Color Palettes

A few years ago, I went a little crazy making my own color palettes from my own photographs and here I’ll share a few of them with you. Who knows, maybe they’ll inspire you!

I am absolutely in love with these colors together. It is a vibrant medley of everything an outdoor market is. A swirl of color and activity together with deliciousness. This photo was taken at a Parisian market six summers ago. Six summers?! No. Yes. Goodness.

These neutral tones with just a splash of magenta red are lovely! This dog in Normandy, France on the coast.

Though we all think of nut brown as a neutral there are some vibrant hues in mixed nuts too. Don’t you just love the bright green from the pistachios and the cashews bringing in a bit of brightness? They taste good too! If you want to make spiced nuts, the recipe is right here.

Love these colors!

This window ledge is just outside the door to the café where my husband and I ate on our first date. It may not seem like much but have you ever seen a piece of varnished wood look so loved?

This looks so refreshing and I love these colors together.

Have you ever stopped and thought what beautiful colors aged cheese has? No, neither have I. That often. But when I saw Creeny, a raw milk sheep cheese handmade in Corleggy, Co. Cavan, I thought it was a lovely nutty beige. And I don’t like the color beige so that says a lot. The bright lime green raffia ribbon adds such a cheerful and handcrafted touch to the packaging.

Well, no watermelons in this post but definitely kumquats. But I can’t think of the word Kumquat without thinking of the word Watermelon because there was an adage my algebra teacher used to say all the time and it just stuck in my head. Not that I remember what it was about in the math sense, but I think it was along the lines of comparing apples to oranges. Anyway, I had seen Kumquats in California before but not since moving to Ireland (in 2008) so when we were on Ischia (an Italian island near Capri/Naples), I was delighted to see this little guy growing on the balcony where we were staying. Now I already loved pink and green or pink and orange together so when I was thrilled with this sight. I drank it in, then I aimed my camera.

Four years ago, I was looking for a fabulous birthday present for an awesome (understatement) friend, Suzi (you may remember her as co-designer of the recently published These Islands book or from this dyeing wool post, this shawl post, this robot-related post, or this care package post). She spins, she knits, she crochets, she does physics and maths that boggle my mind, she does stand-up comedy, and she is very clever and funny – not that any of this even sums up how interesting and lovely she is. So, as you can imagine, this gift had to be reallllllly thoughtful. I decided to coordinate with a dyer (MandaCrafts) on Etsy to have a custom color way created through space-dyeing soybean-based fibre. The result was Quantum Circus, a one-of-a-kind color way designed by me (I’m rather proud of that since I don’t spin so it was a leap of faith). The process was a delight and very exciting to be able to create something unique and out of my imagination. I sent Amanda ideas and she gave me feedback based on how soybean fibres would take certain colors. Back and forth a couple times and after I sent a color palette of sorts, it was ready to become a reality. And best of all MandaCrafts is based in the UK so she shipped directly to my friend, saving me a trip to the post office while carrying around my big old pregnancy belly. The gift was well received and an instant favorite. Here’s a photo of the roving with a color palette.

Which color palette is your favourite? Do you make them too?
Had you already seen these in my Color Palettes board on Pinterest?