Castonitis and Color Training System

Yarn

Sep 13

Written By

I suspect I caught the castonitis (knitting dictionary: the desire to cast on too many projects) from all the beautiful yarn and knitwear photography on Instagram and Ravelry. Though I try to stay focused on my current projects during the week, Saturdays and Sundays are for experimenting, taking out the treasures from my stash and dreaming what they might become one day.As I mentioned before the color combination is my weak side. I feel very comfortable with solid colors that immediately sparkle the dreams about the shape and texture they can be turned into. But if I want to experiment with color, I always feel hesitant and out of my comfort zone.I started to get more into color with Deep End and Exploration Station shawls. Deep End was the most challenging for me colorwise. I loved the look of colorful yarn skeins together, but the order in which to put the colors took me so long to figure out. I knit swatches, put the skeins together in different combinations and still wasn't sure what would work best. I think the preparation stage took me more time than actually knitting the shawl! And even when I was knitting and later blocking it, I still felt that I made some "fatal" mistake that sets the whole color composition off. It wasn't until I put the shawl on, took the FO pictures of it, stepped back and looked at it with fresh eyes that I fell in love with it and felt that it was just right for my Mom! Seems like I am making too much fuss about it and I should take it less seriously :) But I can't help it, each project is so dear and important to me!So now I have my own "color training system". My experience with color knitting tells me - after I choose the colors that I think I really like together, I put the skeins to the side and forget about them for a couple of days. Then come back and look at the color palette with fresh eyes and mind, if I still like it - go for it; if something is bugging me - do the process all over again. And if it doesn't seem right after a couple of weeks, maybe it's worth trying something new.I've been "testing" one color combination for 2-3 months now. I know it sounds crazy. Everything started with this red and yellow together. I guess I was inspired by the color palette I chose for Exploration Station.Then I felt like I want to soften the bright colors with the contrasting neutral shade. So the pearl grey came into play.I've been looking at this combination for long enough now to say - yes, I love it! It will work for me! So now the fun part - what to cast on! As usual I start with tons of swatches of different stitch combinations! I have no idea what will come out of it! Should I pick up my needles or my crochet hook?The yarn is from Knit Picks Gloss line in fingering weight. I am working right now with the Gloss in DK weight and absolutely love it! Merino wool and silk create such a soft beautiful fabric!