If someone ever asks me to describe my taste, just thinking about how to answer gives me a headache.
I've often looked through home magazines and come across houses that are decorated in one flat colour. The same colour on the walls and floors. The same colour in furniture, textiles and accessories.....and the same in EVERY room in the house. The owners using words such as 'calming' and 'fluidity'.
I do envy them.
If only I had one colour that I loved. One palette that I could be happy to have my whole house in. Flippin' 'eck, that would save me so much mental fuzziness.
Having said that if only I had just one STYLE that I loved, i'd even be quite happy with that.
But, i've realised i'm a total mish mash girl.
I wake up each day loving a different style. It's not a good thing for an ordered head. Good job my noggin isn't an ordered one.
I love bright pops of colour.....I love soft pastels.....I love new and contemporary.....I love old and battered...I love light and airy....I love closed in and cluttered......arrrrgggghhhhhhh
I use a fair amount of bright colour in my creative makes, but generally in my house and day to day living, I tend to stick to pastels. I find it more calming in a hectic day.
Looking through my blog it's probably quite easy to see what shades I like to put together.
I've posted before about my loathing of lilac. Actually, it's a particular shade of lilac. That almost luminescent shade of lilac. I've said before, how it actually can make me feel 'ill'. No joke! The closest I can get are purple, heathery shades teamed with a dark green.
I also had a HUGE issue with orange......pumpkin orange to be precise.
I have always had a problem with Halloween, because it is associated with pumpkin overkill and the sight of them gave me headaches. It was never such an issue with me years ago. Here in the UK, Halloween was something that you recognised, maybe someone you knew was having a dress up party, but generally, that was it. It was all a bit, half hearted. We seemed to put more emphasis on Guy Fawkes and Bonfire Night a week later. Well, certainly, in my neck of the woods. It's really only in the last few years that Halloween has become a huge thing with trick or treating being pushed hard in the supermarkets and pumkins overflowing at the ends of the shopping aisles.
I realised that because of this, I never really introduced any yellow into my home. Simply because it was close to orange on the spectrum. I decided to make the change a couple of years ago and yellow started to come into my home. Warm, buttery yellows. I actually really liked it. It seemed to lift the rooms.
Then, something happened. I made a scarf with some golden, yellow, ochre yarn.
I adored it.
I bought this yarn last October too. I fell in love with it on sight. I didn't manage to get anything made to take advantage of it in the cold weather, but it's on the list this year.
And then, can you believe it.....I made the
Serendipity blanket and
added pumpkin orange in the mix! I still wasn't hung up on the colour on
its own, but the blanket simply didn't work without it. The depth of
the pumpking orangy colour seemed to balance the paler shades of the
yellows and pinks. I think this was a slight turning point for me.
I also decided, that what with all my shawl making, I needed a tan coloured one. I walked past my local store and saw a bulk of dark ochre yarn for sale which I knew would be the perfect shade for my shawl.
Remember this pic?........
I don't think I ever posted a pic of my finished shawl. It was using the same japanese pattern that I had made a few of previously.
I made it big, and I love it.
I seem to have become a bit obsessed with the shade since.
The next few crochet projects seem to have been heavily influenced by this colour obsession.
I had a few balls of the lovely tan/ochre yarn left over from the shawl and wanted to use it in a blanket somehow. I had been itching to make some sunburst granny squares for a while so it seemed a good match. On doing a little search for sunburst granny motif tutorials, I came across the very lovely and talented
Dottie Angel blanket that used the same shade of yarn and a sunburst motif. I had the other two shades staring at me in my stash so it was a no brainer to be (ahem) heavily influenced, as the colours worked so well.
I just tweaked my blanket a bit to make it a little different.
Very simple.......sunburst motifs and granny cluster edging. As much as I love all the new spangled techniques and patterns that are out there at the moment, I think a simple granny blanket is by far my all time favourite.
This new season seems to be influencing me a lot this year. I've definitely made a shift into earthier colour combinations instead of bright and 'in your face' pairings.
The leaves are turning. The golden hues are calling out to me.
However much I had longed for, and have loved the warm summer days we have had this year.....I am ready for cosy. I am ready for layers. I am ready for scarves, wrist warmers and hot drinks outside wrapped up warm. I am ready for it all.
Not bright.....not pastel......but warm ochre. Leaning towards the orange, I am surprising myself!
I've also got it in my head to make another blanket in some delicious new shades.....well....shades that I have always loved, but realised i've not yet made a blanket in to date. It's a project I CANNOT wait to start.
So, I have surprised myself with my 'shift' in taste.
Not sure it will 'fit in' anywhere in my home. I'm realising my house, my life, my head will just always be a mish mash, a chaotic mess. I don't do 'calm' and 'fluidity'. I often wish that I did, but I'm not built that way.......so I embrace erratic colour, 5 style combinations in one room......chaos.
It's who I am, and who i'll always be.
xxx
