stereotypical single woman

I think one of the reasons I took up fiber arts in the first place is because I am viscerally attracted to color and working with textiles allows me to spend many happy hours manipulating it. There’s just some basic need in me that wants to work tactically with it - and it can make me giddy. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a yarn or a fabric, the hues always vary according to my mood, but there’s something immensely satisfying about putting together a finished product that just wows you - you can’t really describe why it grabs you, it just does. Somehow you merge the right colors with the right fabric/fiber in the right form and it’s just magic.

Okay, I know it’s not really magic. I’ve studied dyeing and color theory and I know that it’s all very complicated - especially when you start factoring in personal and emotional responses to colors. I know that you can spend hours analyzing a picture and the ratios of color, the tints and shades of hues, the color combinations, etc… But I can be pretty lazy sometimes, so I like to just go with gut reaction when it comes to color. If a certain yarn or fabric grabs my attention I’m much more likely to experiment and put it next to other fabrics until I find something I like and think is pretty than I am to sit down and plan out exactly how I’m going to use it according to Goethe’s Color Theory. A couple of weeks ago I was very excited to find the Flickr photo group Catchy Colors - from now on if I’m dyeing something and looking for inspiration I’m going to use it as a reference. I just figured I’d share my discovery in case anyone else liked color as much as I do.