Dyeing: January 2006 Archives
I'm a little late with this post this morning because I want to show off color. I find that whenever I really want to give a good impression of color, I need to take pictures in natural light. I get decent color representation under my Ott light but it just isn't the same as what my camera likes to do under true sunlight. As it turns out, waiting wasn't a bad thing, because it's a blue skies and sun sort of day here in Chicago. And it isn't even all that cold, so it was no problem to step out on my balcony and let my camera get a good look at my latest small spinning project.
Unfortunately, I didn't remember to take a picture of this roving before I spun it up, but if you want to see what it looked like, you can click here and scroll down to the last picture. It's the roving on the left where the browns and yellows are emphasized instead of the red. Not surprisingly, this yarn has a very different character from the version with the strong red presence (if you want to see the first version spun up, you can click here). And it does remind me more of the idea I was trying to go for, which was autum leaves after they have fallen from a tree (if you've ever seen the leaves from a non-red maple tree after they've fallen, then you know what I was trying to capture).
I really like the way that the brown in this colorway softened up the other colors without making them just look muddy. In fact, it's almost hard to see the brown areas for me because my eye wants to re-evaluate them as an earthy purple
Now I am finally finished with all the rovings I dyed up with Julie. I'm not sure I really have a favorite, but I am definitely going to be playing with all three color sets (Blue Hawaiian, Sunset and Fall Leaves) some more to find ways to avoid the constant striping action. I originally thought that it would be easy to take a couple of different color ideas and get what I wanted and then move onto another batch. This experience makes me realize that it is not so hard to pick colors that go together well, but it is challenging to get them to result in a yarn or a yarn concept that you really like.
A million years ago, in August, Julie and I did our last dyeing experiment. We were hoping to do some more dyeing, but it's a bit more challenging to do it on a larger scale without being able to open windows to help deal with vinegar vapors. Between that and both of us being on the busy side, it's been tough to get back to it. However, I realized this afternoon that I haven't even finished spinning up the roving we dyed then.
The whole point of that session was to start to establish some colorways that made us happy. We actually recorded the colors we used, the percentages and the saturation so that we would have some hope of repeating them. Then we were each going to take what we dyed and spin them up to see whether what was lovely in the fleece turned out to be equally lovely or appaling when spun. I tried painting the roving in a couple of different ways. The ones I've spun up to this point (all on my drop spindle!) all had horizontal bars of color. What I discovered with that, given the way that I spun it up, was that the long stretches of color give you stripey yarn. In fact, none of my hand-dyed rovings have yielded anything but stripey yarn. And while I like stripes as well as the next knitter, a girl cannot live by stripes alone. I also wanted something that was a little more sophisticated.
In the course of dyeing, I decided to try an experiment. Instead of horizontal stripes I would try vertical striping. Well, striping probably isn't the right word for it. But I would try to distribute the color more randomly in a vertical rather than horizontal orientation.
I used my "sunset" colour pallette, which is composed of a rosy purple red, a rich gold and a lightened purple with a bit of a reddish cast to dye this roving. Today, looking for a little project to play with on my new wheel, I pulled it out, pre-drafted it and spun it up. Then I created a two ply yarn from the singles. It wasn't the most fun thing to spin up (even with the pre-drafting, there were a few areas where the fibers really didn't want to let go of each other), although it did go better when I realized that the staple length in BFL is quite a bit longer than the merino/silk blend I just finished spinning. And it's really hard to complain about spinning up a half an ounce of fiber in an hour or so instead of the two days it would have taken me on the drop spindle. Did I mention that I like the process but am really ultimately about product?
I am pleased with the final result, and will definitely be playing with this color set more (I spun up another Sunset roving with horizontal stripes earlier, and you can see the result here). There's plenty of color in this little skein, but it's much more subtle than the previous roving I spun, I suspect because of the predominance of purple red base. Also, I think these colors were much more similar in terms of the depth of their hue, and as a result, nothing stands out quite as sharply, creating a softer effect. I think it will be interesting to try the dyeing again, using each of the three colors as the dominant color with smaller blotches of the other two. I'm thinking that I will get three very different yarns, each with a character I like. I've got to soak and set the twist in this skein and do a little swatching, but I am almost positive that the striping effect is going to be much less prominent in this little skein.
I know I promised a little spinning wheel poll summary today, but that will have to wait until Monday, I think. Believe it or not, there's still a Christmas tree to take down in our house...
