Friday’s post on green yarn got me thinking about my struggles with knitting things I’ll actually wear. When I first started knitting, I’d pick any old project and choose any old yarn that struck my fancy. I’ve been working slowly to get better at picking my projects and yarn deliberately so I’m building a wardrobe and collection of accessories that I’ll actually use and wear, but it has taken some time to rethink my approach to picking projects.
The only problem? I didn’t wear those colors. I still don’t wear those colors very often. I wear red, orange and yellow; above are my three most-worn sweaters. It’s become a running joke in my office that if we’re choosing colors for something, like stickers to flag pictures we like when assemble mood boards, I automatically get handed the orange stickers without being asked. I like loud flashy colors, and I wear loud flashy colors. You would think that would make yarn shopping easy for me, that I would automatically be drawn to those colors in yarn form, but that’s usually not the case. If I were to pick a sweater, I would choose the bright flashy shade. But as a ball of yarn? The deeper jewel tones would catch my eye first.
That makes impulse shopping difficult, and I’ve had to train myself to pick colors that go with my wardrobe. Frequently that means that I choose the color I’m looking for before I ever set foot into the yarn store. Hiding in my wardrobe, I already have a huge collection of colors that flatter me that I’m confident I’ll actually wear so it’s my best resource for choosing yarn colors. I try to look at my wardrobe and evaluate what colors I’d like to wear more or find complementary colors that are missing. With that information, I can go off to buy yarn, confident that I’m on the right track. I once brought a shoe into my local yarn store to find yarn that matched it to knit my cardigan that’s above, and I wear the one below all of the time because that shade of blue goes well with orange. It took me months to find the perfect mint green that I knew would go with some of my floral dresses, but this system works well for me. Figuring out what is missing from my wardrobe or simply what would complement the colors already in it has been key in building a collection of knits that I actually wear.
Do you wear your knits as often as you would like? How do you pick out colors to use? Are you attracted to the same yarn colors as clothing colors?
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