Tue 10 Aug 2010
Every once in a while, the universe likes to send me a reminder that I’m not really in control. Sometimes the reminder is subtle, sometimes it is not.
Fortunately, this time it is at least gentle.
I kicked off my crafty weekend with a dye day. A friend of mine has been wanting to try her hand at throwing color on fiber, and she came over for the morning on Saturday. I have another friend who has been very nice about giving me rides all the time, and she helped me pick up the loom, so I wanted to make her a small skein of handspun to show my appreciation. Her color is green, and sometimes purple, but not the tone of either that I tend to wear. I go for blue-greens and saturated colors, she loves the yellow greens that remind me of baby leaves unfolding in the springtime.
I knew roughly which green I wanted, and went over to the sample cards to pick the potion to get it. We decided on a mixture of three dyes for the green, shot through with a very strong solution of burgundy. Something to evoke pale green and dark lilac.
We made the solutions, painted them onto the yarns, rolled them up in their cellophane cinnamon rolls, and steamed. Then we waited impatiently while the fiber cooled enough to touch without felting. As with watched pots, hot wool cooling in August takes quite a while if you are standing around waiting for it.
Finally, the fiber was cool, and it was time to see what we got.
Acid green and almost-brown.
That last picture doesn’t quite give you a sense for how day-glow that green is. This one is a little better:
I still like it, and I like it more and more as the days go by, but it is definitely not evoking lilacs.
I’m ok with this, because I really enjoy being just on the magic side of control when dyeing, but a leeettle closer to the mark would have been nice!
I think I will spin it anyway and see what happens. It may turn into the most glorious skein I’ve ever made. Or I might overdye. But I will not get too excited about being able to dye whatever I want. Instead, I think I will glory in the unexpected.
The other piece of roving was much closer to what I’d planned, though again not exactly on the mark. This one I dyed first with black, hoping for a medium grey base. Then I added concentrated burgundy intended to be an accent color. What I got is a burgundy with a little bit of grey.
It’s hard to hold a grudge, though. Do you see that color?
6 Responses to “ Not completely in control ”
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The green and purple/brown color will look lovely all spun up. The burgundy in the other one is lovely. That is part of dyeing that I love. There can be the appearance of control, but sometimes they yarn and dye do whatever pleases them the most.
I had to biggify the picture – gorgeous! I am totally in the dye-is-magic camp. Every time I try to do something exact, it’s frustrating, but the surprises are always happy ones!
The green/purpley brown ones make me think of wild ginger. And that fuschia one – rubies on cotton.
Hurry up and spin them, please!
Having never done any dying (that’s one mess I’d like to avoid–I have enough trouble with plain old water!), it’s always amazing to me when a dyer using multiple colors is able to create just what she wants, or even an unexpected but lovely surprise. I would think a muddy mess would be the “easier” outcome! That’s certainly not the case here–the burgundy especially looks like it could spin up into something lovely.
This is the part of dyeing that just fascinates me – the way it doesn’t necessarily turn out the way you planned, but it does often turn out beautifully nevertheless.