balance between contrasting colours.

The easiest way to achieve harmony , is with desaturation of the colours.

what that means?

we need to make a step back and see what defines a colour. three parameters defines a colour:

  • hue
  • saturation
  • value

hue  is what we call any colour from the visible  light spectrum . basically the rainbow.

Saturation is how intense the color is. High saturation is rainbow bright, while low saturation is close to greytones.

value is how bright the color is. Full saturation, full brightness is a rainbow colour. No saturation, full value is white. No value is black.

If you use paint you can obtain that in 2 ways : mixing a prime colour (red,yellow,blue)  with white or with a black. That is easily done with paint, but with yarns  it is a bit more complex as you can imagine especially if we use solid colours. That is why the BATIK yarn come really handy because  it  resembles very much to paint by not been a solid colour as each hue  is mottled with white.

does make sense? maybe not ,at this stage , but you will see it applied as the blanket comes along.

So let see these colours in more details…

you will notice that I haven’t use any prime colours but variations of them.

so we have blue’s hues plus or less saturated, Blue is well known for its ability to relax the mind,

then we have  a touch of ‘reddish/raspberry  hues.

I say reddish because I  am not using  a prime color,  the hues are more towards the orange which is  for physical comfort, food, warmth, and  the pink, which is a tint of red,  also affects us physically, but in a  soothing way, rather than stimulating, again plus or less saturated,

then some greens Green being in the center of the spectrum, it is the color of balance

and finally, some ‘neutrals’ those colors  ,plus their variations based on saturation, will help to create more interest in the blanket because they allow the other colors to ‘pop’ up.

I have made so far four rounds; now I have a FEW ends to sew in and then I am ready for the last round of half trebles! That will frame the square ready to be joined in…

more to come soon

Lucia xxx

 

 

12 comments

    1. Thank you Linda, I think a CAL could be great fun to do, I will have to look into and see the best way about it. thank you for the encouragement! .lucia xxx

  1. What a fabulous idea!
    Also love the idea of CAL … I’ve taken it upon myself to do several this year and two of them are blankets! It’s such great fun… go for it!

    1. hi Helen, thank you. I will find out how I can include a subscribe button so you will get sent an email when I add something to the blog, in the main time if you follow me on my facebook page or my Instagram I always put a note and a link to a new post entry

    1. thank you Tatiana, it is just finished, I will post a blog with some pictures in the next few days
      grazie Tatiana! l’ho finite giusto in tempo per la fine di gennaio. sto preparando la prossima entry per il blog con I dettagli e alter fotografie xx

    1. it is from a book that includes knitting and crochet. It is called the gentle art of knitting.
      I bought mine 2nd hand some time ago and I would recommend that, well most of my books are 2nd hand, I quite like the idea of recycling also, been craft’s books ,they are rarely in bad condition unless they are ex-library, the price, I just checked ,it is just over 5 pounds plus maybe the shipping. Have a look and see what you think. there are a few crochet projects and knitting obviously, plus some advices about colours too.
      lucia xxx
      https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/cka/Gentle-Art-Knitting-Jane-Brocket/1843405326/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485946620&sr=8-1&keywords=the+gentle+art+of+knitting

  2. I found that motif on Ravelry. It’s called “Starburst Motif” and was posted by “Amy”.
    Lucia, thank you for using Stylecraft Special DK. I purchased most of the colours to use in other projects, and now have lots of leftovers. I shall begin this afghan today.

    1. Great Judith, .I had a look at the pattern on raverly and it is virtually identical to the one I have used. I added an extra round of half trebles to stabilize the square and give a nice straight edge. I m very busy this week n also I have an hectic weekend ahead but next week I will write more details for the colours and the border too.
      this blanket it is a great stash-buster! because you can use plenty of colours! looking forward to see yours coming along .
      luciaxx

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