Color Affection – multiple choice!

After doing some swatching with the two colors I was planning to use for Color Affection, I wasn’t sure I liked how big the contrast was between the two colors. If I were using three colors as in the original, the value contrast would probably be good, but with just two, I’m not so sure. I’m thinking that having thick/thin stripes might be a better way to go – more like the pinstripe effect in the Stripe Study shawl.

I had the bright idea of using a photo of a finished shawl and digitally manipulating it to change the colors and play with different ideas for the stripes. I spent a lot of time browsing through projects on Ravelry. The photo that leaped out at me as being a good choice happened to be by someone whose blog I follow, and she did a blog post about it that very day. I asked her if I could use her photo for this purpose and share it on my blog, and she kindly agreed.

So thanks to Susan of the Rainey Sisters, here are my mock-ups. You can see the original photo of Susan’s beautiful shawl (along with her sister Sally’s) and their blog post here. The following photos are, of course, copyright Susan Rainey.

Her first color was close enough to mine that I didn’t bother trying to change it. I did change the other colors to more closely match my darker color, but it’s still a bit lighter than my yarn. I really don’t know much about using photo editing software, so I’m sure there was probably a faster, easier way to do this than how I did it, but it worked well enough.

Version 1 – original stripes, changed to two-tone instead of three colors:

Version 2 – larger stripes on the bottom section:

Version 3 – larger stripes in the center section:

Version 4 – larger stripes in both sections:

I think I’ve decided on my favorite, but what’s yours?