well, for the last little while here in toronto the only colour around has been coming out of the dyepot. i hate to reinforce any stereotypes about canada as a cold, barren wilderness, cause it's actually really beautiful here for a big part of the year, and in the summertime it's fully hot and humid. but this year.....well, spring is certainly taking it's sweet time in arriving, and we've had i don't know how many days of cold, grey rain. it's my poor husband's first full winter here, and back in february he declared that he didn't think the canadian winter was all that bad, and that people exaggerate. and now....well, now that it seems to still be winter, he's changed his tune a bit. i've noticed him more than once checking the forecast in paris, where he used to live, and the reports of sunshine and 20 plus degrees do nothing to lift the spirits.
but enough complaining, and time for some colour. i dyed a bunch of skeins of superwash merino this week - a beautiful soft yarn that takes the dye amazingly well. i've got a few projects to knit up with this yarn, and will also wind off some small skeins to sell.
some lovely variegated shades of cochineal
a mixture of onion skin, osage, madder and indigo. i wasn't immediately taken with any of these three shades when they first came out, but then when i placed them together it produced a fun, kind of retro colour scheme that i quite enjoy.
onion skin and osage on the bottom, and straight weld on the top. yellow is by far the easiest colour to achieve with natural dyestuffs (or at least the majority of dyestuffs yield some kind of yellow), but the wonderful thing is what a wide range of shades it's possible to coax out of the pot. i was actually aiming for a colour somewhere in between these two, but i've also learned over the years that it's better not to have too many expectations as far as precise colours, and indeed both of these are quite lovely yellows i think, even if they weren't my original 'goal'.
cross your fingers for some sunshine.....
but enough complaining, and time for some colour. i dyed a bunch of skeins of superwash merino this week - a beautiful soft yarn that takes the dye amazingly well. i've got a few projects to knit up with this yarn, and will also wind off some small skeins to sell.
some lovely variegated shades of cochineal
a mixture of onion skin, osage, madder and indigo. i wasn't immediately taken with any of these three shades when they first came out, but then when i placed them together it produced a fun, kind of retro colour scheme that i quite enjoy.
onion skin and osage on the bottom, and straight weld on the top. yellow is by far the easiest colour to achieve with natural dyestuffs (or at least the majority of dyestuffs yield some kind of yellow), but the wonderful thing is what a wide range of shades it's possible to coax out of the pot. i was actually aiming for a colour somewhere in between these two, but i've also learned over the years that it's better not to have too many expectations as far as precise colours, and indeed both of these are quite lovely yellows i think, even if they weren't my original 'goal'.
cross your fingers for some sunshine.....
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