Sobre La Luna: My Colorway for Malabrigo yarns
Sobre La Luna by Lena Fedotova
I am over the moon and feel so honoured to have my own color in my favorite yarn! ❤︎
Sobre La Luna is a new Malabrigo colorway, created in collaboration with me, and available in both Rios (worsted) and Sock (light fingering) bases.
It's a very pale blue with a little warmth inside.
It feels very quiet, almost faceless, like all neutrals - and yet, it is colored.
For me, someone who doesn't wear grey, beige, black, or white, it feels like a new kind of neutral: with the calm balance of grey or beige, but still holding a touch of color.
My first color submission was completely different (Lemon Sorbet in pic 1), and luckily it was rejected, with a note saying the color should somehow connect to me as a designer and reflect my style and vibe.
I kept thinking about lots of different colors (pic 2) and even paused my anime a million times to look closely at the palettes they used!
I spent hours on Pinterest, exploring colors from three different perspectives:
How they work with different appearances: skin tone, hair color, eye color. I wanted a shade that feels beautiful on many people.
How they feel: is it casual, romantic, elegant, playful? I wanted a multi-mood color that can shift depending on the stitches, shapes, or the way you style it.
How they pair with other colors: easy, classic choices and bold ones too.
At the same time, I was trying to find a connection between these colors and myself.
I am a quiet person; my nickname, @ravliki, means “snail” in Ukrainian, and I feel comfortable in my shell.
I am a marine soul: most of my adult life has been spent on sailing boats at sea.
And most importantly, I design quiet crochet. My designs can be colorful and bright, but by nature, they are always very gentle.
So what could be more soothing, quieter, and softer than this pale blue? :) It felt so right!
And it met all my requirements for a good color choice:
it works lovely with different appearances,
has a multi-variational mood,
and pairs beautifully with many color combinations. Just take a look!
Its mood can vary widely: from calm, icy, and distant to soft, innocent, and gentle.
And this pale blue also has so many pairing possibilities! You can see classic combinations with white, beige, taupe, and brown, but it also works beautifully with light green, bright yellow, orange, deep burgundy, butter, pink, and many more.
I sent my submission, and this time it was accepted. Everything had already taken shape in my mind. But there was one surprising moment, when I received the skeins and looked closely at them!
I lack knowledge in many areas, so I learn as I go. One of my personal discoveries was the balance between warm and cool tones.
Every time I picked colors for my crochet colorwork, I naturally chose either two cool shades or two warm ones. It felt very logical to me, but the result was rarely pleasing. Then, just for fun or out of desperation, I replaced one shade and mixed a warm and a cool tone together and suddenly everything looked right to me.
I kept repeating this pattern without understanding it, until I learned about warm-cool contrast. It creates depth and movement, and the mix of these tones makes the fabric feel more alive.
Malabrigo often uses this approach in the colorways I love most. I first noticed it in my beloved Choco colorway: the rich chocolate base has warm brown splashes and deep cool violet spots. This creates incredible depth. The same is for Rosalinda (which I used for my next Chocomania shawl) and many other shades.
The new colorway, Sobre La Luna, also has this cool + warm combination. The base is very neutral and cool, but it includes warm beige touches, which make the yarn look like it’s glowing! -`♡´-
I didn’t think about this consciously - just imagining the color - and Malabrigo worked their magic on their own. ◍•ᴗ•◍
Sobre La Luna colorway comes in two bases: Rios (worsted) and Sock (light fingering) and I designed two patterns for each base:
Crochet cables in an easy lovely way: Moonwake sweater and Moonflower wrap
And two 3-in-1 patterns: In Three Ways shawl and cowl, each pattern includes three options.
The photos were taken under different lighting - at sunset and on a cloudy day - so the shade varies, sometimes turning brighter and bluer, and other times softly blending into the sky… ♡
