With a project this size, I am hooking it knowing that I need to love it forever. Since I (hopefully) have more than half of my life still ahead of me, forever is a very long time. I intentionally tried to stay away from a trendy colour scheme, while at the same time including a lot of different colours (so that it can be matched to many different decorating schemes, I hope), but all colours that I love (note the absence of yellow - ha ha!). Darks are many shades of black, brown, charcoal, navy, plum, teal, green....there are also pinks, reds, purples, and a bunch of light neutrals. I've made a concerted effort to add in the lighter colours.
In the centre section, the only real value rule I've been using – other than including a wide range of light to dark – is to alternate the outside of each main shape between lighter values and darker values. These main shapes are somewhat stepped (on a slight diagonal), so the edges of the darker shapes are always butted up against lighter shapes.
Within these main shapes, pretty much anything goes. There is no formula for light, medium or dark within each of the main shapes – I just want the overall effect to be random. I try to float the colours and textures around....and to have a noticeable change in value. Sometimes I'm successful, and other times not so much, as you can see in this greyscale version of the previous post's picture.....
Due to the scale of the shapes (the outside section is about 1/3 of a square foot, which translates into about 1/6 of a yard of wool), I don't want to have to worry about having enough of any one wool for a section, so I choose a main piece/colour for each section and supplement it with leftover cut strips from my bins. The amount of supplementing varies, depending on my mood, the colour, the size of the piece of wool , etc. Not only does this method eliminate the fear of running out, it also makes it more interesting to hook and adds some nice subtle movement....
I also think it will add some great camouflage, when it's in service on the floor! :-)
I am still uncertain about the borders. I was planning on moving the pinks, reds and purples out into one of the borders (still debating about whether or not it will be wide as I had originally planned or narrow), using the dark and medium blues, blacks, browns and greens in a wider border, and also thinking about maybe having a skinny, 3" or less black and white (i.e. light and dark) border. My ideas are definitely changing as I hook. It's very difficult to imagine the scale. Alas, there is still lots of time to figure out the borders -- I still have 18.75 square feet to hook in the centre section first.
