July Meeting Recap: Speaking in Color with Helene Knott, a Special KAL, and TKGA

How to make your projects sing with color? Helene Knott told us in July's meeting. (Knitting and photo by Emily Devlin)

Our July meeting was once again packed with wonderful knitters and programming, including Helene Knott’s presentation “Speaking in Color.”

About TKGA (The Knitting Guild Association)
Members Hilary, Sue, and Lesli shared the benefits of being a part of TKGA, The Knitting Guild Association. It’s the only national non-profit dedicated specifically to knitting.
TKGA membership is only $25 a year, and gives you access to their Correspondence Courses  and Mini Courses; the certification programs like the Master Hand Knitter Certification and the Technical Editor Certification (which Hilary Forrest has completed), tons of technical information, their monthly newsletter, and Cast On magazine. The quarterly publication is currently in digital format, but members can request back issues that came in print.

There’s also a TKGA Ravelry group to get you started. The group was generous enough to donate a free membership, which was raffled off to member Emily Rogers!

Shannon Squire's Puddletown Shawl design made with Knitted Wit.

Collaborating with amazing women is pretty much our favorite thing to do EVER, so when the Puddletown Knitting Guild suggested that we create a KAL project for their group, we squealed out loud. Being able to create a fun and airy summertime shawl project pairing Knitted Wit’s newest Fairy Floss and Victory Sock, in the same magical-creature-inspired colorway, was a dream come true.
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Puddletown Shawl is a top-down triangular shawl with simple mesh lace, because that’s our summertime knit-sjam. It's designed to showcase the textural play between the lace-weight mohair and sock yarn. Big bonus: We are totally wearing ours to Yarn Prom!
                                                                                                       ​-Lorajean and Shannon

Puddletown Shawl KAL with Fiber Besties
Dressed in their most fabulous frocks, Shannon Squire (Shannon Squire Designs) and Lorajean Kelley (Knitted Wit) announced their knit-along and invited us all to Yarn Prom.

If you’re looking for a project, the Puddletown Shawl KAL is the perfect light and airy lace pattern for the mohair Fairy Floss, Knitted Wit’s newest base. If you didn’t get a chance to purchase the kit, check out Knitted Wit’s Etsy shop.

Wear your shawl or favorite summer knit to Yarn Prom, August 4th at their studio, 19959 East Burnside. Doors open at 5 p.m., with a DJ spinning at 7. Attendance is free. Bring your projects, pals, and party vibes.

July’s Program: The Basics of Color Theory with Helene Knott

Handcrafters, from knitters to scrapbookers, dyers to quilters, can make their projects sing with color. Quilter Helene Knott shared her expertise in color theory with us for our July program.
Trained as a painter, Helene has a deep appreciation for and understanding of the nuanced play of color in visual arts. And, as Helene states, you don’t need talent to experiment with color.
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Helene posed a simple yet interesting question to us--what is color? We rarely stop to think about it. As she states, color is energy. Cones in our eyes interpret wavelengths of red, blue, and green. Each of us has a different amount of cones, so everyone sees colors a little differently. Yet, there are still guidelines to help inspire your own designs.

Color Wheels
This is a tool knitters can use that shows the relationships between colors.

Color Harmonies from the Color Wheel
There are six standard color harmonies, and Helene shared with us a seventh of her own. From the simple or minimalist monotones and complementary harmonies, to the “Grateful Dead” harmony, and then to Helen’s “Bent Complementary” that has the artist choose a color and select a wheel wedge to the right or the left of the true complementary, there are many gorgeous ways to inspired your project.

How to Find the Value of a Color
Value is how light or dark the quality of a color is.
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Put color swatches on a grayscale with numbers assigned to each swatch. See where your swatch “disappears” into the gray. For example, try taking a black-and-white photo of colored yarns that you think contrast well, and the grayscale will show you whether there's a real contrast or just a difference in color.

Color Relativity
Josef Albers, artist and foundational educator in Modern Art, taught that color changes character by the company it keeps. That’s why some surprising results may occur when pairing yarns that are amazing on their own. Helene stated that we could get away with even using a different dye lot as long as it was partnered with another color that “tricks” the eye into perceiving sameness among different lots.

Proportion
If you’ve ever knitted a stranded or intarsia pattern, but failed to make your motif stand out, it may be the proportion of your contrast color. On the other hand, some fun can be had in playing with proportion, such as a fade effect with two colors that shift gradually in proportion.

Color Inspiration
If you’ve ever come across an amazing photograph on Pinterest or found a unique graphic that you want to translate into a colorwork project, there are many sites and apps that can help you extract the color swatches in order to create a strategy. We’ll be posting her full list of recommendations soon!

What colors do you think you’ll experiment with now?

Next Meeting
Be sure to come on August 9 for "Change the Gauge." Member Nele Redweik will tell us how we may use the yarn our heart desires and find the fit of our dreams.