I experiment with colours and discover my inner Anti-Yarn-Snob

I normally have a very effective method of choosing fabric. I go to a shop/ website/ charity shop and I find the loudest, brightest fabric I can, then I bring it home and I dig something even louder and brighter out of my stash to match it, and I am happy. I like the kind of print that threatens to bring on a migraine. This is my idea of subtle:

Fabric gets bonus points if there are people gathered round it pointing, saying, who on earth would buy that. I would! I love bright colours. Like many things it is all my mother’s fault, as she has taste and likes beige things, and was quite determined when I was growing up that I would share this aesthetic. Indeed I remember us once almost coming to blows in Jessops in Sheffield over what duvet cover I might be permitted to buy, during which argument it became quite apparent that our tastes were not aligned. My mother thinks my love of prints has skipped a generation as my grandmother was the same. This is my grandmother’s idea of subtle: (this is her apron).

However. I am trying to develop my colour sense in new and less lively directions. I’m fighting a lingering feeling that this is doomed to failure, but I’m trying. So, I’m going to make this dress (not a problematic and potentially unflattering choice at all for someone who is 36D, I’m sure you’ll agree) in these fabrics.

I believe you call this ‘a muted colour palette’. I will not lie: I am not sure I like it. However, I will make the dress and see how I feel about it when it is made. Because one of the things I love about patchwork is how you can put all sorts of odd things together and it somehow comes out coherent. We will see, anyway.

I was in a yarn shop last weekend (not the one in Cambridge, I was somewhere else), and in the 20 minutes I was in there, the assistant: implied that crochet was a rather strange thing to do: told a woman she ought to crochet a throw out of wool that was £8 a ball and should definitely not use cotton: and said that the shop ‘only stocked natural fibres’ in a tone of voice that implied stocking an acrylic mix would essentially be the same as putting a dog turd on the shelf next to the Malabrigo. It was like Yarn Shop Bingo. I didn’t rush to Ravelry and start a thread though, because I’m waiting till I buy some Noro and get a knot in it to do that. However, I did have a quite visceral reaction; I put down the wool I was holding and I walked out. It made me wonder quite why I was so irritated. Because obviously I do like nice yarns occasionally, and I don’t think there’s anything intrinsically wrong at all in charging a lot for yarn, especially if it’s ethically produced/ by a small producer or something like that. In fact, I think we would generally be better paying more for fewer possessions. I also think, though, that in general I like the kind of knitting where you make things people actually use, and where it’s a natural part of life. And that involves acrylic as well as cashmere (at least, it does for me). I don’t like when craft becomes something else that makes you buy expensive things: expensive materials don’t make for better crafts.

And yes, I am looking at all my fabric guiltily as I type that!