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When I receive a
commission to design a collection, I usually am given a chart of colours
that are available to me for that season. I send for a ball of each colour
I fancy and spread them out before me, letting my mind roam across the
colours, seeing if any general idea is spurred by this particular range. I
then go to my vast collection of source books, books on textiles of all
sorts, from carpets to dress prints, but even more useful books on decorated
surfaces like tile walls, mosaics, pottery, beaded bags or fans. All might
reveal an idea that seems exciting for these colours. I then take some
graph paper and draw out the motif that caught my eye. As you know, each
tick on graph paper will become a stitch of knitting. If I plan to shade a
flower shape or other form in my design, I will merely outline that shape
on the paper and shade as I come to it while knitting. I don’t bother to
draw out all the colour changes. The same with streaky atmospheric
backgrounds, no need to make rows of ticks for all the changes of tone.
Just be careful that whatever colours you pick for this multi-toned
ground really do contrast enough with the foreground motif so that it
reads clearly. You don’t want a mush of tone with motif indistinct from
the background, unless you want an old, faded antique look which might be
charming.
My
favourite knitting when I am in a hurry or travelling is to memorise a
simple geometric like tumbling blocks, steps or Persian poppy, make a
selection of colours and just knit away. This way I can just concentrate
on the colour harmonies and not have the inconvenience of making sense of
a graph.
Following a graph is perfectly easy once you get used to it. I cover
everything above the line of knitting I am doing at that moment; you knit
from right to left on your knit row and read from left to right when
returning on the purl row. A secret to making your own graphs is to pick
motifs or subjects that are bold simple shapes. Single flowers rather
than multi-petalled double ones, objects that have a clear, readable
silhouette. Once you have that outline, you can imbue the shape with as
much colour as you like, a contrast centre to a poppy or just a warm blush
of tone in hombre shading.
Many of my flowers and fruits, you will find, are done in a simple 2 colour
a row format, as this is easiest, but always feel free to add extra colours
to a row for a richer effect. I think you will find that these simple 2
colour a row images are quite effective, and you can easily get bogged down
trying to follow a graph with too many colour changes in the row,
especially if there are only a few stitches of each colour close together.
 When there is only one motif, you can repeat it over a garment by
staggering it or placing the next row of motifs directly above the first
set. This makes a formal, solid feel - staggered by staring the next
row of motifs half-way into a motif, so that this row sits between each of the
first rows of motifs, having a more organic, natural flow).
If you have never tried fairisle or 2 colour a row knitting, you might
want to play with colour in simple, 1 colour at a time stripes. Why not
take all the stripes of that nature in the book and do a delicious,
changing - stripe jumper in a group of colours (light or dark) that work
together. As long as you have enough of each stripe (say 40 or 50 rows)
you could do the back, front and each sleeve in a completely different set
of stripes – this could result in a very young and spirited jumper. A good
first fairisle project would be a sampler scarf - take at least 3 of the
border ideas and knit those in the first dozen or so rows of the scarf.
Next take a sequence of all over geometrics like tumbling blocks, followed
by stars, followed by Persian poppy, and then mirror the image back through
this sequence, ending with 3 or more different borders.
A cushion is another excellent trial item - knit a square of one big
flower or several smaller ones, then make a mitred border on all four
sides using the dot border, paisley stripe or small flower border.
A child’s sweater is a perfect little project that can be made very
personal and quite magical by using several borders and motifs from each
of the chapters. I make little garments all in one piece. You can start
and finish one or two on a holiday, packing a supply bag of a colourful
bouquet of coloured yarns of similar gauge, your pattern source book and
your imagination – I do some of my most inspired work away from the studio
in this way. It’s a wonderful antidote to long delays in travel these
days.
A simple hat can be made by knitting a band of fairisle that fits round a
head, then crochet round to complete a top, another row or two on the
bottom to firm up the shape – quick and effective.
When you have put your toe in the water of colour knitting you will either
be running smartly back to your cables in one colour or be excited to try
large projects.
I’ve long been an admirer of a type of paisley design that is laid out in
stripes of different colours with small motifs running through them. The
simple row-upon-row elegance of these coloured sections could be achieved
by knitting similar sized borders one after another right up a shawl or
long waistcoat or done vertically on a wide coat. This could be easily
knitted by starting at the cuff and knitting across the garment so
knitting is sideways on.
You could take the layout of stripe-patch design and do each patch as a
flower print from the book. For colouring, you could choose many shades of
ochre or blues or whatever colour mood you wanted the end product to reflect.
Another Eastern way of using pattern is to do a carpet with very detailed
decorative borders of flowers or animals and do the body of the piece in
some some
form of stripe. Wouldn’t that be quite smart for a jacket or coat: A lush
border large and small flowers or animals with a bold stripe in any of the
ones on offer here. You could do a series of cushion- sized swatches to
try out different motif combos and colourways.
Choosing Colour Palettes
One of the ways I’ve played with pattern and colour is by knitting as many
swatches of various motifs in at least 3 or 4 colour combinations (as
designers, we call these colourways). Each one could be just one repeat of
the motif or several if small scale. These I keep in boxes until help
arrives, (usually in the form of students doing work experience), when I
crochet around each one and sew them into a “sampler” blanket. At the very
least you could do patchwork cushions if you hate the idea of wasting time
making colour trials. The main thing is to try out colours, the wilder the
better. None of us designers really know what works until we see it, so
sampling becomes wonderfully exciting as you stumble on really
unpredictable and interesting colourings. If you have a hard time starting
on this exciting colour play, tear a page from a magazine or purchase a
post card of a painting that contains combinations of colour that make
your pulse work faster. Then choose colours in the painting and try to use
them in the same ratio as they are in that artwork. For instance, if it’s
a mainly blue painting with just a shot of orange in one small object,
choose a lot of shades of blue and use only a small accent of orange in
your knit.
 Many yarn shops help these days by displaying their various yarns in
colour groupings. You can see at a glance how magenta and orange make red
really dance, but often a bit of emerald or turquoise really spike up that
red. Multi shades of similar colours are definitely a rich way to proceed,
but do look for kick colours as all one colour family, even with 20 or 30
tones, can look strangely dull after all your work. Contrast is a definite
tricky area - too much, and work can be cheap and course looking; not
enough, and motifs dissolve into minestrone soup! So do put the effort into
those colour trial swatches. I was once shown a design that looked like a
jazzy Harris Tweed, “it’s a teapot,” said the proud creator, but for the life
of me I couldn’t distinguish what all her efforts had rendered.
For colour combos that work, walk through any museum containing
decorative arts, for that matter, shops that contain antiques or even
fashion with prints can educate your eye as to what works and is alive and
unusual. Even builder’s yards with stacked bricks or wood can give you
wonderful tonal ideas. As you will see here in the Circle chapter, I
designed the Floating Circles from a black tray of eye shadow I saw in a TV
makeup studio. Stone walls and beehives are thrilling arrangements of tone
though quite neutral.
Scale has a lot to do with the success or not of various patterns.
Sometimes large areas of dullish colour become quite strong because of the
mass, whereas a small dab of colour has to be pretty intense to read from
a little fragment of a motif.
When using plied yarns (2 or more threads together in each stitch) you
can unify a palette of colours by running a tone along with each of them.
For bright pastels you might run a silvery grey along with the colours to
create a pearly effect, or black along with deep jewel tones to deepen and
slightly merge them. I rarely use hard, clean white in my designs, but in
case you feel like that’s sounding like a rule, there are times when a
really fresh, harsh white is just what’s needed. You will notice I often
suggest a motif would be good in black and white because it has such a
good silhouette. You should have good fun seeing how utterly changed a
design that was done in pastels say, can be when done in strong colours
against black.
Yellow can be very tricky in design, used in its primary state, it is
often far too strong making the eye jump to whatever corner of a colour
scheme it lurks. However, I’ve done whole outfits in shades of yellow and
a bit of primary yellow really lifts the whole effect.
Textures
These days, yarn shops are spilling over with textured yarns , manmade or
natural-containing elements of feathers, ribbons, lurex, mohair, silk,
slubs and even sequins. Since I usually have my eye more in the past, I
find all the glitz and glitter a little tinselly. I had a whole period of
using lurex but I tried to make it feel like old Byzantine churches and
eccliastical robes. Mohair used judiciously with chenille can give great
depth and quality to reds or a rich deep brown
pallet. Silk, mercerised cotton and linen can give highlights to a pale
palet.
Running several different colours of yarns together to create marbles can
be an exciting way to create a bulky blanket or large-scale coat. If one
of these is mohair it lightens the weight of it all.
I’ve not tried much embroidery on knitting but I’ve seen it done
wonderfully. Cross-stitch or chain stitch or running stitches for big
flower bursts, or dainty daisy-like repeats round a waistcoat or child’s
jacket could be an attractive change of texture.
I haven’t yet mastered textural stitches like cables and bobble stitches,
as plain old stocking stitch has been enough for me, allowing me to
concentrate on colour. Reverse stocking stitch is my one departure as you
can see on page . This is a very effective way to add texture to a plain
stripe. Please do experiment, as I’m sure you will, with all sorts of
textural stitches on these motifs or in the backgrounds. I’m sure it will
add another exciting note.
Mixing Patterns
Having all these various motifs under one cover should encourage some
creative and exciting mixtures. Flowers and stars, animals and fruits, and
borders with everything could be rich. As I’ve stated, adding all the
borders together, even rows of animals or flowers as borders, sometimes
adding a contrast stripe behind a motif, makes it more border-like.
Certainly in the same garment you can mix patterns, think of all the
trendy t-shirts with odd sleeves, front and back.
I’ve often paired a strongly patterned waistcoat front with a striped
(echoing the colours) back. During an early lecture on my work, I showed a
slide of one of my patterned waistcoats with a striped back and a woman
yelled from the audience “you could have got the back and front to match
if you had really tried!” And there I was thinking I had achieved a really
biblical look!
On my heavily patterned garments I often do stripes through the ribbing at
the bottom and on sleeves and neck to keep the colour story flowing, not
abruptly ending with a big, solid colour rib. As a general rule I use
medium to darker tones of the colours in the garment in my ribbing. On a
darkish garment a light, bright colour in the rib would grab too much
attention.
-Kaffe Fassett
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