Start Simple

I dyed two skeins of yarn tonight. The jury is still out. I thought I'd be clever and pick three colors for a cold pour paint. I picked purple, teal and orangey salmon--pretty much the secondary colors, or there about. I was going for a muted purple/lavendar, light teal, and just a hint of pink/orange. I added a bit of yellow to the purple to bring it into a more plum range, and then diluted it. To the teal, I added a bit of salmon. I was trying to desaturate by adding the opposite color. The teal looked pretty good on my test coffee filter. The salmon was just plain LOUD, so I tried to soften it and bring in more orange by adding yellow dye. Again, really good on the coffee filter.

So, I started to pour. Three mistakes....

1. When working on a new colorway, take copius notes (which I did) and only dye one skein at a time (I dyed two.)

2. When working with three opposite colors, watch out for gray, which is what happened at the teal/salmon transition.

3. I have a lovely little purple spot on my white t-shirt. It's not a good place for a spot unless, of course, you want people to wonder why you have a purple spot on one boob and not the other, and does it have any particular meaning?

I had hoped that I added enough salmon to the teal to bring it down so it would blend nicely, but it started to go gray in a hurry. They really neutralized each other out...which, now that I'm writing about it, is what I was trying to do in the mixing, but not what I anticipated in the pour. Duh, Chris.

The teal and purple are absolutely lovely together, and since this was a cold pour, there are lighter and darker sections. Total yum! I think I'm going to over-dye the salmon sections with purple or maybe sapphire. I'll let the skeins dry over night and make my final judgement tomorrow. Who knows, maybe when they dry they'll be what I intended.

Maybe I could get the skeins wet, hang them on hangers above my dye pot and immerse (or emerge depending on your denomination) just the salmon sections in dye exhaust, letting the exhaust "creep" up the skein. I wonder if that would work. Ponder. Maybe I'll just do the dye "creep" with purple dye dunking it in the same manner as making candles. Ponder.

A final rant: Today, I was craving a chocolate shake. I can't remember the last time I had one (years) and it just sounded good. It was 94 degrees and I wanted a frozen chocolatey something I could slurp through a straw. Two McDonald's, two out-of-order shake machines. Is it a conspiracy? The old bait and switch? They suck.

I decided on the next project: Jaywalker Socks from MagKnits in Socks that Rock Lightweight Merino Terra Firma. Tasty! (Much tastier than the chocolate shake I didn't get.)