Color Inspiration

There are so many places to find inspiration for colorways when hand dyeing yarn - a favorite painting, a flower bed, even an emotion.  It can be fun and challenging to try to recreate a color palette literally, or one can simply use the inspiration as a jumping off point.

Here's an example of trying to create a literal interpretation of something from the natural world.

The challenge was to try to replicate the colors in a parrot feather (at least I believe it's from a parrot - if you know otherwise, please let me know!)

I had some hand spun (not by me) wool and some wool roving to work with.  Each was hand painted with Lanaset dyes and steamed to set the color.

The result is pretty close to the real thing, I think.

Sometimes my inspiration comes from pop culture or, more accurately, geek culture.

Anyone who knows me knows that I may just be a bit obsessed with Doctor Who.  The next two yarns pictured were inspired by that wonderful madman with a blue box.  My photos don't really do justice to this one:

All of Time and Space

It's a tonal blue, which I kettle dyed in five successive dye baths.  The blues vary from a pale sky to deep midnight.

The base yarn is Knit Picks Bare superwash fingering.  It's a nice, bouncy blend of 75% merino wool and 25% nylon.

The swatch pictured on the right was knit on US size 2 (2.75 mm) needles.

Here's another Who-themed colorway, inspired by Amy and Rory and their time on the TARDIS.  I love how the browns echo the tweed jacket worn by the Doctor during series 5 and 6.  

Come Along Ponds

Joss Whedon's Firefly was the inspiration for the next three yarns.  The first takes its name from the ship's mechanic, Kaylee.  Although she is perfectly happy to crawl around in the belly of the ship, wrench in hand and smudged with grease, she's a girly girl who likes frills and lace.

Kaylee

This was low immersion dyed.  The yarn was soaked in water with a bit of white vinegar and then put in a pot with just enough water to barely cover it.  The dye solutions were then poured over the yarn and the whole thing was heated to set the color.

I did a variation on this colorway, using the same colors and method, but doubling the intensity of the dye solution to get more saturation.  Not sure which one I like better.

  

Shiny

Lastly, here is another Firefly colorway.  "Captain Tightpants" is named in honor of Malcolm Reynolds, captain of the Serenity.  This was kettle dyed using Bare superwash fingering.  I'll have to check my notes, but I believe this was run through seven dye baths.

Captain Tightpants

Captain Tightpants reskeined

Dyeing for Some Color

It's been such a long time since I last posted, but I'm jumping back in.  Here's a bit of what I've been up to lately:

Gradient Dyed

Immersed in jars set in a water bath

Hand Painted

Most of the yarn dyeing I've done has been with food coloring, although the green and blue skeins in the third photo were dyed with Lanasets.

This next one was also done with Lanasets.  We mixed up a few bits of left over dye solutions at the end of the day and dunked in a couple of hanks of yarn.  I can't really capture the subtle tonal changes in this yarn with my crappy camera and poor photography skills, but the hues range from shades of slate blue to violet to black.  The yarn is a 50% merino, 25% bamboo, 25% nylon blend and it has a nice sheen.

I made a pair of Eunice socks, from Cookie A's Sock Innovation, with this yarn.  The book has some wonderful and challenging patterns from a very talented designer.  Unfortunately, the publisher really dropped the ball on the technical editing.  If you pick up the book (which I recommend because I love Cookie A's designs) be sure to download the errata from Interweave. 

This next yarn was dyed with Wilton's Icing Color.  It's the same base as the previous photo.

I enjoy dyeing yarn more than just about any other crafty project I've ever attempted.  It's kind of like alchemy - mad science meets sorcery.  It's so satisfying to have an idea in mind and seeing that idea become a reality, and also something magical about coming up with something completely unexpected.

Dyeing for Some Sanity

It's been a tough couple of months for the KarKnitz household.  I won't bore you with the details, but one of the recent hits we've taken is the loss of my beloved laptop.  I booted it up one morning and saw the telltale signs of a dying graphics card.  My poor little Macbook is done.  Finito.  No funds to replace it and none on the horizon.  I'm heartbroken.  The one positive thing is that the Spousal Unit was able to save most of the data - what a guy!   Of course this means that I now have limited computer access, but what's a girl to do.

So, I'm dyeing a bit of yarn because delving into a bit of fiber related fun helps distract me from the fact that we're circling the drain right now.

I have lots of ideas for colorways in my head, but am feeling a bit overwhelmed right now and unsure of my ability to execute those ideas.  I really need to find a way to get myself over it.  All that being said, I'm pleased with my last couple of adventures with the dye pot.  These were done with food colors on Serenity Sock from Premier Yarns.  I love that I'm reminded of Firefly whenever I use this yarn!

This was kettle dyed.  I call it Gaugin's Sunset:

This was done using the hot pour method.  It's a colorway I've done before; I call it Lily Pond:

I have two more kettle dyed skeins cooling on the stove now, which I'll post when they're dry if I'm happy with the results.

Last Weekend's Dyeing Project

I had a skein of Lion Brand Fishermen's Wool that I divided into three smaller hanks so I could play with some icing color.

I intended to do a gradient dye with this one, but my blue broke on one end, giving me a spot of pink/purple (damn you, Red #3).  When my husband saw the skein, he said, "It would look cool if you could get some more of those purple bits on it."  So, I twisted the skein to preserve some of the lighter areas of blue and immersed the skein in a new dye bath. 

The next two skeins I did in the crock pot and poured color on.  I think I may run the last one through another dye bath to deepen the color a bit.

What I Dyed Yesterday

I had so much fun dyeing with food colors yesterday. I used a skein of Lion Brand Fishermen's Wool, which I divided into 3 skeins of about 155 yards each, reserving the rest for mini skeins.

The first reminded me of a nebula and since I'm a "Cancer," I'm calling it Crab Nebula. I used Wilton'sWilton’s icing color in Royal Blue and Aster Mauve, Lemon-Lime Kool-Aid, and a mystery green that was a mixture of Kool-Aid and food color drops.



This one was done with Magenta Wilton’s gel and Wilton’s icing color on Royal Blue and Aster Mauve.



The third, Lily Pond, used Wilton’s Buttercup Yellow and Royal Blue, and green food color drops. I originally intended to overdye the twisted skein with a darker green but I really like the way the blue broke and gave me hints of purple and pink so I’m leaving it as is.



I'm heading out to the Handweavers Guild of America Convergence shortly so no time to dye more yarn today.

More Fun with Food Color

I took a day off work so I decided to play with yarn and food coloring.  Currently, there is a skein of yarn in my crock pot and another soaking in a bath of Eucalan before I hang it to dry.  Pictures of those later.

First, I experimented with a couple of micro skeins.  Each is only about 10-15 yards.  I used a combination of Wilton's icing colors and gels and Kool-Aid on these.  Both were painted then steamed.  The blue-green was painted with Buttercup Yellow and Royal Blue Wilton's and Lemon-Lime Kool-Aid, steamed and cooled.  Then I twisted the skein, dipped it in a jar of mystery green,  and steamed it.

I'm not too sure how I feel about the yellow-pink-purple one.  I've decided to call it Tears of a Clown because I think it looks like Circus Circus exploded.

After drying and re-skeining my color experiments I'm very happy with the blue-green, which I'm calling Mossy.  The Tears of a Clown is growing on me.

Fun with Kool-Aid

I decided to do a bit of Kool-Aid dyeing today.  This is some Lion Brand Fishermen's Wool.  I used Black Cherry Kool-Aid with a couple of drops of blue food coloring for the main bit and a mix of Cherry, Grape and Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade for the purple.  After nuking that for a bit I poured some pink lemonade to tone down the orange in the Black Cherry.

Here's some that I did yesterday.  The red/purple is some Paton's Kroy Sock yarn that I've had in my stash for a while.  I did a similar blend as for the Fishermen's wool, although the first dye bath didn't saturate the yarn fully so I had to re-dye it.  Unfortunately, my ties weren't secure so when I went to pick up the hank it fell apart and I had a nasty pile of yarn barf.  About an hour and a half later I had it reskeined and ready to dye again.  I'm really happy with how it came out.

This is some Stitch Nation Full o' Sheep.  I used Pina Pineapple and Lemonade for the yellow, Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade for the aqua and the green was a 2:1 mix of Lemon-Lime and Orange.  I'm torn between leaving this as is or over dyeing it to get a bit more saturation.  Think I'll live with it for a week and then decide what to do.