Color! Color and More Color!

Clouds of prepared wool

Oh my but I love color.  As a child, I loved all things colorful, but there was always and encouragement to be more tasteful in my brightness, tone things down a bit.  When I was a young adult I believe that black and white was mature, conservative and quite professional.  So I kept it calm and professional for a long time.

Then one day I just exploded and had to have color in my life.  Lots of it.  Even on things that are understood to not be colorful -- I wanted there to be color.  Tired of always having modest color cars --red, pink and yellow became the new norm.  Houses are meant to be brown, black, white and taupe.  I had a house that was turtle yellow with bright pink shutters.  It was delightful.  Having color again was like I'd been deprived of air, and finally had an endless supply of invigorating oxygen, gulping it in to keep lively.

I hear the terminology that some people are afraid of color.  What the heck does that mean, and how did it ever become a thing!?  What on earth ever possessed a group of people to decide that it is a good and desirable state to be lacking color? 

One of the pivotal moments of joy in my life came the first time I saw "The Wizard of Oz" in color. It was the early 70's before I saw the movie on my grandmother's color television. Before that, I'd always loved the movie (except for the scary flying monkeys) and had no idea that there was that change from a black and white setting while Dorothy was in Kansas, to vibrant color when she landed in Oz.  Oh my, but color made such a difference in the joy of watching that movie.  Many of the scenes made so much more sense and the contrast between Dorothy's two world became even more pronounced.

We raise Pygora goats for their fiber and because the make such wonderful companions.  I'm on a wonderful quest to harvest, spin, dye, weave, crochet and otherwise use all that luscious yarn- to- be in whatever way I can.  I'm quickly becoming a fiberaholic and someday I'm hopeful my skills might match that level of fiber acquisition. Maybe I'm not overly concerned about that.

The above photo shows the final clouds of fiber from an entire years worth of Sweet Pea, Daisy and Indiana Jones growing out there coats. I'm so proud.  There were so many dye colors to chose from -- it was a heady moment of possibility.  You'll notice that one batch, upper left, is left au natural.  That's because all colors are beautiful -- not just the bold.

I had pink hair once, too.