Have you ever wanted to dive into a pile of yarn and roll around in it? Well, short of rolling around, that's what we got to do at Brandon Mably's Color Knitting Workshop at Yarns 2 Ewe yesterday. I felt like a kid in an art class where we just got to play. Remember how free we were as kids and how excited we got with the giganto 64 color crayon box? We just grabbed colors based on how we felt, not based on trendy color combinations. Brandon Mably is the Studio Manager at Kaffe Fassett's Studio. He has an intuitive sense of color and a great sense of humor. In his words, he would rather dive naked into cold porridge than knit a solid color sweater.
The class was a lot of fun. First, Brandon discussed his color process. He does not use a color wheel. Many colors that exist in nature, paintings...etc do not follow the color wheel. Instead, he taught us to see color more in terms of values and tones. He also stressed how certain "ugly" colors come alive with the right color next to it. Color should induce a feeling. He slowly and surely deprogrammed us not to overthink our color choices.
Having never done colorwork before, I was initially focused on the technique of the thing. All of the colors, ends were quite fiddly BUT, I was there to learn something about color, so my tension and color changes were a little wonky. He also showed us how to weave the ends in as we knit which was a great trick. Who wants to use a darning needle to sew in all of the ends? With all of the colors we were using, it would have been a nightmare! Brandon was great about teaching and making sure to give everyone individual help. He even brought some things that he has been knitting on such as the stole above that was knit in a lovely, soft bamboo yarn.
The best part of the entire workshop was at the end when we all put up our swatches on the wall like children's drawings on parent night. Then Brandon went to each one and extolled the virtues of our color choices and how blah color choices were saved with the addition of other colors. We all beamed as he talked about OUR swatch. Would I take the class again? You betcha!
Unfortunately, the drive in Houston and sitting in cold hard chairs was not too kind on my back. I stopped by Walgreens on the way home and bought a strap on heat pad, Icy Hot and some stick-on heat pads. I plan to sit around all day. I'm not much good for anthing else! But it was well worth it!
