Playing with colour

Reading Mary's blog recently, made me think about playing with colour.
She asked how to use the colours from a garden picture in a scarf.

So, this morning I took a few pictures of the front garden. I also needed to find out the number of the lamp post as the light wasn't working last night, so that I could report it.

I selected part of the picture and played with it in Adobe Photoshop.


This is just the cropped image, showing up some of the wonderfiul colour of the cotinus. I really should have taken the photograph about a week ago, once the colour had changed, but before we had a lot of wind, and the leaves started dropping.













From here I went on to play with different filters, starting with crosshatch.
This gives an exaggerated idea of the colour involved.
From this image it is possible to step back a bit, and have an idea of the colours involved.
I might knit from these colours as they are, but would also look at the negative image to find complelmentary colours.








Taking it one step further, I then filtered the crosshatched image with polar coordinates, coming up with this.
Although these are rather dark colours, the image helps to get an idea of the spread of each colour in the image.














The next step is to invert one of these images in order to find complementary colours.
This can equally well be done with any of the other images.

I then take one or more of the complementary colurs, and introduce it in small amounts.
This may be about 1/6th or less of the whole.
See an earlier post of mine about the scarf I knitted for Iris.

Succumbing to the latest meme

1.Flip to page 18, paragraph 4 in the book closest to you right now, what does it say?

“Elkepzelheto, hogy a kulonbozo torzsek kulonbozo szinu nemezszonyeget hasnaltak az avatashof” (LAUFER, 1930). A mongolok a feher nemezt reszesitettek …
(This took a bit of doing, and I can’t manage the accents. It is bad enough having to type three letters at a time. So many of the books on the nearest shelf do not have text on p. 18, rather illustrations. This comes from the first one that had enough text to run to 4 paragraphs. Unfortunately it is in Hungarian, so may not make much sense to anyone, myself included.
The book is about traditional feltmaking in Hungary and other countries. I bought it for the illustrations! This page seems to be about the history of Mongolian feltmaking. I can see a reference to Dzsingisz Kan [Genghis Khan] in the previous papragraph.)

2. If you stretch out your left arm - as far as possible, what are you touching?

A small wardrobe

3. What's the last program you watched on tv?

A snatch of “Sounds of the Seventies” on BBC4

4. Without looking, guess what time it is.

23.20 (actually 23.28)

5. Except the computer, what can you hear right now?

My tinnitus, reasonably drowned out by Queen, “We are the champions” playing on Radio 2.

6. When was the last time you were outside and what did you do?

Walked down the garden (in a light drizzle) to fetch the washing in, after getting back from Nottingham early this afternoon.

7. What are you wearing?

Black t-shirt, grey cardigan, jeans and socks I knitted in dk grey, pale blue and white.

8. What did you dream last night.

Something about a woman called Kathleen, with short ginger hair.
I can’t remember the context, and don’t know anyone like that.

9. When was the last time you laughed?

Haven’t a clue. I do it fairly often.

10. What's on the walls, in the room you're in right now?

Shelves full of books.

11. Have you seen anything bizarre lately?

Yes, but can I remember it when asked. I see so many bizarre things.

12. What do you think about this meme?

It's just a bit of fun

13. What's the last film you saw?

“A town like Alice” (1956) recorded from the TV

14. If you became a multimillionaire, what would you do with the money?

Buy property so that the Art Room could expand and have workshops and a gallery.
Endow the Knitting and Crochet Guild, CamTAD and a few other charities with money for premises.
Make sure that my family and friends weren’t lacking for necessities …

15. Tell us something about yourself that most people don't know.

In the ‘70s I danced on stage in Ontario, Canada, with an Estonian folk dance group.
Surprisingly, they had more male dancers than female.
I have no Estonian blood that I know of, just many Estonian friends.

16. If you could change ONE THING in this world, without regarding politics or bad guilt - what would it be?

Stop the climate change that is jeopardising people’s livelihoods.

17. Do you like dancing?

Love it, but rarely do it now! I never seem to have the time.

18. George Bush?

So what, you expect me to comment on him?

19. What do you want your children's names to be, girl/boy?

Too late, but possibly Isabel and Paul.

20. Would you ever consider living abroad?

I have done (Switzerland - 1 year, Canada - 5 years and the Netherlands - 3 months), and would jump at it again. But please make it Korea next time.

21. What do you want God to tell you, when you come to heaven?

Are you sure that’s where I’m heading?

22. Who should do this meme?

Anyone else that hasn’t had a go yet.

NEC update

I was over at the NEC for the show yesterday.
We had a decent sized stand, but the smokers were doing me in.
We were opposite a bar area, and near an emergency exit that was constantly opened, letting in cool air which was welcome, but not always fresh.

I also mislaid my glasses, and was knitting "blind" for most of the day.
When I went for some lunch about twoish, they had turned up at the organiser's office.

I didn't teach anyone how to knit, but did talk a lot about knitting with wire.
Spellbound Beads on the next aisle had suitable wire, so some people trooped off and bought some. I'm waiting to see what comes of it.

Oh dear ...

It really is hard to find the time to blog.
Typically, I think of all the things I want to say when I am cycling to the Art Room, or gardening or am busy with something else.

If only I could just open up part of my brain to you all, then I'd never have to sit here pecking away at the keyboard trying to keep up with myself.

In the previous post I put in some images of the socks I have been knitting recently.
I also knitted socks and fingerless mittens for the other Mary in this colourway:

Now I am almost finished with socks for myself in this colourway:

I do intend to knit fingerless mittens for myself too. It is getting cold here, so I must get them done soon.

The perceptive amongst you will have noticed the common feature, Regia "Ontario" sock yarn.

For Mary's socks I dyed some sock yarn in her favourite oranges. For mine I went for dyeing purples. Taken one row at a time with the Ontario yarn, I get an exciting colour.

I do love devising these mixes. They don't always look quite the way you expect. The combined colour usually has more of a bounce than either colour on their own.

Off now to devise more colour mixes!

In other words, it is nearly bedtime, and that is when I get massive fits of the "what-ifs", frequently to do with knitting. Being a serial sampler is such fun!