Sunday, December 2, 2007

Grrrr! Problems!


My first skein dyed was a mess! I'd done my figure-eight ties faithfully, then I clipped the tails of those ties because I didn't want to chance that they would drip dye into areas where I didn't want dye.
WRONG! Soaking in the soda ash caused the wool to swell up and therefore my little square knots came undone and all of my ties fell out except for the place where the beginning and end of the skein were tied together.
So, after pressing out the excess moisture, I had to do some quick ties (with regular wool that hadn't been "fixed" in the soda ash -- you can see how those ties didn't take the dye). Unfortunately, this had the effect of causing places in the wool skein to dry out. Dry wool = little or no dye filling in. Thus, I had big white spots.
Another problem was spotting (red wine into the marigold). NOT what I'd intended. I think that was sloppiness in applying the dye rather than an errant drip when it was wrapped up.
The overall problem was color. I admit I was experimenting here, but it was awful in my opinion. It's Havanna brown, red wine, marigold, "better" blue-green, and plum — yuck! too much of the same color value, and none of it really harmonious.

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