Fiber Arts Friday: Character to Colorway - Edward Cullen

Happy Fiber Arts Friday, everyone!! I hope you've had a fabulous week playing with string. I know I have, mostly the kind of playing where I get dye all over my hands and my clothes.

(Have I considered changing my T-shirt before playing with dye? Yes I have. Have I actually done it? No, I have not. Gimme a break, my kids are home from school for two weeks.)

Anyway, I dyed up a new colorway this week in response to a request from one of my favorite customers, Chris of GHL Designs. Chris is participating in my Halloween Knit-Along and she wanted Edward Cullen sock yarn.

Hmm, I get to spend the week obsessing thinking logically about a sexy, sparkly vampire? I love my job!

Anyway, this week for Fiber Arts Friday I thought I'd take you on a little journey with me about how I take a character and turn him into a colorway. In this case, Mr. Cullen.

With Edward, I thought about the book and movie versions of his character. I loved the books when I read them, but I also think Robert Pattinson is a hottie, so for me there was no way to separate the two versions of Edward in this colorway creation.

When I think of Edward Cullen, I think of him as being an old soul, since he's actually a really old vampire in the body of a young hottie. So I wanted his colorway to be sophisticated and distinguished rather than loud/bold. Here are the main points that came to mind:
- I thought of how Bella's first impression of Edward was that he was a "stupid shiny Volvo owner," so I added gray to the colorway.

Hello, sexy. (Photo from GraphicsHunt.com)

- I thought of how hot Robert Pattinson looks in that slate blue color from the movies, so I added slate blue to the colorway.










- I thought about how Edward's eyes change colors as he goes from satisfied to hungry (mmmmm), so I added topaz and black to the colorway.

Here's the finished result, in all his glory:

Now I just need to dye this up on my Starlet Sock base so it can sparkle! ;)

This isn't the way I always do my colorways. Sometimes I have more of an emotional connection with a character and I use the colors that bring out those emotions (like my Eric Northman colorway that's all sexy reds). Sometimes there's an actual color description in a book and I use that (like Octarine, which is a greenish purple color b/c that's how Terry Pratchett describes the color of magic). Sometimes I use the images from a film to come up with the whole colorway, and other times I take my customer's input. In any case, I like to think I have a pretty good system for putting color onto yarn and making it work, and I thought it would be fun to share at least part of that system with you!

I didn't put Edward in the shop, but I did add six other skeins today! Check it out:

Now it's time for you to share with me! What have you been up to this week? What has inspired you? Why don't you blog about your fibery adventures and then share them at Wonder Why Gal's blog so the rest of us can enjoy sharing your creative journey? Have an awesome, yarn-filled weekend everyone!!