My friend Page isn't the only person who loves purple and green color combos. I do too; I like green and orange almost as much. Haven't gotten to the third obvious choice, purple and orange (all these colors, if you hadn't noticed, are the so-called secondary colors; that is, you obtain them in subtractive situations, such as mixing paints, by blending two primaries) which I find a bit lurid. —As if I should talk!
However, color is very much a cultural, as well as visceral, choice; and western culture is not into orange, and barely tolerates purple. Poor purple! Once the emblem of emperors, it now is relagated, along with fuscia, to “women's status”.
I used to think traditional Japanese ideas about color and cloth were really weird—pink only to be used for spring (e.g. cherry blossoms) and rust for autumn (maple leaves); large repeats for younger women, with the size of the motif diminishing with age; and so on and so on and so on.... However, american culture has just as many if not more restrictions on color. Green suits are the kiss of death; men never wear pink or purple. They can wear some pastels (pink and yellow) as shirts with grey pinstripes, but how often do you see a pink tie? Caucasions as a rule don't like orange (which I find hysterically funny, because your average WASPy american is none other than a high tint of same)—etc etc etc. What do stores that paint their facades in yellow say to you?
(Another shot) So, for whatever reason, though I really like two of the three pairings of secondary colors, I've never gotten closer than mixing garnet and orange to the third.
These braids have a wool yarn of yellow, green and cobalt for half the strands. The single ply green-to-blue ombre used in the two of the tassels is beautiful, but shreds apart on the marudai. Again I've used some of the crewel wool scraps to make the tassels, especially the lighter ones. Good as my camera is, alas, some of the violets and reds are a bit hot–add in the vagaries of monitors, and this picture can only be said to be a approximation of the true colors.
wool, cotton, silk.
The bracelet, below, uses the same yellow/green/cobalt ombre yarn, and is braided with fuscia and purple. Yes, fuscia, even if the yarn looks like a pinkish red. It's woven over memory wire, a bit of a pest; I held the wire out of the way by attaching it to my fan pull by means of a string.
wool, cotton, steel
Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.
