Cream vs Coloured

Ria had commented a couple of days ago about the colour of the shawls.

I really like the bright colours on that second one, and there’s really something to be said for how beautiful a pattern can be when done in white.

The shawls in question were:

This one - Frost Flower & Leaves...

And

... this one - Spring Trellis.

Now that started me thinking, there are some shawls that I will only do in cream while others I gleefully do in colour.

This begs the question: why?

Now, other then my love affair with Noro Sekku, anything with nupps is going to be in cream.  Except that’s not what I’ve done.

I confuse myself sometimes.

Exhibit A...

Looking at my finished shawls there is a trend towards doing them in colours.

Exhibit B - Echo Flower Shawl - In RED!

So maybe it’s less of a cream vs coloured and more of a solid- vs mulit-coloured.

But it still doesn’t answer the question why do some shawls *have* to be in cream?

Aeolian - In cream

This was done for a friends wedding gift.  I’ll have to ask her to borrow it so I can get some better pictures.

Aeolian - Now with colour!

This is the same shawl, in Noro.  They are both nice, but the Noro shawl, well, it’s just not as nice.  It’s hard to see the stitch details, the nupps just get lost, and that’s a close up shot, from a distance it could be something as easy as this:

Which is just a variant on the YO, k2tog patterns.  Simple, great to go with everything, but, well, simple.  And considering the amount of work that has to go into making something like Aeolian vs the Lacy Prairie shawl above (a month vs a week of work), I want you to see the details from a distance!

When I saw the pattern for Fiori di Sole by Romi I had to have it.  And it had to be in cream.

I have to take a picture of the finished shawl this weekend, because I have apparently not done so – for shame!

There are some lovely versions of it in colour (go click the link and see!) but it had to be in cream for me.

Same with the Queen Susan shawl.  It had to be in cream.  Thousands and thousands of yards of cream thread-weight yarn.

The more I think about it, the more confused I get.

I think the answer is simple: the pattern will speak & it will decide what colour it wants to be in.

Sometimes they yell though, and that can be annoying.