Making what is "good" v. making what sells.

Every day, I face the same dilemma. Should I make what people want? Or make what I know will sell? Or should I make what I know is good, even if it doesn't sell? Or both? I am sure you know what I'm talking about, no matter what line of work you are in.

Well, here is what it is like as a yarn designer: I learned years ago which gauges and color combinations sell the best. If I want to have a more lucrative business, I will stick with purples, teals and greens. People scarf those up in a heartbeat.

But in my heart, I know that the average yarn buyer does not necessarily look good in purple. It takes a certain complexion and hair color range to wear it, e.g.: Women of Color or Caucasian brunettes with brown eyes and dark hair. A pale blonde, on the other hand, does not really wear purple well; purple wears her. A pale blonde often looks outstanding in peach. But peach yarn is the kiss of death in terms of online yarn sales. I have made peach color combinations that took over a year to sell out. 

And peach is far from being the least popular. Pastels in general do not sell as quickly as bright colors. Gray is worse. I have a wool blend yarn called Paiolo that I think is to die for, but it is gray and copper, so it sells slowly. And gray is nothing--NOTHING--compared to maroon and navy. I rue the day I created a maroon, navy, silver yarn that echoed the New England Patriots colors. It was a stunning, dramatic yarn but took three years to sell.

I know I cannot change the buying public. But I wish I could hold little workshops and show people which colors work best with their coloring and which fibers work best for certain applications. That fuzzy purple acrylic from Walmart may be easy on the wallet, but it will look very cheap worked up as a child's sweater and will start pilling after a few washes. It's not a bargain. I have non-fuzzy acrylic strands in my yarn studio that do not pill and add strength to any garment. I'm sure I repel the purists by using it, but I know that when I mix it with cotton, it makes the yarn easier to knit, whereas 100% cotton yarn can be so stiff, it makes your hands ache. And when mixed with wool, it adds strength.

Sorry, I digress. I was talking about color, not fiber.

Chinchilla, the yarn at the top and bottom of this post, is a great example of what I mean. I put a lot of thought into it. I used gray, beige, taupe and ivory to give it lots of texture and depth. The gray or beige alone would have been boring, but the two together, especially with the multi-color beige/tan strand I used, make it a fascinating yarn. I put a thin green rayon in there for pizazz, without disrupting the overall muted quality. The ivory is an odd crinkly wool that gives the yarn a bit of fluffy excitement without going overboard into a chunky, mohair fluff extravaganza which is unflattering in a sweater--although fluffy can be very nice in a hat. Chinchilla could be stunning on a man or woman with graying hair or anyone with muted coloring. It's also a classic, dignified, sophisticated palette. But it's going to languish in my shop for some time, I feel sure, since it isn't a neon shade of purple that makes your jaw drop and your heart pound.

dj runnels

Life's an Expedition

Primary color blending in your crafts

In my last post, I wrote about mixing pastels and promised to give examples of yarn and color mixing in my work. Despite my short memory, I have not yet forgotten that promise (yippee!) and now I'm going to show something with primary colors.


You probably already know this, but for those who don't: red, blue and yellow are primary colors on the color wheel. These colors can be mixed to create secondary colors. Red and blue makes purple. Blue and yellow makes green. Red and yellow makes orange.

An easy way to remember these is to envision the classic 8-pack of Crayola crayons. If you omit the black and brown, these are the six colors you have left. The crayons in this pack are bright and saturated and that is why they will often go together in your artwork, home decorating and wardrobe planning.

If you were wearing a blue and yellow summer outfit, for example, you would probably want both the blue and yellow to be bright or both to be pastel or both to be muted. That doesn't mean you are locked into this rule, but if you aren't sure, the bright-with-bright, pastel-with-pastel and muted-with-muted is a good rule of thumb to follow.

In home decorating, imagine a living room decorated in medium light blue and medium light yellow in a sort of French country to Provencal scheme. Or think of a children's room, decorated in bright blue and yellow. For the exterior of a house, you might choose a muted smoky blue and very muted yellow trim.

Often small accents can tolerate a smattering of colors, whereas the backdrop will only use one or two.  A pillow in red, blue and yellow--I had a photo here, but lost it, long story--works well as an accent. But you would probably not decorate a room using all of these colors. Perhaps the pillow would serve as an accent on a royal blue sofa. Maybe there is a red side chair across the room. An Oriental carpet might tie the colors together in a dark navy with flecks of red, blue and green. Some houseplants would echo the green in the carpet and in the pillow.

Similarly, in your wardrobe, you instinctively know that when you put on a navy wool suit, you can get away with a vivid red, blue, yellow paisley scarf and perhaps some garnet jewelry.

Men might choose a navy suit, yellow dress shirt with a navy rep tie. Perhaps you are tempted to point out that navy is a muted color and the yellow shirt a man would most likely wear would be a pastel yellow and that this contradicts what I said earlier. That is because I have no freaking idea what I am talking about.

But I can usually wing it. Except for the time when I was pregnant and shopping for dress fabric and a contrasting floral collar fabric with my mother. The dress fabric was peach. And I thought the collar fabric was peach, blue and white until I got it home and saw it was rose, blue and white. "Why did you let me buy that?" I wailed to my mother, who has a master's degree in art. She said he hadn't wanted to argue with me. And maybe that is also a good rule of thumb. If you think you know what you are doing, trust your instincts and don't let people talk you out of them. But don't help me shop for maternity fabric, okay?!

dj runnels
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