This blog entry is addressed to everyone who will be taking my Hands On Color class at Harrisville Designs next week. I'm really stoked about this year. If you have questions or need clarifications, please feel free to contact me.
Class this year is going to be amazing. Those of you who have taken my class before will be able to expand on your skills and those of you who are new will get a more cohesive introduction to color.
This year we're going to concentrate on building our individual color palettes and we'll concentrate a bit more on color theory and color mixing. The first day of class we'll work in small samples that we can pin on the cork board and rearrange into compositions. With the use of a camera, you can record your compositions and the compositions you make by combining your colors with those of your classmates. That way you can keep rearranging pieces and work up a body of samples. We'll have a computer on which to view all these photos. Think in small pieces that can be sewn or felted into a bag or scarf. This exercise is designed to kick-start your understanding of color relationships on an intuitive level. I'll even show you how to make a small square of felt in your hands, no other tools needed. You can make your samples by knitting your handspun, wrapping your handspun on a card, felting your fiber before spinning it, crocheting, or any other technique you chose to work with small amounts of fiber and yarn. By the end of day one you'll be ready to expand your understanding at the dye table. Depending on your design experience you may dye with a reasonably small piece in mind, such as my Justify Wrap on Knitty.com. If you haven't read my two color spinning articles on Knittyspin, you should check them out:
We'll do a couple color mixing exercises at the beginning of dye day on Tuesday. Everyone will get 6 oz of BFL top to dye which is included in their materials fee, but everyone will want more...and more. I'm bringing a 22 lb bump of undyed BFL which I'll offer at $1.75 per oz so there will be plenty to go around. You may want to bring your own fiber and yarn from home. Light colors of wool are beautiful overdyed, so feel free to bring anything you want.
We're going to be dyeing with a combination of microwave and solar power. No more steaming pots!!!! (I can hear the sound of cheering from here.) If anyone has a craft use microwave, one that will not be used for food after class is over, and can bring it along, great. The more we have, the smaller the dye teams can be. Everyone will have their own black garbage bag as a solar oven. It doesn't have to be sunny for this to work. You might want to bring an old towel or two in case we have cloudy weather to help keep the heat in the bag. I've had amazing results with this technique.
2 comments:
Lynne, you might want to have another look at the links because they didn't work for me.
I'd forgotten the colour combining article, you've given me a great idea and as soon as I can get at my wheel (kids, puppies, summer) I'll be trawling through the fibre boxes. Thanks for that.
Thanks, Caroline! I fixed the links. Things were going screwy when I first posted them.
Have fun with your fiber!
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