Bam! Lightning Rod is here! Our June 2024 colourway reveal part of our Secret Stash colour club was dyed on both yarn and fibre this month, and it’s a fabulously fun colourway we’re excited to share. A bold colourway filled with vibrance and life, making us feel energized and playful. There is something exquisitely cathartic about sidestepping seriousness for a moment and letting yourself enjoy an unapologetically fun colourway.
THE LIGHTNING ROD STORY
As shared in our June 2024 yarn and fibre club boxes, this month’s colourway is inspired by Pop art artist Roy Lichtenstein and his bold, comic book-styled paintings (Thwack! Ka-pow!). His signature work references the mechanical four-colour printing process that uses blue, yellow, red, plus black inks to print colour in magazines and comic books. Lichtenstein’s paintings feature primary colour palettes, simplification of details, and increased scale and contrast for the purpose of emphasizing an idea.
This colourway came about as we were experimenting with the idea of working with printing primaries (cyan, magenta, and yellow), and mixing them with a broad white base. Charlotte dyed several rounds of test samples in many different ways and our entire team was involved in reviewing the test skeins, over and over. I observe people’s reactions — watching for a flicker in their eyes and listening to words used to describe the colours. This month’s response was visceral. I get it, it’s a little like a punch to the face.
Dyeing these colours on spinning fibre this month is interesting because the colours in the fibre can be mixed together like clay, if you like. Blend the primary colours and make new colours. Blend the strong primary colours with white and lighten the overall effect. Or strip the colours and preserve as much vibrancy as possible to get sharp colour contrasts. So much can be done with spinning fibre. See Kim McKenna’s School of SweetGeorgia course, Spin a Hand-Dyed Braid Five Ways, for some inspiration.
PROJECT IDEAS
Dyeing these colours on yarn was an intense challenge. I love the appearance of the colours in the skein. The bold, saturated colours blending into the next, but set off by the white background. The big question was how it would look after knitting it up. I could feel everyone holding their breath. And so I cranked a sock and the colours ripped a spiral through the sock that looked like a violent flash of lightning. It was amazing.
A lightning rod is a protection mechanism. It’s designed to absorb and take all the damage. One of the fears of working with handpainted yarns is how they will work up into a project. So included with this month’s colourway set, we have focused on absorbing all the fear of colour and have put together a wide range of projects to inspire you.
Introduce movement into your knitting using chevrons or break up handpainted colours by knitting stripes. Or embrace the colour sections and explore planned colour pooling. SweetGeorgia Team member, Anita, played with planned pooling with knitting the “Fairy Leaves” pattern by Gladys We. It’s a striking example of the different ways we can work with handpainted yarns. Read more about Anita’s colour pooling scarf project here.
Handpainted skeins are also ideal for an easy faux-ikat colour technique on rigid heddle looms. The process is simpler than you can imagine. You can learn more about this technique at Handwoven Colour, in Lesson 4: Faux Ikat Scarves.
JOIN THE CONVO
Whether you knit, crochet, weave, or something else, we would love to hear your thoughts on this colour of the month and to see what you make with it. Join us over at our crafty community at the SweetGeorgia Discord server. We’ve created a special section just for Secret Stash and we’ll create a new thread for each new delivery.
You can also find samples of our past Secret Stash Club projects at the Project Index »
As well, you can see a closer look of this colourway reveal at our June SweetGeorgia livestream »
