Noro madness

If you don't know it, there's a color-changing yarn around that has lots of people under its spell. A clever fellow in Brooklyn designed a 1X1 ribbed striped scarf that is so addictive that people all over the country are making them. I even know a woman who is working on TWO. You can find hundred of pictures of these on Flickr. Here's my first one in progress, made with Noro Silk Garden, a blend of silk, wool, and mohair. It's going to Caleb, who will be instructed to keep it on the outside of his coat, not next to his skin -- or he can hang it in his bedroom as a banner. The colors are really richer than shown here. The wonderful thing about working with this yarn, is that you never know which colors are going to turn up and what the juxtapositions will look like. I started with two colors, one quite bright and one quite dark, but in places they become almost the same. Time to buy some more. (Warning: it's not cheap. But it's worth it.)

Color: a Side Trip

See this wonderful blogpost from colourlovers.com showing transportation maps of the world. If you love the MBTA map or the NY City system (which I have on a mug,) you'll love this.

http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2008/02/13/navigating-by-color-in-maps/

Here's my mug again, and a couple of other things around the house:

64 Different Brilliant Colors

When I was a child I colored. I also painted and cut paper and glued and pasted and sometimes taped it together into creations. They were ephemerals, and I've always been since those days the fan but never the artist. I love crayons and colors and hues and intensities and color names and blending and the tactile nature of doing it on paper or whatever -- experiment!. The smell of Crayola crayons is important to my childhood, right up there with pine needles and beach air and low tide and fish parts drying on docks and wood fires. And it's still there, folks. Some visitor asked during my recent visit to the Crayola Factory (which see further on), "Uhh, where does the smell come from?" And the guy said brightly, "Paraffin wax and pigment!" and most of the people were satisfied and went on the the next question. I still don't know where the smell comes from (or maybe how).
~~~~~~~~~~~

I could write every day about crayons. I could have entries for at least a month. They would be alt of fun for me to write, and they would quickly get very boring for my faithful reader(s). But I'll do it anyway, because I like to. Better formatting than handwriting.

~~~
The song "64 Different Brilliant Colors" is a brilliant and colorful song with shades and shadows, performed by a pair of young women a decade or two ago. My copy of the original album is on tape.

If you feel like coloring and have a printer nearby, here's a real gem. It gives me a frisson from my childhood, when we could buy a coloring book and if we wanted to duplicate a picture we could trace it with tracing paper (probably produced by Crayola, oh yeah!).

http://www.crayola.com/free-coloring-pages/print/no.4-midnight-blue-coloring-page/