It's late January, and it's cold.
It's very cold.
All the way to the shop this morning, the car thermometer read 6. Six! With the wind chill today, it could dip as low as -15... what fun!
Yesterday the sun was out only occasionally, struggling through tiny gaps in the omnipresent clouds and never quite seeming to reach the ground. There was ice everywhere, though, so even if we didn't notice any warmth, I suppose some must have gotten through. And the wind! Drifts up to your knees with adjacent patches of bare brown grass, ice crystals sneaking in through hats and gloves, the cars creaking on their suspensions as they creep past across the snowy road...
Today, though, the sun has been out for a whole twenty minutes already and the sky looks like it just might be starting to clear. It's still grey, but it s a bluish sort of grey, one that suggests thin clouds that could evaporate or blow away at a few moments' notice.
So in the name of encouragement, let's take a minute to pretend that it is bright and sunny outside and appreciate the colors of winter and the winter sky.
There is a lot of variety that we can get out of the humble grey -- solid colors, heathered colors, tweedy colors, dark grey, light grey, semi-solids...
The best part is that grey goes with everything. Fact: grey looks good with everything. Especially winter landscapes! Where would we be in the winter if we didn't have grey?
All of the buggy tops I've seen lately have been covered in snow and ice ... or salt stains.
Does anything get any better than short rows and garter stitch?
This is precisely the color of the clouds this morning. Soft, heathered grey, a little fluffy, with long parallel lines running in the direction of the wind... I think I want a cloud-colored sweater. Hmm...
Sometimes I wish for clear skies when the clouds are out, but I find that if I take a minute and appreciate the clouds I can usually find them pretty fantastic.
But soft! what light through yonder window breaks...
...oh, wait, excuse me.
(little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter...)
(ahem.)
The sun is coming out! It's still out! Maybe it'll be the best kind of winter day: the kind that is clear and sunny and still, but still really cold.
The kind of winter day with skies like this:
Winter skies edition is mostly winter edition, with some colors thrown in sometimes, in small quantities to catch your eye. You can knit holly berries in a snowy tree, or a tiny patch of sunlight coming through the cloud ceiling, or a cardinal on an icy branch, or a vulture circling over a snowed-in valley... the possibilities are endless.
Here's how: take grey of any shade and texture, maybe some white, maybe some black or dark brown, then add a little red. A little green. Maybe a little bit of orange.
If you really want to look like winter, though, blue is the way to go. What more could we want in the monochrome winter than a patch of bright, cold, saturated color?
Lancaster Yarn Shop, for all your color-deficiency related needs! The roads are clear and dry and the heat is on -- come on out and get some color!