Colours you want to wear
While it’s a great idea to knit with colours you love … are those colours the ones you wear? It’s pretty normal to be drawn to the same colours over and over. When we see certain shades in a skein, our hearts skip a beat, we reach out our hands without thinking and, before we know it, we’ve got another sweater load of yarn in the same colour!
Owning six blue sweaters is fine - if you feel fantastic in blue. But what if you don’t? What if you keep finding yourself making clothes in colours that you don’t want to wear?
We all know the feeling of knitting with colours that don’t make our heart sing.
Each stitch takes an eternity and our knitting starts to feel like a chore rather than a pleasure.
Compare that to knitting with colours that we love.
Colour has the magical ability to lift our spirits, turn a grey day around and send us feel-good vibes.
So what do we do when the colours on our needles make our hearts sing but feel awful when we wear them? What if they’re too drab for our personality? Or too crazy for our wardrobe?
Do we spend our lives knitting for others? Or, do we figure out how to love knitting the colours we want to wear … and how to wear the colours we love to knit?
If you want to figure out which colours are your colours, there are two things to think about:
Do you like what you wear? Do your clothes make you feel like you?
It can be hard to know if you feel like you without a little experimenting. Often we buy/make the same styles, in the same colours and wear them, year in and year out, without much thought about how we feel in them, other than whether they’re comfy.
It’s not often that we stop to reflect on who we are today, how we want to feel and whether our clothes work for the life we have, or want to have.
It can take a lot of bravery to try something new and a nice way to start is to experiment with the clothes you already have in your wardrobe. Pull them all out and be honest, what do you really enjoy wearing?
Look at the colours of the clothes that you reach for over and over. How do they make you feel? Alive or a bit “blah”?
Think about what you’re wearing when you get the most compliments.
My Rebel Rebel cardigan (above) is a great example. I often think of myself as someone who loves (and wears) muted colours but actually, some days I feel amazing in my hot yellow cardy and I get lots of great comments when I wear it. People say things like; “have you cut your hair?”, “wow, you look great!” and, “you seem happy”. Sometimes they mention my cardigan, but often they don’t know what it is about me that’s different.
If your wardrobe is full of the same colours and those colours don’t make you feel fabulous - or you’re not sure what “you” feels like, head to the shops without your wallet and spend some time experimenting in the changing rooms.
Which colours make you feel alive? Are they the ones you thought they’d be?
Are you drawn to colours that you’ll never wear?
Are you in the habit of wearing colours that don’t take your breath away?
Could you be braver?
Try to imagine yourself wearing the colour of your yarn before you cast on your next sweater, cardigan or shawl.
I’ve often reached for colours that I don’t end up wanting to wear. And, I’ve stopped myself from choosing colours because, although they jump out at me, they seem too bright or loud and I feel confused about whether I want to wear them or how to incorporate them into my wardrobe.
Of course, there will be days when a sloppy cardy in an earthy, muted colour is exactly what our heart desires and others when an electrically bright sweater will feel completely right.
But knowing that you’ll have days when you want to recharge and days when you’re feeling energised, and remembering what will make you happy when you do, is a great start.
Listen to the voice inside you. It knows what you love.
Sometimes that voice is just a whisper and we have to be quiet, blocking out the noise of the world to hear it.
Sometimes we have to turn fantastic music up loud, close the door, throw caution to the wind and dance about in our bedroom trying on all sorts of crazy colours until we get to the unexpected one that feels perfect.
Have a go and remember what colours make you sing.