Earlier this week, I sat down with Casapinka over Zoom (the only way to meet these days!) and we had a chat about Sharon, The Sharon Show, and finding some happiness in pretty colors.
Here's a little bit of what we talked about.
So first, can we talk about Sharon from Security? Who is Sharon?
Well, it's actually Sharon From Security - the F in Security has to be capitalized or she will get REALLY mad. Even though she's 1, she can still spell. She's also my cat and is employed as a Security Guard but she doesn't have the best work ethic and is constantly complaining that the break room is devoid of snacks and that she is underpaid.
She also has a few colleagues who trouble her, most notably Jean from I.T. (whose F has is lower case - please note that.) Jean likes to torment SFS by parking her beat-up Le Sabre in SFS's Employee of the Month spot. Sharon does, however, really like Oliver from the Office (Miss Babs' pup) because he's really good-natured and also likes hamburgers like she does.
If you could describe Sharon in a few words….
Snarky, mischievous, entitled...but also really sweet. Purrs a lot which is disconcerting when she's about to make a bust. She was rescued from a dog pound and cost $10 so I think she also feels really happy to live at Casapinka even though she postures a lot.
And so how does Sharon get to design a knitting pattern?
I decided to give her a little more responsibility after she sent out a pattern update for me and helped me with emails - so now she's writing the pattern for The Sharon Show. I'm just producing it. Or something. And I don't really know how it will go. I think you might say that we are all involved in a social experiment but since we're also in a pandemic, it seems to just be the icing on the cake. I really wish everyone luck!
How to pick colors for The Sharon Show
The Sharon Show calls for four skeins of fingering weight yarn - one in each of four colors.
Some people seem to get really stuck on the idea of having to pick out four colors they love at once.
So, what I like to do is start with just one color instead. Start with the color you love the most! There’s no point in knitting something you don’t love; life is too short. We’ve all been there, you get drawn to this one skein that you’re just really attracted to. So start there.
Let’s say you really like a highly variegated colorway - a yarn that has a lot of different colors in it. Look closely at it and start picking the colors apart, identifying all the different colors you see. I really like the Color Compare feature on Miss Babs’ site - just start adding lots of colors to it, move them around, see what you get.
Here are just a couple of examples of what your four colors might look like.
Deep Sea Jellyfish - picking out different pinks, oranges, and gray
Exuberance - separating the speckles out from the base color
Ocean Jasper - blues and grays that blend, plus a pop
In conclusion...
The Sharon Show is a mystery - I can’t give too much away - but basically all of the colors you’re using need to be different. There can’t be common colors between your skeins, which makes variegated colorways hard to use.
Most importantly, have fun with it!
Thank you, Casapinka, for the introduction and the color advice!
More details about the MKAL
The Sharon Show Mystery Knit-Along will begin on August 7 and run for 6 weeks in the Casapinka group on Ravelry. The pattern is now on sale and you’ll be able to download a planning sheet before the first clue comes out to help determine your color choices. There's also more guidance on Ravelry, Instagram, and Facebook.
Here at Miss Babs we have Quartets made up in a variety of our fingering weight yarns: our versatile superwash Merino Yummy 2-Ply; luxurious merino-cashmere-nylon Caroline, and wool-silk Woodbury. We are also recommending wool-silk Yet as an alternate choice for this project - while it is a heavy lace weight yarn, we find it works well in fingering weight projects like shawls if you go down a needle size. It wears well and is a great value.
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Catnip stitch