My Fair Isle Education: Color Choice

I promised you lace, but as you might imagine, I can't show you those lace projects until the patterns are ready to release. In the meantime, let's talk about Fair Isle! Obviously, it's one of my favorite subjects right now.

To continue my Fair Isle come-uppance, I have finally set about trying to learn how to choose colors for greatest effect when working the sometimes complicated patterns. I began with a simple pattern so as to focus on the colors. 

I have had the middle three colors of Rowan Felted Tweed you see here for a few months, but just recently added the light grey and the taupe. From top to bottom, these are #143, #158, #133, #154, and #177. I found all this loveliness at Fibers, Etc. here in town. I have had some trouble securing Shetland wool from my LYS's, as I mentioned in an earlier post, so this was as close as I could find.

This go 'round I charted out some versions of my Grethryn color pattern, using guidance from MJM. Bear in mind that I used all five colors in both the following hats.

In the background you can see humble little Grethryn with her two natural colors of Ravenwood Cashmere. I love her for her stark contrast, but wanted to try other colors. As you can see in the foreground hat, which bears little resemblance to the original, the color placements (especially the blue and green used together in the same round) do not allow the pattern to shine...or to even be detected. However, I like this hat for its subtlety and so does my husband, who came home yesterday evening and showed much interest in claiming it as his own. 

So this morning I started another version that I charted out last thing yesterday when I realized the first one wasn't hitting the mark. This is much better! Keeping the green and blue away from one another and using more of the rust and the light grey added more contrast, allowing the pattern to be the star. This version also has the characteristic horizontal bands of Fair Isle. I want to make a whole sweater like this one!

I'll be making a couple more of these in different versions. With five 191-yard skeins, I should be able to end up with at least four or five of them. 

Like I need more hats....