not to be a hater, but...(color, demystified)

See part one of this series here.

Please don't take this the wrong way. It's not an indictment of your character, nor does it indicate whether or not I like you as a person.

But I hate football with the blinding passion of one thousand suns. The reasons are many. I will spare you the social commentary.

If you are a person who likes football, more power to you. You go right ahead and enjoy that. Just don't try to get me to partake, because I would rather do any of the following:

1. Stare at the back of my bedroom door.

2. Scrub pots.

3. Dig an 18"x18" hole in the ground and then fill it back in.

4. Assemble 26 entire alphabets from letters I clipped out of magazines.

5. Catalog 10,000 baseball cards.

Sadly for me, Minnesotans love football. My father and spouse love football. And that means I can never completely avoid the eyesore that is the Minnesota Vikings logo.

Fine. I'm being a hater. I can own it. Because of the Vikings (the football team, not the explorers), I have an aversion to the color combination of deep purple and bright yellow.

But I really shouldn't. Used correctly (not on a Vikings jersey), purple and yellow are amazing together.

Purple and yellow are complementary colors, meaning they're opposite each other on the color wheel. Complementary color combinations are very eye catching (hence the use of them in sports logos -- you want to be able to see the jerseys from way back in the nosebleeds). They're dynamic, energetic, and in the case of purple and yellow, a combination of elegant and fun.

Purple and yellow can be difficult to dye on the same skein of yarn. When mixed together in a transparent medium like dyes or watercolor paints, purple and yellow make a really ugly gray-brown. So unless that's your intention, you have to keep these colors from blending. That's part of engineering a colorway. If I want to use purple and yellow together, I need to keep them apart or add additional colors.

Yellow makes purple richer, and purple makes yellow even cheerier. Used alone, purple has a serious, mysterious, noble feel. But in conjunction with a spot of yellow, the mood becomes happier, livelier, and hipper. (Please bear in mind that I'm not making a value judgment about whether purple alone is better than purple and yellow together. These are just tools to help you make decisions for yourself.)

High contrast color combinations are often found in flowers, and some botanists feel this is to make it easier for flowers to be pollinated by birds and insects, and thus a way for them to reproduce.

I want you to especially look at this last example. The petals of this pansy are such a dark purple that they're almost black. Amazing. But what makes the flower -- what helps you see the true shade of the petals -- is that tiny bit of yellow in the center.

By comparison, here is the same picture, except I've Photoshopped out the yellow in the center.

Side by side:

What does this mean for your knitting, your clothing, your home? Here are my rules for using purple and yellow together:

1. A little goes a long way. Choose to focus on either the purple or the yellow, and accent it with the opposite color. Much like fashion magazines tell you to pick a feature to focus on -- your eyes or your lips -- but to walk around with a crazy amount of makeup all of your face can be a bit...let's go with...garish.

2. Use colors of varying saturations (or intensities). If you use a lot of dark purple and a lot of bright yellow, you're going to end up with a Minnesota Vikings sweater. Try pairing intense purple with a buttercream yellow. Or mimosa yellow with a lighter magenta. The brighter the accent color, the less you need to use of it.

3. Use clear hues with dirty ones. A clear hue is one in which little to no black (or brown) is added. On this color wheel, the colors on the outside of the wheel have more gray and brown added -- they're dirty. The colors in the middle have more white added, and the clearest colors on this wheel are on the 5th ring in from the edge.

Choose a bright lemon yellow and a red-violet with a bit of brown added. Or a smoky lavender with a spring yellow-green.

Here are some other palette ideas for you:

Source: sikamo.com via Yarnista on Pinterest

Source: layoutsparks.com via Yarnista on Pinterest

Source: google.com via Yarnista on Pinterest

Source: etsy.com via Yarnista on Pinterest

Source: polyvore.com via Yarnista on Pinterest

Does using purple and yellow together mean that you need to go home and paint your living room magenta and get yellow drapes? Of course not. Use them in measured doses based on your preferences. I love the way the bright shades work with the gray sofa here:

Source: google.com via Yarnista on Pinterest

And how they pair with brown here:

Source: google.com via Yarnista on Pinterest

Here are some knitting ideas for you, too:

Eilis:

Elowen + Cian

Brady + Burke

I would love to see a sweater knit from a deep purple, like Enna:

With just one hint of bright yellow, like the edging on a button band.

To give you some further inspiration, I've created a Pinterest board dedicated to purple and yellow. You don't need a Pinterest account to see it, so click here to view. If you'd like an invitation to join, use the contact button in the upper right, include your email address, and I'll send one over.

Feel free to leave questions and comments on the items I've pinned (or here on the blog), and I'll be sure to answer.

So, to recap:

1. Football is the axis of evil.

2. Small amounts of a complementary color richen any palette.

3. Don't feel that you need to surround yourself entirely in complementary colors. Adding pops of purple and yellow to neutrals gives a similar effect without the Minnesota Vikings references.

4. Life is too short to knit with beige yarn.

Perhaps I drank too much Hatorade this morning, and need to back off on the Vikings. So long as you follow the purple and yellow rules, and don't try to knit yourself a jersey, I'll be happy.

Comments

[Tola]

you can always turn to Universal Sports and watch rugby. it is much better than football. try a game.

[Lynn]

Thank you, thank you for sharing. It definately give me a smaile on my face. I do understand, I to am not a great fan of football. Neither does my husband like it, luckily me. Only problem, our doughtier love it with a passion. We dont know how it happened either, go figure....she actually love all sports. We just don't know if it skipped a generation or what???

[Ellen]

I love purple and yellow and I LOVE the outfits you have put together. Could you do that in all colors please so I can at last build a wardrobe because I am sorely lacking in both clothes and love of shopping. Thanks! :)

[Cheryl]

Thank you, I'm learning lots. I often look at flowers for color combination. I figure if Mother Nature can combine certain colors, so can I.

[Yarnista]

That's right, Cheryl. And also think about this: what color does Mother Nature put with nearly everything?

Green.

[Halley | Custom Posters]

I honestly love purple, it's like the color of royalty. Yellow? Not so. Football? I don't like it either. It's not that I hate watching it, it's just that I'm not entertained whenever I watch a game [you're not alone].

[Bridget]

Great post, as usual!!! I, thankfully, am married to a "spouse" who doesn't know anything about football. I know more than him, and that ain't sayin' much! The only football on our TV is when the Oklahoma State Cowboys play, and only when we remember. Orange and black, there too. I agree with the PP, Sharon you need to consult with the NFL and the NCAA, and whoever else on these jersey combos. Obviously they are chosen by men, some of whom must be colorblind! Thankfully, our TV doesn't seem to know that evil ESPN channel, except when my dad visits. On the other hand, ESPN can't be much worse than Nick, Jr. all day for the 2 year old, can it???

[Lisa]

My knitting room is a lovely shade of purple - hubby calls it Viking purple, but it's not (Skol Vikings), but I chose green, gray and black to compliment this lovely shade instead of gold. Much nicer indeed!

[vibeskat]

Oh, I remember when I was a child that purple and yellow together were Easter colors. You'd find them on plush Easter Bunnies and all sorts of stuff. Then it seemed to go out of style and you wouldn't see those colors together.

I think they are a great combination.

[Bridget]

I just had to pop in here and say: You are not alone. I hate football too. It makes me hurl. It's silly and ridiculous, and violent and nonsensical, and chauvinistic and those people get paid way too much for what they do.

Ask Shelley. She will verify the unknown bounds of my loathing.

That I have this opinion is very unfortunate as I am from, and currently live in, South Bend, Indiana. Accordingly, I have been trying to get out for about 29 years. (Why it hasn't happened is another story.)

In short, I feel your pain. And I say: Haters, represent!

[Loraine]

My team is pewter and red- Buccaneers. Nice color combo. I only watch Buc games so not overloaded on football. Being single has it's merits. :-)

Yellow, birght lovely yellow and pastel, sweet yellow is my favorite color. Not gold or orangish yellow but big bold yellow or soft muted yellow. With purple it's lovely. Not sure about the Vikings colors, though. I suppose for kids it's fine.