ColourRIOT Live! (Or, Speaking In Public With and Without My Sister)

The Kitchener-Waterloo Knitters’ Fair, hosted by my Knitters’ Guild, was a couple of weeks ago (September 14th). What a day it was! Read more about it — and then look for some exciting news at the bottom of this post!

Announcing: Hue and Value!

I’m thrilled to announce a brand new pattern, launching today. Introducing the Hue and Value shawl!

Fluffing Awesome

My friends in the Uptownknitmob are the most incredible, generous, loving people. Also, they are ninjas. Sneaky, brilliant, awesome ninjas.

ColourRIOT: Avoiding clown puke

It’s ColourRIOT time again!

For the next post in the ColourRIOT series, I invited my friend Mandy to write about how to cope with vibrant, variegated yarn. I tend to gravitate to semi-solid, tonal yarns, myself, at least when it comes to knitting — but I have a stash of more highly variegated yarns waiting for me to figure out what to do with them. Mandy, on the other hand, has a way with those multicoloured skeins, and the persistence and curiosity to keep trying new things until she finds a pattern that works with the yarn she loves.

Mandy is an erstwhile member of my local knitting group, the Uptownknitmob, although she moved back to her hometown of Winnipeg last year. She’s also a talented designer of shawls and other accessories — and (in case that wouldn’t keep her hands busy enough) she’s the mama of three little girls, two of whom are twins born just weeks after her return to Winnipeg. I’m delighted that she was able to steal enough time during naps to share this post with us!

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A Colourful Spin-Off?

I love how blogging and social media work sometimes.

I mean, it was the reaction to my guest-posts (one and two) on Ruth’s blog that got me thinking about writing more about colour.

It was my friend Sra’s comments about my post here that made me consider inviting guest-bloggers.

Gillian did her guest-post here and then followed it up with a great post on her own blog.

And now, Stephanie, one of Gillian’s sewcialist friends, has been blogging her reactions to Gillian’s posts about colour palettes, with her own colour palette and colour ideas. (Post one, post two.) What’s more, Stephanie’s mother is a professional colour consultant, so they’re turning Stephanie’s blog post into a whole series about finding and using your personal colour palette.

EDIT: Gillian just reminded me that another sewcialist, Shannon, has been working on her palette, too! How could I forget?

I love being caught up in this big chain of colour-loving!

ColourRIOT: Did she get it right? Or: Welcome to my closet!

My sister Gillian challenged me to write  a follow-up to her post about choosing colour palettes, to tell you all whether she was in the right ballpark with the palette she picked out for me. So, if you haven’t read her post already, do go back and have a peek, then come back here and we’ll see how she did! (Also, take a moment to check out her follow-up post on her own blog, about how she has put her colour palette into action.)

ColourRIOT Guest Post: Your Wardobe Colour Palette

For this ColourRIOT post, I get to welcome my very dear sister to my blog! Gillian has been a huge inspiration to me in my thinking about colour, ever since we were little – not that I ever really had the same tastes as her, but her love of vibrant colour has consistently pushed me beyond my own comfort zone of neutrals. She inspires me with her hand-sewn wardrobe – she’s only been sewing garments for a year or so, but she keeps challenging herself with new fabrics and new garment types (she’s just now starting to sew pants for herself). She’s very generous with her sewing, too, and my own wardrobe is expanding with custom-made garments, thanks to her!

Gillian is also a core part of a growing group of Sewcialists: “A sewcialist is a person who enjoys sewing and uses social media to engage with others who also enjoy sewing. Sewcialists are an online community. We sew, we love to talk about sewing on social media, we are sewcialists.” I love watching her engagement in that vibrant and expanding community!

ColourRIOT Guest Post: In Praise of Neon

For this ColourRIOT guest post, I am super happy to welcome one of my most colourful (awesome, creative, inspirational, and sassy!) friends, Erin, to the blog. Erin is the genius behind Anatomy of a Skirt, Robotaday, and Moarmitten. She’s one of the competitors in the Craft Corner Death Match competition, too. Knitters may remember her popular Yarn Pirate bag, which was featured in the now-defunct Knit.1 magazine, or her Caaaarbs! Mittens in the Winter 2012 issue of Knitty. In her other life, she is a living-history interpreter at Kitchener’s Joseph Schneider Haus, where she has to dress in drab colours… which may explain her love of colour outside of work!

ALSO: TODAY IS ERIN’S BIRTHDAY! (See that neon there, Erin? That’s totally for you.) She deserves many excellent birthday wishes, and lots of hot chocolate to be consumed while wearing fuzzy neon pyjamas.

ColourRIOT: Does Language Shape the Colours We See?

ColourRIOT

One aspect of colour that has always fascinated me is the question of how other people experience it, and whether your “blue” or “red” is the same as mine. That interest in how others experience the world around them, and how they behave as a result, is part of what led me to study anthropology when I was in university. Colour is actually a major subject of contention in anthropology, particularly in linguistics, and I thought it would be fun to explore that just a little bit as part of this colour series, though it has little to do with knitting.

ColourRIOT Guest Post: The Sandwich Theory of Colour Selection

ColourRIOT Guest Blog Series

I am super thrilled to welcome the lovely Kate Atherley, also known as WiseHilda, to my blog. Kate is the tech editing genius behind Knitty (she’s the Lead Technical Editor), the author of two very excellent knitting books, and one of the best knitting teachers I’ve ever had the pleasure of learning from. Also, she has a sweet rescue hound, which earns her bonus points in my book!