Colour me happy?

 

Yes, today's post is starting with a big pile of colourful yarn! I can certainly think of worse ways to begin!

The above stash of Stylecraft Special DK has been lurking in my house for a while now - maybe 6 months or so.

It has been niggling me, in a not unpleasant way - it's nice to think you have a heap of yarn ready and waiting to be transformed into something bright and happy.

The niggling part was, what should I do with it?

On Sunday, I finally decided. It was destined to become a many-coloured blanket. Yup, I know, it's hardly original for me, but there you go. That was what I knew I wanted to make, and so I made a start.

I have been thinking a lot about colour this week. I discovered the brilliant A creative being blog last weekend, and have been entranced by the wonderful Weekly Mandalas shown there - so many variations in colour! I felt really inspired to try and experiment with colours and this big stash of Stylecraft seemed like the perfect opportunity. 

I decided on little granny squares, with 3 colours each and a cream border.

At first I struggled to come up with colour combinations for my little granny squares which I liked with this yarn.

 I'm going to sound like a yarn snob now, but.... part of the reason I have had this Stylecraft for so long is because I always struggle to put the colours together in a way that seems satisfactory to me. Here comes the yarn snobbery....I've wondered if it was something to do with the way the 100% acrylic fibres of the yarn take the dye colours - the colours of this yarn sometimes seem a little harsh to me, and as if they don't want to go together, but just scream out loud on their own.

I promise I'm really not a yarn snob! I do love this yarn, for the value, softness and yes, the range of colours! 

Well, happily, as you can see, I persevered, and finally something seemed to click! Suddenly I could see many different colour combinations that I loved!

So now I am well on the way to my blanket. Here are some of my favourite colour combinations so far:

I also love the way you can change the look and feel of the squares so much just be altering the proportions of the colours used. In the pairs shown above, square within its pair uses the same colours, but they manage to look quite different just from the colours being ordered differently.

I only have one problem now: I love seeing the colours next to each other so much that I am starting to wonder if I should include the cream border or not?

What do you think? Are you a fan or colour on cream, or do you just go for colour all the way?

Until next time!

xx xxx xx xxx xx xxx xx xxx xx