A knit color study with hats

2/12/2023

24 hats

August 2022 - December 2022
Flicker and Flame hat pattern by Drea Renae Knits

80 yards/hat with 1,920 yards total of varying contrast yarns from 8 skeins of Spincycle Dreamstate
98 yards/hat with 2,352 yards total of varying main color from 11 skeins randomly pulled from my stash & Kelbourne Woolens
Combined to make a total of 4,273 yards knit in total - with many mistakes and repeats along the way :)

This project started innocently, I saw the pattern, noted some existing yarn I had that I could use, noted that I also had the appropriately sized needles. All I had to buy for this project was the pattern, or so I thought! I started the first hat in the last few days of August in 2022. August is a very exciting time for knitters, it’s almost fall and we’ll be able to adorn ourselves and loved ones with knits very soon! After making the first hat, I realized I could easily make another with the “fancy yarn” I’d used as the contrast color! Yarn is an art, there are so many colors, weights, spins, materials, sources, all.the.things! I love yarn! I love sheep! And, I love sheep to be happy so I try to source all of my wool yarn accordingly. The contrast yarn for all of these hats came from a boujee online yarn shop, Spincycle. Spincycle has very beautiful and equally expensive yarns so I wanted to make the most of my investment! It was exciting when I realized I could do 2 but I would later realize I could do 3 hats with every skein, it blew my mind! Mind-blowing excitement that only a fellow knitter would understand 🙂

I’m an artist. I spent my entire childhood drawing, painting, and generally being creative. I made it official when I got my degree in art >20 years ago and have barely practiced since! School really put a damper on my creative spirit, so for years I’ve been trying to relocate it. While searching for my lost creative spirit, I also found myself in a health crisis. I started knitting quite a bit more during a mostly sedentary time after some big surgeries in 2010-2011, I made a couple of hats and some scarves in the years after. In 2014 I knit my first-ever blanket for the baby I would deliver in December. Having a wonderfully peaceful entry into parenting, I had a dreamy baby girl that slept a lot and relaxed peacefully in her first few months of life so I was able to continue knitting during this time. By the time she started a movin’ and a shakin’ though, I had to put down the sticks and focus on her, work, cooking, life. It wasn’t until she was 5 and ½ years old that I realized I could knit again! And, it’s been a lot of knitting ever since… She's just turned 8 as I write this.

During and after making my first three hats, I marveled at how the boujee yarn had bloomed in color as I knit them. It was truly stunning and I realized in my awestruck wonder. I had found my creative spirit again. I would plan to do my first ever color study with fiber and knit 24 hats! I would also plan to take photos of these hats on white canvas so they would maintain a hint of the institutional and traditional art that had studied me blind years earlier. I would give them each a name and then I would lovingly distribute them to friends, family, and anyone going through a difficult time in their life.

I quickly ordered 7 skeins of varying contrast colors from Spincycle. At first I just wanted to use up my stash for the main color on the hats but quickly realized that I would need more yarn. I put in an order for 5 more skeins with Kelbourne Woolens. This set me on my journey and I went on to make hats for the next few months. I finished the last hat the second week of December, 2022 and I set up a photo studio in the house. I continued to execute this complicated photo shoot to capture each hat in all of their glory as well as the hats in groups of 3 to show the color bloom over each skein.

These hats are all very special to me. They symbolize my art, my love for color, texture, people, sheep, yarn, and my knitting practice. They are each a unique part of a larger collection as a group of 3 and as a body of work comprising 24 pieces. All artists do “studies” of different things like cats, a specific building, location, people, etc. as a way to research or explore something that they are interested in and a desire to improve their technique. For me that was this pattern, these fibers, these colors, these sheep that provided the wool, and the deeper spiritual resonance that my knitting has for me.

The contrast yarn's journey through the different main color yarns...

The contrast yarn skein begins at the bottom of the hat on the far left. The top of that same hat is what starts at the bottom of the second hat. The same is true for the top of the middle hat and the bottom of the third hat. As you can see, the color blooms beautifully!

Gallery

Below, is simply a gallery of all of the hats, categorized by the contrast yarn. I've been very thoughtful in naming each of these hats based on characteristics of the person who received them. I hope you enjoy perusing these as I deeply enjoyed this entire project and to see this showcase is a testament to all of the work and love I put into it!!! Leave comments, message me, find me on instagram and THANK YOU for reading and viewing.