Thursday 30 April 2015

My non-random placement of randomly placed squares

I am (now really) nearing the end of the Summer Throw aka Projek Bohemia V.2

There goes Tommie Cat


I was checking it out for size, out  on the floor and over the bed, and decided that the hooking will Stop Just Right Here, and posted about it on Ons Hekel, when my friend Hilda said I Must Please blog about my seemingly non-random square placement (I explained my line of thinking to her previously and she totally got it when she saw the photo).

(The size is right - the left and right rows hang over the sides of a Q-sized bed).

Now first - I have a Gemini mind.  

Left and right.
Mad colourful and monotonechrome.
Cool and warm.
Noise and quiet.
Order and chaos.

And so forth.

You should see my whole brain profile...it's almost square. Not really dominated by any one quadrant.

See?

So where I wanted to make a blazing technifullcolour blanket, it also had to be ordered.  I can never get random placement right because I have Rules.

Cool must be offset by to Warm.
Tints by Shades.
Hues by Tones.

I make myself crazy with moving squares and stripes around until I get the right order, and then still That One will jump our at me and I will see it ALWAYS.  It's not in the right place.  

I hate it when I look at other "random"  blankets and I see dark squares clustered together and it's not balanced on the other side.

I might also be a bit OCD about this.  

So, here's how I went about placing the squares on this blanket (I had a simpler try-out with Projek Bohemia V.1):

Balancing precariously on matress on quite a high bedstead, hence a distorted blanket


Starting out with nr 1, right in the middle of things. 
Then (2) added two contrasting squares, either sides.
Then (and here I wasn't thinking, coz I used the pink) on the other two sides (3).
Now I needed to fill in some corner gaps, so in went the neutrals (4).
And here I ran into trouble, because I LOVED the green (5) and wanted to use 4 here, so it went next to the previous cool colour...horror. 
Okay, flank it it with yellow (6).
Can't use orange now, because I just used it in the edges, so I cringed and went for the lime (7).
Okay, corner gaps, so back to the blue (I loved the blue as well) (8).
Brought in some warmth again with pink (9).
Flank it with turquoise (10) because that will look lovely.
It's been a long time since red, so...red (11).

And so on and so forth.  

And even so, with my rules, I had to break my rules.  

The same with the joins - the idea was to join the squares in very contrasting colours, hence the lime with navy, orange with taupe, green with pink.

And again, I broke the rules.

I'm not entirely happy with the navy-lined orange, but there's no way I'm going to undo anything now (contemplated that for a few minutes).

In retrospect, I could have left out the neutrals.  But then I also didn't want the throw to be too girly, because my poor, suffering husband has to live with it every day as well.

What I AM happy with, is the symmetry, or the balance. I must have balanced colour placement.  It irked me to add the rows on either side to make it hang over the bed (but I didn't want to add it on all four sides).

See, it will fit.
(That bookshelf?  It's the Still To Read.  Giving me nightmares).


So.  Now it's done and nothing is going out or in and I'm working on some border samples.  

My sistah says I always overthink these things.

Can't help it :-D

(So shall I add a row or to of SC in red or navy before I start The Edge? Just to mark the transition??)






14 comments:

Happy in red said...

It's lovely! More Tommie pics please ;-) Haha! BTW, it's exactly a year ago since I found the lovely yarn in my hotelroom in Cape Town. Ik ben het niet vergeten!!

Unknown said...

Jy's snaaks. Jou bers is baie mooi. X

Elza said...

Jou denkproses maak 100% sin. Ook Gemini

Stel said...

Tyd vlieg!

Stel said...

😄

Stel said...

Dan weet jy :-)

Jo-Ellen said...

Stunning 'Stel! I always love the colours you crochet with. And you thought process on colour placing makes perfect sense to me ;-)

Anonymous said...

Love die symmetry en balans. Die blokke is lekker groot.

Unknown said...

Love your way of thinking. I agree with your theory of balancing colours.
I love how it looks on the white - it makes the colours pop.
I am glad I don't have to choose the border. Good luck!

Stel said...

Thanks Jo!

LitlBits said...

I think you asked about a sc row before the edging...
How about doing the neutral color? can't tell for sure, but it looks like a light grey or taupe.
If you're going to do edging in colors, I think the neutral row and then colors in edging would be nice...
Very nice - not at all "too girly" -
Where is the pattern for that motif? I love it!

homemade@myplace said...

I like your blanket !!! After all that thinking it couldn't be bad, you know! ;oD
I would add some different colourful stripes ( in DC), but, as you know me, I always overdo with colours !!!!
Enjoy your last "crochet border over thinking" !!!!!
xxxxxx Ale

Anne said...

It looks very bohemian indeed! And I am sure any version you choose will look beautiful!


Take care
Anne (Crochet Between Worlds)

Alexandra EyeLoveKnots said...

Wow! A lot going on with the planning of this blanket, but better that way so as not to waste time and resources putting it together only to not like it. I like to use a program called PicMonkey to visualize the layout of my granny square blankets, using the Collage option.
I would love if you shared this at our Yarn Fanatic Party - http://eyeloveknots.blogspot.com/2015/05/yarn-fanatic-party-35-string-theory.html.
Alexandra
EyeLoveKnots.blogspot.com