How a color is born

You may wonder how a dyer comes up with color ideas. I can only speak for myself in this department, although I have been reading up to see how other dyers' minds work.

I'm joining the Phat Fiber Box, and if you're a knitter or spinner who doesn't know about this, go check it out. Now! I'll still be here when you get back.

See, here I am. Still sitting here with my coffee, in front of my computer, which is under an open window that has a cat sleeping in it. It's actually a lovely day here in Georgia after a summer of most miserable heat, but I digress. Back to how ideas occur.

The Phat Fiber Boxes have themes each month, and while a dyer doesn't have to slavishly follow the theme, it does give you a jumping off point. I've spent some time researching October's theme, Steampunk, online and getting ideas about the sorts of colors to use. Taking that information, I decided to use Gale's way of testing new colors, which is mixing tiny amounts in an ice cube tray. She says to use small pieces of silk to dye, but I've also read where you can put dots of color on a paper towel or coffee filter. And that's what I did. I mixed colors and put spots on a paper towel. I wrote my formula for each by it (again on the paper towel), then came and held them by the computer to see how close I was getting. When all was said and done, I had an ice cube tray with tiny amounts of dye that I could a)throw out, b)mix together and use later, or c)apply to one of the short skeins I had sitting around just for that purpose.

Needless to say, I went with c, and painted up the short skein. I painted it, put in into to steam, and after some time, perhaps 40 minutes, turned off the heat as I had somewhere to go. I left it in there to cool while I was gone.

When I got home, I rinsed it and hung it to dry. It's one of those yarns where I can't decide if I like all the colors or not, but as it's just a sample, it doesn't matter.

I'll admit that when I take something new from the pot, I look at it a lot. Every time I pass the bathroom where they are drying from the shower rod, I go in and look. While I know that's about as helpful as watching and waiting for a pot to boil, I haven't been able to stop myself.

Now, this sample yarn was just to use up all the test dyes, and it let's me see that this particular batch of black has a blue cast to it (great), but looking at it as I went to and fro this morning led to an idea popping into my head. I had glanced at it, and the words "blue ring octopus" popped into mind.

Let's be honest, the colors aren't that much like a blue ringed octopus. I think it was a combination of things. The white areas as I didn't have enough dye to totally cover this skein, and I sure wasn't going to mix any more just to do that. After all, this is merely a color study for me.

As I mentioned, and you can see here, I was aiming for a grey color, but my black has blue/lavender undertones. Most of my greys had some blue in them, although that could also be from the fact that I didn't clean syringe I was using to apply colors between colors, so maybe some of the blue was just contamination.

Frankly, that doesn't really matter. Just something about that particular yarn made those words pop into my head, and now I'm wondering about basing a yarn color on a blue ringed octopus.

Or maybe not. The point of all this is you have to be open for inspiration to strike you when you least expect it. It can't be forced, but it's out there, waiting to surprise you.

Let me close with a gratuitous cat picture. Here is Lily, aka Lilydammint!, photobombing as I wasn't petting or feeding her. You can also see her paws in the middle picture in this post.