Sunday, April 21, 2024

Playing in the Dye Pots ~

I am heading to rug camp in West Virginia in a few weeks.  Usually I agonize over what rug I am going to start in class.  I purchased this pattern on a Facebook buy and sell group and knew I wanted to work on this.  For me, it is a large pattern at 26" x 36".  I just love the funky horses, but not the color palate that was used.

I thought I would dye wool ~ easy peasy, no?  NO!  I decided to use formulas from this dye book.

I wanted a horse of a different color - teal.  I did not have any teals in my wool stash so . . . I had some leftover dye, a formula called Wild Flower Blue.

The results are MUCH brighter, but as we all know, it is so hard to get a good color!!!  And so much brighter than I want in my rug.

Then I used a formula called Champlain Blue.  Not teal.  I guess I'd call it a very soft primitive blue/gray/green.  I LOVE IT!  (But still not a truly accurate 😢 )


I figured I needed more of the Champlain Blue so made up another batch, once again with good results.  This color is a bit more accurate.

I also dyed a pot of Mustard Seed.  I'm not wild about it.  I think it looks too bright???  Looks more of a sunflower color to me.  But darn . . . in person looks much different.  Has more of an orange/brown color???  Hard to describe.

A couple posts back I mentioned about using a grey scale camera to check to see if there was enough value difference for wools that abutted each other.  I was not looking to purchase an actual camera.  At one time I had an app on my iPad but it seems to no longer be available.  Amanda, a no-reply blogger, said to look for Paint By Note Specs.  She said they are glasses with red lenses with the right shade of red to remove all color and should run about $20.  Saundra mentioned she had a green and red value finder.  I think I have one somewhere, but I did also find them on Amazon. 


This most likely can be applied to any craft . . . lol!


I have been fighting with my computer for two days.  I am suddenly having a problem transferring my phone photos to my desktop.  SO FRUSTRATING!!!  She is old so maybe she needs to go to the computer doctor?  I hope not.

Thanks so much for stopping by.
Pug hugs 😊
Lauren

6 comments:

TheCrankyCrow said...

I dunno, Sissy, but all of those colors look pretty dang fabulous to me. Not sure what your color palette vision is for the adorable horse rug, but I am loving the wools. How far is West Virginia from you? It's actually one place I always thought I'd like to visit. Or maybe live LOL. Happy Sunday. ~Robin~

Saundra said...

All of your dyed wool looks totally awesome to me. Looking forward to seeing your new project in progress.
I also had issues with copying and pasting photos onto my blog yet the downloading from photos worked. My WIN 10 operating system will stop with updates in October 2025 according to Microsoft.

Prims By The Water said...

I like all of the colors you dyed. Cannot wait to see you start this rug. Have fun in West Virginia. It is very mountainous, but we loved travelling though on our way to my nephews a few times. Nice scenery for sure. I had issues with Blogger last night. None of my posts were showing up. Thankfully they are now. Janice

marly said...

You know I love that design originally an antique wallet. I don't know if the rug or the cross stitch chart was released first, either way, that's the design I charted for a friend from the antique's photo and she reproduced the wallet. Anxious to see this with your color choices!!

NMK said...


Have a great time at your Hook In , this pattern looks cute , will look forward to seeing your colors !

Julia said...

I love all your colors and especially the last grey teal colors.
I haven't been in the dye pot for ages.
Have a great time at the Hook-in. I'm registered for one on May 25th. I hope that nothing happens to prevent me from going.

Take care, Hugs.
Julia