Colour & Shapes

Though I’m nowhere near a knitting machine, wool or anywhere that needs wool at the moment my mind is still working on design.

Christmas lights still ’round the studio door!

Wandering around the island of St Martin/St Maarten in the Caribbean I’m bombarded by colour and it’s wonderful…especially during a Winter of white on white with white accents at home in Canada! Fortunately our home is yellow so that adds a little colour to the scenery while I’ve been shovelling out the driveway…and there is, occasionally, beautiful blue sky. However…as 25 years ago, when we were first/last here, I’m inspired by the colour.

Marigot, then, had a harbour filled with dozens of brightly coloured fishing boats which inspired my multicoloured striped cardis. I just dove into colours then.

The green of the palm trees is such a beautiful green…you can get some ugly man made greens, and though here there is the red and green we normally associate with Christmas…the red here has a lot of pink in it and it’s balanced with the white.

I love yellow, but it’s a hard colour for most people to wear and needs to be softened with tones that compliment the face….like  this pink or the periwinkley blues of the window and lacy boards. Here white is used to soften the acidity of the yellow.  I also love the patterns in the baseboards interspersed with the green pointy fence posts….the border of a jacket or sweater which is all coral?

This is one of my favourites…wandering along the boardwalk in Philipsburg on the Dutch side of St Maarten I spied these pointy roofs down an alley. Two blues – sky & walls – with the stunning orange of the tiles…yum. I see a periwinkle or mid blue jacket with strong orange accents…somewhere.

Ravenous but still not 5pm we headed to the Hard Rock cafe and downed two ‘Lenendary Burgers’ (I won’t have to eat for a week!)  and watched one of the cruise ships head out to sea. Of course I had to take a pic of Michael Jackson’s jacket …from the 70’s or ’80’s I think. Great colour combo – orange & silver…or grey – and maybe work up the swirly pattern on a mylar sheet or program it into your Brother pattern library.

Try other colour combos…black on white, work a glittery yarn into the swirl pattern and silver beads where these ‘bobbles’ are.

Lumbering along the boardwalk after those monster burgers we came across this little girl who, we were told, was three that day. I asked her if she was making pudding as she stirred whatever was in the ash tray with a loose piece of wood from the picnic table….don’t you just love her dress!!! Knit something in cotton and either dip dye it or hand paint with dyes. Or just find yarns with these strong colours…very ‘island’.

This just spoke to me in the softer colour combination and the stripes and blocks (ventilation holes). This creamy banana yellow is much easier to wear.

Believe it or not this is part of the police station down on the Philipburg boardwalk (deceptive…it’s concrete, no boards…and it wasn’t there 25 years ago). Once again orange and blue but with the deep pinky red of the roof.

Last but by no means least here’s another part of the pink house with the yellow and blue with the green pickets.

Why don’t we paint our houses like this in Canada…wouldn’t that look stunning in our brilliant Summers and really jolly up our white (or dull slushy) Winters.