It just dawned on me…that one of the biggest changes I’ve made in my hooking style in the past year or so….has to do with colour/wool selection. Of course my stash has increased significantly…giving me more options, and my apprehension about dyeing my own wool has largely disappeared…so that is a big factor…BUT…
While I have a general idea of what I want when I start…(or maybe not)…I choose much of the wool as I go along… discarding what doesn’t work without a second thought.
I used to choose the wool…or have help choosing the colour palette….then hook it…and that was that. Now I ponder over each choice.
Rather than stressing about the background for Fat Cat…I’ve felt like I was ‘playing’ with options as I tried various wools and hooking styles that might work.
I tried a variety of options
The greys I originally chose were too blah,
I overdyed some of them….and it was too dark
What looks grey in the photo is actually a light beige…but there there is too much contrast with this…the darks and lights don’t blend at all
I like this combination best (it’s much better blended than in the photo)…the pale beige plaid and another light tan plaid I picked up recently…but it’s still pretty ho-hum! I still haven’t made a final decision
This is the 2nd version of the eyes. The first I did with black…and they were ugly….ugly…looked as if the cat would attack at any moment!
It took me a few days to get back to the dyeing…I needed darker wool for the points. I doubled the dip dye recipe, then added extra black…and dyed it over three textured wools…and after 3 tries…I was satisfied….so now I’ve started the body of the cat. I changed the eyes again….after looking at Akuma’s in a better light…when the pupils weren’t so large.
I like the bigger area of blue.
I was just reading someplace (I think it may have been Gene’s blog) about doing cat’s whiskers with a separate loose strand. I had some threads of linen backing which ravelled off the edge of Hygieia, so I used that to create some whiskers….just pulled a piece up in two places….and knotted it close to the hooking. I may put a dot of glue on them later to hold them in place, so they aren’t so helter skelter…but I like the effect.
I’m not trying to have any sort of realism here…but would like the fat cat to be recognizable as a seal point siamese.
It’s looking great. The eyes do llook better with more blue. You are so good with your colors.
Thanks Pjb…I think I’m getting better with them at least.
Love the way he is growing , changes are great they work together well