Color Touches My Soul

Color Touches My Soul

Hello. My name is Capi Puszcz (pronounced Push,) and I am a new contributor to FFS. I am an indie yarn dyer, fiber artist, and shop owner in Macomb, Michigan. My father was a lifelong fiber artist, and I started my fiber adventure very early in life. We had a weaving studio in the late 1960’s, and a needlepoint shop soon thereafter. I worked at the needlepoint shop every day after school, and all day, every Saturday. To this day, I am amazed at the number of fiber crafts I am fluent in. Now, onto the topic at hand: color.

It was the late 60’s in Detroit; the Vietnam War was in full swing, and the Hippie Movement was alive on Plum Street. On Sunday’s we would often, take a ride, to see the local street artists. My parents weren’t “into the drug scene,” but my Dad was intrigued by the art inspired by those drugs. I was too young to understand, what was really going on, in those houses on Plum Street. But I sure loved, the bright Psychedelic colors, that surrounded me.

Fast forward to this very day: I still love bright colors. 💞 Anyone who sees my hand dyed yarns, comment on the beauty of the colors. My color choices are bright, but not brash; clear, but not muddy. They are colors that make us feel alive, and add joy to my life. I have tried to understand the color wheel, and have spent way to much time, and money on tying to learn it…my brain is simply not wired that way. (ADHD is all over our family’s DNA)

Most of these yarns are dyed by me. The others are dyed by Logan of LeonAlexander yarns.

I apologize in advance, to any trained artists in the community, for the audacity of my next statement. I don’t feel you have to be trained, to make nice color combinations. I think you can take a couple colors that speak to you, (or are in your bin of leftover yarns)and take to the Internet. I get my best yarn dyeing ideas on Pinterest by searching color [colour] combinations color [colour] palettes. Then scroll through the pretty colors. You can search further by adding other words; like pastels, brights, purples, or by color name like “aubergine.”

But my favorite method of choosing colors is called Stash Busting. My current, ongoing project, is crocheting hexagons. I call them my “Happy Hexi’s” as I get such a kick out of combining my color combinations. The pattern I am using is a free pattern on Ravelry: rubyhexagonblanket by Nova Seals. I’m using DK weight yarn on a US-H (4.5mm). When Ruth asked me to write on a topic, I decided to analyze the process I go through to choose colors.

This is the stash I chose from…and yes I have way more yarns than this!

With my hexagons I have found, alternating solids and multicolor yarns, to work quite well. 90% of the time I start with a multicolor yarn like this:

I chose this one.

My next color is a solid color present in the multicolored yarn. In this case the blue. (Yes, sometimes it’s the smallest bit possible to choose from.) Then from here I take it one step at a time, choosing a 2nd multicolor, that has elements of the first 2 colors. Then I choose another solid, followed by a multicolor, and finally a solid that works with it. Most of the time, my method leads to success.

Progression of yarn choices: showing how each one relates to the others.

I’m not going to lie, once in a while a hexagon leaves me scratching my head. But it’s easy to take care of … I just rip back and try again! Here’s how this one turned out:

A Happy Hexi for sure!

I hope this inspires you to try out this lovely pattern, and pick some colors that make you happy!

Capi Puszcz

 

 

18 thoughts on “Color Touches My Soul

  1. Your hexagon is gorgeous! Are you making them for the love of it or do you intend to sew some together to make an item?

    Your shop looks so inviting (https://theyarnandus.com/shop). The pretty felted soaps with sharp corners are not easy to make – we got frustrated and ended up using oval-shaped soaps!

    Combining colours is so satisfying – thank you for sharing your method.

    This hexagon is perfect for the fourth quarter challenge!

    1. Thank you, Lyn and Annie! I’m planning on using these hexagons in a blanket. I’m honored that you like my felted soaps. I have all your publications and e-books, and absolutely Iove everything you both do!

      🤫 The secret to getting good corners on rectangular bars of soap, is using a vegetable peeler, on every single 90 degree edge, of the soap. You are basically blunting the edges so corners don’t poke through your fiber.

      Try it and let me know if it works for you,
      Capi

  2. Wow, thank you so much for this artist. I too love color and use my natural eye and references as opposed to a color wheel. Color play is so much fun and you can come up with some surprising beautiful combinations.
    Secondly, I live in Detroit and I’m delighted to be able to connect with other fiber artists. Knowing that I can also purchase items and keep the dollars flowing in our own community is such a plus.
    I will be contacting You Capi and inviting you to attend a current Fiber Show that has 20 of the areas top fiber artists called Poetic Cloth. I am also sure that we will be excited to meet you and see your wonderful work.

    1. Wow! Judy, I can’t tell you, how touched I am, by your words. I am even happier to know you’re in my area. Give me a couple days to get my website up to snuff. I got frustrated, last month, and took all my yarn babies off my site. I wasn’t quite sure of my next move…but maybe I will wait on that decision. 😊

  3. Your colour combinations are wonderful Capi and I’m sure your method of selecting a colour scheme will help those who may lack confidence in doing this.
    Look forward to seeing more of your posts in the future.

  4. Welcome Capi, and thanks for an interesting post. Studying color is such fun whether you use the color wheel or not. You always learn something with each new combination. I would love to see how you use the hexagons. This one is a great choice of colors.

    1. Thanks, Ruth! My plan started as a colorful “scrap” blanket for the couch. My problem is, I don’t do random, very well. I kept tweaking the colors, breaking into new skeins from the shop: a happy bright blanket was meant to be.

  5. Thank you Capi for a very interesting read on how you choose colours for your crochet. I would love to see the blanket/garment that all this work results in. i used to crochet when younger, and I did enjoy it too, but we never had such glorious colours to choose from. Your shop must be a dream to be part of.

    1. Hi Marie. I will be sure to keep everyone posted on my blanket’s progress. I remember the limited color choices, and the “crunchy” nature of the acrylic yarns. We’ve come a long way with fibers!

  6. Capi, your opening post is a wonderful exploration of bright happy colours. They just sizzle.
    Colour play is interesting, there are so many ways to use it or find inspiration.
    The wheel is very formal but can be fun, particularly to check out one’s own colour ‘patterns’ – by using it in reverse. Find your inspiration colours (in your case from Pinterest). Then locate these colours on the wheel….do they create a ‘Y’ or ‘X’ or ???

    I have a decades old ‘colour folder’ which I occasionally add to – I cut out magazine images (fashion, home design, wildlife, food etc) that have captivated or ‘grabbed’ my attention & often combine similar colour combos on the open 2-page folder spread, giving me immediate access to clear large colour images that can stay open indefinitely.

    Looking forward to seeing your finished blanket. I hope you’ve replaced your shop stock 🤪

    1. Thank you for the interesting idea, of using the color wheel, in reverse. I will have to look into that, to see if it finally works for me! A strange thing about me: I am a total math geek. When I was taking my Calculus classes, I had to first, understand where I was going, then I could work backwards, to finally understand why? Used to drive my instructor crazy,

  7. Welcome to the group Capi! What a wonderful opening blog. I can very definitely relate to your issues regarding the colour wheel. I am the same and I keep one on my wall – like I am still at school. Every now and again I examine it and then go off and do exactly what I want, regardless of the theory. I have become lazy – I will readily admit because my youngest son does this ‘thing’. Like a magician he will dissect a colour along with comments ‘I’m looking at the (pick any colour) tones in the colour’. On one occasion, I gave him a commercially bought corsage which we used as part of our choral uniform. I had the old problem, new members and the flowers were no longer available to purchase. So I go this bright idea to felt a few – the texture would not be noticed onstage but the colour would. I let him loose in my wool room and, like an alchemist he had the formula worked in less than 5 minutes (one part this, two parts that etc etc). The colour of the finished pieces were identical to the originals. I am in awe of this talent. So I think having him in the house has made me very lazy when it comes to colour decisions. I will need to head to Pinterest and become a bit more independent as I suppose he will have to move out at some stage (I can’t keep him locked in his room forever) 😉

    I really like your modus operandi when it came to your hexagon. The hexagon itself looks super. I have two fabulous books on crocheting shapes both by Edie Eckman – they might interest you. Here are the links to Amazon US in case you would like to check them out:
    https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008NEZRJE/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i6
    and
    https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Square-Crochet-Motifs-unexpected-ebook/dp/B007X3DQGM/ref=pd_sim_1/145-2991188-1759850?pd_rd_w=nVowx&pf_rd_p=cf667c36-5137-43ea-a503-3c58067bc8ac&pf_rd_r=F8KVTJBK49KAB707B3H1&pd_rd_r=3e2d43b2-c6f3-4783-ab82-5f02ecf71c95&pd_rd_wg=BpNss&pd_rd_i=B007X3DQGM&psc=1

    Looking forward to seeing the finished blanket. 🙂

  8. Welcome to the blog. What lovely bright yarn. I think all colours go together. The old ideas like blue and green should never be seen when picking out your clothes seem so strange. I wonder how they came to be. Nature seems to think all the colours look great together. All those blue flowers with green leaves. LOL I am looking forward to seeing your finished blanket.

  9. Welcome to the writing community, Capi! 😀 (Also, hello fellow dyer.) Those hexies are happy indeed, and I’m sure the Finished Object will be bright and lovely.

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