Colour, Colour, Everywhere...

I learned something new recently. Well I learn some new things almost daily, but this was something I should have known, but didn't.
I learned that colour theory, also applies to dyeing yarns.

Not such a huge leap is it? But it apparently was to my brain :)

I had decided to try my hand at dyeing some of the yarn I was spinning. I had started with a white fleece. Actually it was rather dirty, so not precisely white but close (once I had washed it).

I carded it and spun some on my wheels. It can get rather boring you know- all that white.

So I took the skeins into the kitchen to dye, and using the stuff I normally colour my icing with, I created a handpainted yarn with red and yellow dyes. It was lovely- where the dyes merged, it turned orange, where they were separate was this lovely gradation from red through orange to yellow.

I later decided to try it with the roving I had already carded. This time I accidentally got the colours to mingle more than I liked, but the orange was beautiful, obviously these two primary colours were a perfect match!

It was hard to wait for this roving to dry so I could try spinning such a wonderful colour on my wheel!

Having spun it all, I needed to ply it- this gave a subtly different effect from the yarn I had pre-spun and plied before colouring...  It is a shame that the red/oranges don't photograph well because it means that it is really hard to see those differences.  I'll have to work on my camera tricks ;)

Now all I need to figure out is what to make with it!

Don't worry- I have been drawing too! I drew the orchid that started to bloom in our study. It has been a few years since it bloomed- and we had begun to worry that it would never bloom again- but here it is in all its glory!

It didn't scan well, because I have to use pinks and reds to render it- and they never seem to work well on the scanner!

One last photo- my creation on the needles for my daughter. She and my son are sadly lacking in sweaters/jumpers for our upcoming trip to England. England in October can be chilly!

So here is hers in progress... a lovely Celtic cable up the front! Don't you just love arans?