Saturday 8 March 2008

Purple - or is it blue? Tomato




My partner and I have been puzzling over this colour of yarn. I think it's an ultramarine blue (the first picture is really accurate), while my partner thinks its purple. I actually hope that it's blue, because I have too much purple yarn. It's going to be embarrassing when I knit up all this purple yarn - oy.

So, I decided to look up colour psychology and came up with my favourite colours and what they meant.

Purple: Associated with: creativity, fertility, joy, but also magic, evil, death and sex

Orange: Associated with: stability, reassurance, warmth, and is thought to aid digestion

Green:Associated with: nature and energy, calming and restful, balance (halfway between red and blue) security, stability

Blue: Associated with: calming and soothing; promotes intellectual thought; believed to keep hunger at bay; loyalty, serenity, authority, protection, contemplative, prevents nightmares.

Whoa.

Anyhoos, this is my first top down pattern, it's knit and tonic's Tomato . I must admit, it's the only pattern from No Sheep for You that I genuinely liked, so imagine my chagrin when knitting daily offered it for free! After I bought the book! Grrr. I'm not using the recommended yarn for this project (Blue Sky Alpaca's organic cotton) because I don't like it much. It pills dead easily (winding hanks into balls!), would be very uncomfortable on the size 7 needles and just feels really heavy.

I'm using Debbie Bliss' Stella, a cotton/silk/rayon blend. It has a nice slubbed texture (to hide the inevitable pilling), and the silk will have nice temperature regulating abilities. I'm doing it on the sevens, using the directions for the smallest size (but added additional stitches on the armscye so I can wear a t-shirt underneath without it bunching).

So far, the pattern is easy. I must admit, I scratched my head when it came to backward loop cast on (too loosey goosey, I understand why its used for lace cast on), and how to join the neckline into the round.

That was because I'm accustomed to knitting from the bottom up, so the needles dipping down threw me for a six.

The pattern is going well so far *knocks on wood*, and if I actually put my mind to it, I'd probably finish this by Friday - but alas, I have to tidy my house, fill out a stack of papers (an inch high!) and get some work done. It also doesn't help that I've started reading comics again - in earnest - as well as all those Navy SEALs romance novels *sigh*. They are so utterly trashy, like junk food for the intellect. So decadent, and so good. I'm shameless, I know.

Yum.

Oh, btw, flickr sucks. Because I live in the EU, my picture amounts have been shaved to nothing. What it means is that I have to go back to flickr and delete some of my pictures - or pony up $24.95 for a year.

So, what's your favourite colour? What's the psychology behind it? Surprise yourself!

5 comments:

m said...

I'd call it blue for sure.
But I often seem to have this argument with males.
They frequently call blues purple, which confuses me if the item is not in view.

m said...

I should have said that I love purple, deep charcoal greys, and the acid yellow/greens (in small amounts)that contrast with the purples.

JayJay said...

I agree that it looks blue. I do like that pattern, so I'm glad to hear that it's fairly easy. I am sticking with easy patterns these days, what with the baby nearly here.

My favorite colors do tend to change somewhat with the season, but blues, greens, and reds (more pink/red than orange/red) are my favorites.

mooncalf said...

I say blue too.

I'm also unreasonably embarrassed by the amount of purple knitting I do. I'm not sure how it happened.

Diane said...

That color is BLUE, for sure!