Trying to create colourways during a pandemic is… well, it’s an odd experience to say the least.  The creative process requires a certain amount of freedom to find its expression and, with everything feeling restricted and frightening, it can be incredibly hard to conjure that inspiration. 

Sitting with my assistant (at a distance, with masks), we were going over ideas but everything just kept falling flat.  And the harder we tried, the worse it got (isn’t that always the way?!?).  The problem was, we were starting in the wrong place – we kept jumping in with the recipe first because the world seemed too stressful to find our point of inspiration, and I can tell you from experience that that is never the way to create a colourway.

And then one of us said – I don’t remember who – that we just needed to be able to feel light hearted for a moment.  “We need to think of silly, happy things, like Elephants in Tutus or something!”  And that made us both start laughing, giggling away behind our masks and, in one instant, gave us all the inspiration we needed to create a happy colourway to lift your mood just as it did ours.

To dye Elephants in Tutus, we started with that lovely grey.  But we wanted to keep the colourway light so we just let it swirl about in the dyepot, striking the yarn where it would, to give just a hint of an elephant, if you like.  Then we layered on a rich magenta and let the dye spread out, so that it’s deep in some places and soft in others, but still preserving that light touch to keep the colour balanced against the natural beauty of the wool.  And just to stop it from being too sugar-sweet, we added a couple of splotches of a natural yellow-green, that will create a lovely moody foil to the main colours as you work the yarn.

For the coordinating colourway, But Not The Hippos, we simply went full-elephant, taking the grey up a notch or two.  The result is much darker and moodier, with a lovely deep pink that starts to hint of purple.  Use it to create stripes, as an accent, or for a project on its own. 

The second I saw these adorable little darning looms from the clever folks at Katrinkles, I knew I wanted them for our SpaceMonster members!  They make fixing dreaded holes in your handiwork easy ...and maybe even fun?  Even better, turn your loom over and you’ll find the sweet little SpaceMonster right there cheering you on! Normally priced at $35, they're available to you for only $29!