Colour Choices, and New Designs
Choosing which colours to work with is always one of my favourite parts of my job.
I love colour. I don’t have a favourite, and my tastes change now and then. Really, I enjoy variety, so choosing colours can be hard, because I can’t have them all! This year I hope you love the new colour-ways I have chosen as much as I do, and I hope to explain a bit about them here.
New Birch Scarf, in colours inspired by my local landscape, paired with Mist fingerless mitts. The scarf includes a discontinued colour.
I started this year feeling a bit swamped by the amount of yarn I had in the studio, and so my aim was to just use what I have. A joy of making and my love of colour has meant I’ve only partially succeeded though, and I have chosen a few new colours to compliment the ones I already had…
Last year the spinners I buy my yarn from discontinued a lot of the colours I use, including a lot of the colours that have felt like part of the Collingwood-Norris identity. (If you’d like to find out more about the spinners and their process, click here). After my initial panic about it, I decided this was something to just embrace, and to not worry too much about it and view it as a creative opportunity.
So this season, most of my new scarves include some of those discontinued shades, as I want to use what I have, while also creating some new combinations. The unknown part is that I have more of some discontinued colours than others, and they are all used in different quantities, so I don’t quite know how many I can make of any design. It’s quite exciting really!
Erraid Hat, a discontinued colour, and one I’ll be very sad to see go. Worn with Elder scarf and fingerless mitts, which include the same coral pink.
Elder scarf and fingerless mitts. These could be paired with Berneray or Gorse beanies which would match the other colours in the scarf.
Colour Inspiration
These photos have all been taken on or beside the Eildon hills, which are a local landmark here in the Scottish Borders. I often take my dog Leni for walks on them, and always take lots of photos whenever I go. I love watching the hillside change colour over the year, I love seeing leaves and flowers appear in Spring, to see the heather flowering in late Summer, and to watch the bracken and other leaves turn in Autumn. More and more of the colour choices I make are influenced by the colours I find in my local landscape, and the joy I get from seeing nature change on these every day walks.
Rowan scarf and fingerless mitts, with Spey hat. One of my personal favourite colour combinations at the moment, probably because they’re inspired by colours of both Autumn and Spring
Spey Scarf, which includes a discontinued shade, with Rowan fingerless mitts
Rowan fingerless mitts, captured with bracken on the turn by Rose and Julien Ltd.
A view from the Eildons at sunset. This is my new Larch blanket scarf and Pine fingerless mitts, paired with a Carron hat. Thankfully these colours are not discontinued, and I really love this deep yellow and green together. Inspired by all the gorse one these hills, and all the many other vibrant greens and yellows I find!
Larch blanket scarf- a generous size to wrap up in!
These colours are definitely inspired by late summer on the Eildons, which turn purple when the heather blooms! There are two discontinued colours in this Pine scarf, which is really an updated version on last years Eildon scarf. Paired with Pine fingerless mitts and Ness hat.
The Eildons have a loch at the bottom on one side, and a very small one at the top. The reflections are always beautiful there. This is my new Linden scarf, featuring two discontinued shades. This scarf uses what I have come to think of as “Collingwood-Norris” blue. That lovely aqua was discontinued a couple of years ago, but I bought some stock of it when I found out, and still have a little bit left. It’s beautiful with these pinks, blues and purple.
I have always enjoyed making pieces that you can mix and match. Personally, I don’t think you need to have exact matches for combinations to work together, and I often think that one corresponding colour is enough if you want one. As I tend to use colours in a range of combinations and patterns, you’ll be able to find pieces that work together with out looking ‘matchy-matchy’ if you want.
My beanie hats are a solid colour, so they can look quite different to colours that are blended together in my scarves. They will really compliment each other though, and it can be nice to have a solid colour paired with an item that’s more complex.
New Averon hat with Willow Scarf and Linden fingerless mitts. There’s are colours that tie them all together, even if they’re not exact matches for each other. Inspired by heather and harebells, this is another of my personal favourites this year. These shades are used in many of my new scarves this year, in different combinations!
Willow fingerless mitts with Annan scarf.
This year all my scarves, and the majority of the hats are handmade by me in the studio. As I’ve not been able to limit myself to just adding one or two new options (it’s that love of colour again!), it means that once they first few go, they will become made-to-order, or will have to wait until I have time to knit more. I’m constantly trying to find a way of working that work for me, so really this year I’m scaling back a bit to see how that goes!