Thursday, April 28, 2011

Trying to Complete my Color Wheel and a Pattern for It

I have one last color to dye in 8 shades for my Texas Palette to be complete. *Red Orange*. Seems like this could get done pretty quickly, but I'm also working on hooking the palette parts already dyed into a rug, and making a pattern for it. Have gotten some good reactions to how I did the color wheel, with all the primary and secondary colors to the inside, and all the tertiary color pointing out. One thing that you might be wondering about is the numerals.  
Here is a picture of the finished red orange shades. This one is called Crawfish Boil. The lightest tones are the lovely color of boiled fresh gulf shrimp!



I included them, because April refers to colors by number, so this is going to help me start thinking of them that way too. She started with Red as the first primary in her palette, while I started with blue. That confused me for awhile(I'm easily confused), because although I've hooked quite a bit, there are so many things in the rug hooking culture I don't know. For awhile I thought red was always first in a color wheel...Anyway, since she would refer to these first 12 by number if we were talking, wanted to learn them that way too. You might want to know that before starting a palette of your own, by using her directions.

Should I include the numerals on my pattern? I think they might be rather confusing to someone who doesn't read all the accompanying pages, what do you think? My numbers aren't hooked very well, would rehooking them for the final picture that goes on the pattern be a good idea?

 Originally, I started out with this design for my own project to display the colors in my palette. After a couple of good reactions, and since I've done paper patterns of my own drawings before, decided to do a paper pattern for this one. If you leave a comment, I'd truly appreciate your opinions on a couple of things. Finishing the rug as a hexagon would be the most economical in terms of wool, but would it keep you from using the pattern? Most rughookers adapt things readily, so changing it into a square would be as simple as hooking an outline along woven lines, as shown in the picture below.

To hook it into a round rug, a circle drawn onto the backing prior to hooking seems like it would be the easiest. Should I include a circle on the paper pattern? I've learned a couple of the pitfalls possible while hooking my own, and will give some tips to avoiding those problems...  For example I didn't tape the shape completely perpendicularly for 8 between 7 and 9. As a result, it sits a bit closer to 7 than 8. I plan to sell the complete design, and include a single of the base shapes for photocopying.





Last but not least, I also have small numbers on the paper pattern referring to the space's placement within the 8 values. That can be explained in the directions. But if you don't do value strips would you have any interest in hooking a color wheel using wools in those colors that don't necessarily shade as well. Would the hunt for 8 shades of blue violet (etc.) turn you on or off? Because although you'd have some of the colors already in your stash, it could mean having to buy 8 x 12 =96 smallish pieces of wool if you were starting from scratch.  Of course, it would be quite simple to choose a color of yellow you like and hook the whole design portion in one color. Should I say that in the directions?

Hope you will give me your, how do I say this, honest feedback implies hookers are a bunch of liars. What they are in actuality is kind ladies... so while tact is always appreciated, I am asking for constructive criticism that will help me to market a better pattern.  Any other comments about improvements, or how beautiful the colors are together (she wrote modestly wink wink) are also welcome. Thanks in advance!

3 comments:

Julia said...

Jo, I'm a simple minded kind hooker lady and I usually say what I think or I don't say anything at all. That pattern looks a bit complicated for little old me but it makes a lot of sense to me the way you did it. I'm not teaching dyeing so I don't think that I would bother making a rug using all the color palette with the secondary, tertiary colors etc. If I was to make a rug using all the colors in the palette with secondary and tertiary colors I would make it as simple as possible like either squares or rectangular shape. Sorry for not being any more help.

Your rug looks nice by the way but as you mentioned some numbers could use a bit of tweaking as I had difficulty making out some numbers. A project like this needs more of a professional input than I can give you. Good luck on this project Jo. I'm looking forward to seeing it all finished.

I haven't dyed any more wool for my palette but dyed lots for my Grandmother's Trunk Creative Challenge rug. Now spring is getting in the way. JB

Farm Girl said...

Oh Jo, I wish I knew enough to give you any kind of feedback. Well, except you dye beautiful wool. I was thinking that if I were going to do a color wheel I would buy a bolt of white wool just because I need a bunch to teach myself. I think for me the numbers would confuse me. But I don't know as I have never done what you are doing. I want to learn though. So I will watch you like a hawk. :)It is all about learning new things right. :)
I don't know if this is constructive criticism or not. I think I have just opened my mouth and removed all doubt about how smart I am. :)

Cotton Eyed Jo said...

Julia, thanks for the comment about the numbers. I've decided to go in a completely different direction. I'll repost a picture to show how the new way could help anyone using any formula. :)

Kim, you are exactly right. A bolt of white Dorr wool could give you the material to dye lots of colors. A color wheel has 12 color shades, so 6 yards is all it takes, if you already have the colors selected.