Working on Earrings

The last two days have been really beautiful over here. The sun is shining, the birds are singing and it feels like spring is just around the corner. Of course the weather forecast is telling me to get real and put those sunglasses away...

Anyway, now that the giveaway is finished and the earrings are on their way to Petronella, I can go back to my little den and work on more crochet jewellery and also on the promised blog re-design - in short work in progress as always.

I thought that while I'm working, I can show you a few cute pictures I took yesterday, while working on the earrings. I'm really loving the colors!

Christmas sneak a peak

Ok, so it is finally December and so it's time for my first truly Christmas post. The only problem is that for that I cannot blog about the projects I worked on for the last three weeks! Why? Real Santa doesn't give and tell...at least not in advance.

And so I suffered in silence with so many lovely items in front of me. And I so wanted to share it with you.

And finally today I snapped. Here is a sneak peak into two beautiful projects. You cannot see the entire item but at least you can enjoy the lovely crisp blues. I am also particularly proud of the texture of both items. The yarn feels soft under your fingers, but the way it is knotted provides for a very interesting, 3D effect.

Working on the projects, I have also discovered an interesting thing about my creativity. Namely, I am much more inspired and work faster when the item, I am making, is for a person I know. Not only my creative juices flow in abundance but I am also more motivated to work. Very rewarding.

Maybe this is the trick for the future. Always work with a person in mind.

Colors matter

Every crafter has their own way of starting new projects. I begin by choosing colors. Sometimes even before I have a pattern or design I see a beautiful shade of yarn or a pretty pastel pencil and I simply have to use it. It of course leads to stashes of pretty yarn laying around my apartment and waiting for a divine inspiration to visit me. One way or another, composing colors is a major part of preparing projects.

Color Theory in a Nutshell
According to color theory there are 3 primary colors that cannot be created by mixture of other colors: red, blue and yellow.

Secondary and tertiary colors are created by mixing the three colors above in different amounts. For instance green is a mixture of yellow and blue and orange happens when we spill some yellow ink over red.

When choosing colors for a project you have 3 options: one color, harmonic composition or contrasting colors. Here are some ideas of how to do this and what to pay attention to.

1.Single color projects – consider who the project is for (a baby, a guy, a pink-loving friend) and where will it be placed (in a dark room, outside in a green garden or on a white wall)

2.Harmonic composition – to achieve harmony means to create something visually pleasant. To choose harmonious colors you can use analogous colors – that are next to each other on the 12 parts wheel of colors (ex: light blue, green and light green). There are usually 3 of them and one of them predominates. You can also get inspiration from nature. If human eye is used to it because of something that already exist, it will be pleasant (ex: brown and green)

3.Contrasting colors – to pick contrasting colors or complementary colors choose opposing colors on the wheel (ex: red and green, yellow and blue).

Having said that, I like to experiment with colors (and supplies) and see what comes up. The point with crafting after all is that you enjoy what you do!