Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Dye Pot [Attempt Two]

I told myself when I started this blog back up again in January that I would post every week on Monday or Tuesday without fail.  I almost forgot this week, which is sad because the post is so exciting! Luckily I decided to sit down and whip it out really quick for everyone to read.

I'm back in the dye studio (AKA My kitchen) this week with some really exciting news!


Remember these? My idea to dye yarn based on my paintings? Well I am not giving up! I was able to get a cone of my yarn - light fingering, sw merino - and got five 450 yard skeins (with 330 yards left for a smaller skein).  I dyed up three a few weeks ago in the first two and the last one above.  The first colorway - Morning Garden Stream - turned out perfect, the other two were close but not quite there.


The pink/green has too much color variation and the teal has a purple that is too neon to match that painting.  Regardless, my LYS Ladies loved them all.

So I took the last two and half skeins this past week and focused mainly on the colorway I knew I could replicate.  Attempting to do two full skeins of the same colorway was a bit scary at first, but I knew it needed to be done if I ever want to scale.



With the other "half" skein I decided to play with the teal color.  I've decided that those two are going to be my main focus going forward.  Let me just say, getting the perfect purple with food dyes and watercolor is becoming difficult.  I think I finally got it with a mixture of grape koolaid and violet watercolor.  

The results are above, taken badly on my phone camera.  The two gold skeins turned out perfect! I am so excited that this colorway is working.  The teal one is getting closer, but I put too much gold in this skein to truly match the painting.  Next time. 


I went ahead and printed some bands and skeined it up, just to show how it will look all ready to sell.  I plan to get the ball bands printed better than the ones above - my printer was low on ink - but you get the idea. 

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I am so excited! I need another cone, or two, or five, to really get going on this, but I honestly think I have a thing going for the summer :)

~Lisa


4 comments:

  1. Oh wow, Liza, I can't believe that you are just starting - the finished skeins look very professional to me. I can feel how excited you are, even through a blog post. You should definitely keep going!

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    1. Sorry for my spell checker, Lisa :)

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    2. thanks Alina! I really am so excited for this endeavor. I've seen yarn based on master works but not anything where the person is also the artist. I can't wait to keep going!

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  2. So excited for you Lisa! I knew it was only a matter of time before your artistic talents brought you to this place. Your dyeing is beautiful!!

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